Posts by granitebadger2

If I may weigh in here:

wearyhawk83 said:@cenarius and @klimaks

Look, in my original post, I was strictly talking about whether or not the speaker actually matters to the student—nothing else.
The stuff you guys are reacting to (not sure about you, cenarius) is just me quoting an old message of mine and drifting into a slightly different topic.

To put it simply: I was just saying that most people learn by mimicking others, reflecting those relationships and building behavioral patterns. It’s like how a kid is basically a blank slate; 90% of the time, they aren't soaking up what their parents *say*, they're soaking up what their parents *do*. That was my whole parallel! I was trying to explain why @klimaks' point about the speaker being irrelevant isn't quite right. I’m telling you, it definitely matters, especially when we're dealing with things that hit close to home for the individual.

So, bottom line: I wasn't talking about ultimate truth or deep spiritual enlightenment, and I certainly wasn't thinking about grasping those concepts when I made my point.

Real life is a massive, complicated thing, and reaching some "ultimate realization" doesn't suddenly cancel out our need for food, a partner, or just living a balanced life.

When "spiritual" gurus start preaching about how to act or live, it is incredibly important that what we learn actually benefits us. After all, life is a lot more than just realizing that 2+2=4.
You’ve got to be able to navigate daily life without everything being a total struggle, living in harmony with yourself and the people around you. That usually means dealing with a huge spectrum of situations and perspectives that we have to constantly re-evaluate and apply to the moment. That’s what life is, plain and simple.

As for absolute, ultimate truths? I'm not trying to touch that, and I don't have much to add there. Absolute truth is always there, whether we see it or not, and there's really nothing left to say about it once you acknowledge it.

But why even bother with a spiritual teacher? Look, I’m not saying teachers don't exist—anyone can be a mentor depending on who the student is and what’s being taught—but honestly, this whole guru/disciple dynamic, when applied as a blanket approach to living, absolutely grates on my nerves. It assumes there's some standardized blueprint for the human soul.

Now, if a teacher were to actually spend years studying their student—making a genuine effort to understand them deeply enough to truly grasp who they are and the specific path they are walking—only then might they have something substantive and tailored to offer.
What we see today in these mass movements has nothing to do with actual learning. It’s more about people blindly copying behavioral templates because they are so desperately obsessed with the idea of "freedom" that they are willing to mold their entire existence into someone else's vision of how life should look, just so they don't have to take the reins themselves.

We've reached a point where people try to "learn" about life, happiness, or truth (whose truth, exactly?) straight out of books. It’s all just an excuse to avoid actually living through it.

So, when I think about this guru/follower relationship, all I see is mutual parasitism.

Look, I wasn't attacking anyone specifically; I was just circling back to my initial point in this thread—that the whole "revelation" was frankly a joke, since all it really proved is that a human being is just a human being.
They’re out there hunting for saints and miracle workers, but why? Is the world too mundane for them? Too painfully ordinary? It's because people are just going through the motions without actually *living* their lives. That's the crux of it.
It's as if they’re trying to siphon off a sense of "holiness" from whoever they can find, and then, the moment someone fails to live up to their impossible standards, they fly into a rage as if they've been personally insulted.

No one can hand you the ultimate truth on a silver platter. Real movement only begins when we realize that our own path is the only one worth taking—when we finally stop waiting for some external authority to show us how to walk.

Anything else is just performance art; it’s mimicry without any actual substance. It’s why you see people claiming to be devout Christians while participating in brutal wars, or why someone can sit there smiling serenely during a lecture on inner peace one day, only to get into a fistfight over a parking spot at a Starbucks the next. Or worse, wanting to take a life simply because they were lied to.

On the road to true insight, there are no teachers and there is no "learning" in the traditional sense. A tree doesn't study how to grow branches. A river doesn't take classes on how to flow. Similarly, a human being doesn't "learn" how to attain realization; realization happens when they are actually ready for it.

That’s why watching the masses in their fits of rage feels almost comical to me. What is even the point of it all?

Of course. But look, it all boils down to what you’re actually after. If your goal is genuine insight or just clear, straightforward communication, then honesty is absolutely paramount. If your objective is something else entirely—something you can't achieve without lying through your teeth or omitting the truth—then being honest probably isn't your best move. That said, I fail to see any practical benefit a philosopher could gain from being dishonest in their field. If they did, they wouldn't be a philosopher; they'd just be a fraud.

Or, as we say in the States, a total "bullshit artist." 😉
Generally speaking, I think being honest causes far fewer headaches than being deceptive, so a healthy dose of sincerity never hurts anyone.

Truth might be a subjective concept, sure, but the drive for honesty—that raw desire to speak the truth as we perceive it—ought to be the defining quality of any serious philosopher.

After all, what’s the point of chasing truth, which is supposed to be the very bedrock of philosophy, if we’re just going to end up burying it when things get uncomfortable?

I find the people who rushed out to lynch him absolutely hilarious. First off, they’re too lazy to even nudge their own stagnant souls out of neutral, yet they blindly chant away like fanatics, treating some ordinary guy as if he were an infallible icon. And then, suddenly, they decide he needs to be executed just because he had sex.

There is enough social pathology in this mess to fuel an entire series of novels. 🙄

It’s always the same old story with Mujo, Fata, and Djel. 😁