What lineage are you part of?
Ali Baba’s. I am a thief. I steal ideas and then, based on my experience, try to point at Truth on the one hand, and I try to expose the false on the other hand.
I admire and respect some teachers and teachings, and I deeply appreciate knowledge systems that have a degree of objectivity within the context their knowledge is addressing.
My favorite from the big-shot dead teachers is Nisargadatta Maharaj. From the breathing ones, John Wheeler was the one who dropped the last straw on my ego’s back, so he has a special place in my heart.
As for my opinion on teachings, Silence is the best one. The second best is Attention. The third best simply states that We Are That. The fourth best states that we are not what we think we are, and the fifth best describes the psyche in objective detail.
Each of the human functions, physical, emotional and intellectual; each of the seven universal patterns, can manifest in a wholesome way or in a corrupted way. It is no different with the study of spirituality. People can get dogmatic faster than saying the word “god”.
Gurdjieff, one of the most “dogmatized” teachers to this day, told a story that is pertinent. It, more or less, goes like this:
“Some scout ants set out into the woods to look for food. They found a picnic table laid out with the most amazing dishes and drinks — a veritable ant promised land. They ran back to their colony and immediately started drawing a map of the path back to the table and the table itself showing the different foods in full color and detail. The map was so wonderful and all of the ants were so excited that they began eating the map and never went back to the picnic table.”
