Who are the real gurus?

You don't need to take offense just to justify cutting someone off. Sometimes you just realize there’s no point in continuing the conversation.

Look, you have to face the reality that he might not actually forgive you. It’s good that you owned up to your mistake and gave him a sincere apology—really, it is—but at this point, the ball is entirely in his court. Whether he accepts it or stays mad is up to him... you've already done everything humanly possible to make things right.

Andrew Gomez6 said:goldeneagle2, I honestly don't know. I just sat here trying to piece all the details together in my head, and this is how it went down... Your insults didn't even phase me at the time.
So, I reached out and apologized, basically telling him I was really sorry if I had offended him (assuming I actually did). Then, the next day, I get a message from him. Among other things, he tells me he doesn't hold a grudge, that there's no need to apologize, and that while I'm acting childish, he understands it's just part of my personality. After that, he let me know he wouldn't have the time to reply to my emails anymore because his schedule is getting tighter—apparently, he's swamped helping his students with their spiritual practices and focusing on his own self-improvement (since he hasn't quite reached total enlightenment yet). To wrap it all up, he told me to go ahead and delete his email address from my contacts and wished me luck in life. I waited a bit and tried reaching out three different times, but I haven't heard a peep. Now, you tell me: was he actually offended or not? Because if he wasn't, it feels pretty weird to me that he decided to cut ties right after those insults...🤔

IMHO, he probably just realized that talking to you isn't productive, or rather, that the conversation isn't doing you any favors. Your "insult" was pretty much playground level; a person doesn't need to be some enlightened guru to just laugh it off internally and politely end a conversation that's going nowhere. So, try not to take it personally—this guy doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with basic manners, nor is he professionally trained to coach someone through emotional immaturity. It would probably be a good move on your part to respect his time and do exactly what he asked: delete his address.

Andrew Gomez6 said:Sorry I’m just now getting back to you, I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. I ended up going off on him pretty hard, making some really nasty comments about his skin tone and how his voice sounds like some little kid...🕺

In the Bible, it mentions you reach a spiritual teacher through "respect, inquiry, and service."

If there’s no respect, why even bother asking them for anything? The connection just isn't there.

You have to approach a teacher with respect first if you want them to actually accept you. That's the whole issue here.

So, you need "true gurus" AND "true students" for the communication to feel natural and easy...

Joseph Bailey41 said:IMHO, he probably just realized that talking to you isn't productive, or rather, that the conversation isn't doing you any favors. Your "insult" was pretty much playground level; a person doesn't need to be some enlightened guru to just laugh it off internally and politely end a conversation that's going nowhere. So, try not to take it personally—this guy doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with basic manners, nor is he professionally trained to coach someone through emotional immaturity. It would probably be a good move on your part to respect his time and do exactly what he asked: delete his address.

Come on now—spiritual teachers are generally supposed to be overflowing with compassion for the suffering of others.

goldeneagle2 said:Come on now—spiritual teachers are generally supposed to be overflowing with compassion for the suffering of others.

Compassion doesn't mean you have to dive headfirst into someone else's misery and wallow in it with them.

I don't know this guy personally, so I can't say whether he was offended or if he's actually enlightened or whatever. Honestly, I'm just going to be generous and assume what he's saying is true, which isn't fundamentally different from what his students (or anyone else's) would claim. So, I'm writing from that perspective—that of someone who has, let's say, risen above these kind of playground squabbles and has no reason to look back.

It’s a fair question—what does a guru actually represent in Asia, especially with all that Indian culture and Chinese influence mixed in?
Out here in the States, the whole concept is pretty blurry... there isn't really a direct equivalent, right?

Joseph Bailey41 said:IMHO, he probably just realized that talking to you isn't productive, or rather, that the conversation isn't doing you any favors. Your "insult" was pretty much playground level; a person doesn't need to be some enlightened guru to just laugh it off internally and politely end a conversation that's going nowhere. So, try not to take it personally—this guy doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with basic manners, nor is he professionally trained to coach someone through emotional immaturity. It would probably be a good move on your part to respect his time and do exactly what he asked: delete his address.

Look, I don't act like that anymore. That was three or four years ago, and my attempts to reach back out after the fallout happened during that period. Since I didn't get a response, I wiped him from my contact list and moved on. He gave me some decent advice back then, sure, but I've found all of that and so much more just by studying spiritual texts on my own. Honestly, I don't need gurus anymore. Books can't get angry or offended, and they couldn't care less about whether I'm being emotionally mature or acting like a kid. Gurus—whether they're the real deal or just fakes in this internet age—aren't necessary when there's so much literature out there on every subject that you can just download for free and learn everything you need to know...

How am I supposed to take anyone seriously when they’re dropping deep philosophical wisdom in a squeaky little voice? Honestly—I’d be dying of laughter—it’s just a natural reaction... Imagine Krishna trying to recite the Bhagavad Gita to his friend and student Arjuna right in the middle of a battlefield between two massive armies, but first, they both inhaled a bunch of helium from party balloons (while all dressed up in their robes, too)... I don't think a war would even start at that point 😬



.. A teacher really needs to have a voice at least as commanding as Miljenko kokot's—otherwise, they might as well just write everything on a chalkboard like Meher 🧐

Andrew Gomez6 said:Look, I don't act like that anymore. That was three or four years ago, and my attempts to reach back out after the fallout happened during that period. Since I didn't get a response, I wiped him from my contact list and moved on. He gave me some decent advice back then, sure, but I've found all of that and so much more just by studying spiritual texts on my own. Honestly, I don't need gurus anymore. Books can't get angry or offended, and they couldn't care less about whether I'm being emotionally mature or acting like a kid. Gurus—whether they're the real deal or just fakes in this internet age—aren't necessary when there's so much literature out there on every subject that you can just download for free and learn everything you need to know...

👍

Gurus don't actually exist to pass on wisdom; most of them are just small-time hustlers playing at being parental figures in some weird, tribal social hierarchy. A book can't pull off that kind of performance.

Transfer?

A guru is basically just a therapist on a couch...

Thomas Nelson25 said:Transfer?

A guru is basically just a therapist on a couch...

Pretty much. Except, most aren't actually trained to handle transference or counter-transference, so their best move is usually just to give a polite, firm brush-off at the first sign of it. But if you're dealing with a guru who is financially or emotionally desperate—which really brings us back to the whole issue of frauds—that unhealthy dynamic can actually persist and even spiral.

A guru often thrives on having a student who stays dependent on them, fostering a regressive mindset. Plus, there aren't any ethical oversight boards or formal mechanisms in place to prevent someone from abusing their authority. It makes you wonder how much of the role is actually therapeutic and how much is just manipulation—the lines are incredibly blurry.

One of the dead giveaways that you’re dealing with a legitimate guru is how they constantly bring everything back to God—it’s like their North Star, no matter what else they're discussing.

A total psychopath, though? They can't stand that kind of talk. If anything, they’ll go out of their way to avoid mentioning God altogether just to stay under the radar.

Why would she provoke him when it actually works in his favor? Honestly, he’d be a psychopath if he reacted to it "conscientiously."
Also, being obsessed with God can just be a symptom of various mental health fluctuations.

At the same time, there are plenty of guru-centric paths that aren't devotional at all. Guruism is (late) a Tantric phenomenon, and all paths infused with Tantra (including yours, even if you claim they're Vedic) are guru-centric—that goes for Tibetan Buddhist Tantrics too, and Buddhism isn't even theistic to begin with.

On the other hand, you'll find "fallen" gurus in every single sect, regardless of how much they talk about God.

In short, we can easily toss this definition aside as baseless propaganda from theistic ideology rather than a useful, fact-based way to tell things apart.

We should probably reject guruism with the same energy, especially alongside the caste system—the worst disease in Indian culture. Unlike the castes themselves (with a few extreme exceptions), guruism has managed to infect certain naive, ill-adjusted members of our much more developed Western culture.

Can the tradition of the guru really be plucked from one culture and dropped into another without losing its essence?

Isn't the term "spiritual teacher" far too broad as well? You could have yoga instructors, meditation coaches, healers, or even shamans...

Who actually qualifies to be a spiritual teacher?

I’m not sure if those terms are even interchangeable. In tantric or guru-led traditions—which are fundamentally about mystical initiation—the guru isn't just passing on information; they act as an active "agent of salvation."

When you assign a specific role to a single individual—the kind of role the Church or Jesus holds in Christianity—you create some pretty fertile ground for all sorts of complicated relationships...

I once dropped by a community out in rural Montana. Their guru, this guy known as unknown, was there. The followers looked at him with this level of reverence that’s honestly hard to put into words.
They told me straight up: "You have to experience unknown."
After the lecture, unknown held a Q&A session. He sat on this chair that looked suspiciously like a throne, while whoever wanted to ask a question had to sit on a tiny little cushion right at his feet. I decided to step up and ask him something, but when I caught his eye, there was nothing there—just completely blank, vacant eyes. I didn't feel any sense of divinity or anything. To be honest, he just seemed like an ordinary guy riding a massive ego trip, fueled by followers who project deep meaning onto him—(and I suspect he's projecting something else entirely back at them).

I follow the whole self-help scene pretty closely, and frankly, I've seen this movie before. There are countless cases where the instructor is just a totally regular person—someone who isn't even teaching what they claim to be divine messages—but the followers start building this mystical aura around them... and then some of them quickly figure out how to, exploit the situation, (kind of like what happened with unknown).

Joseph Bailey41 said:Pretty much. Except, most aren't actually trained to handle transference or counter-transference, so their best move is usually just to give a polite, firm brush-off at the first sign of it. But if you're dealing with a guru who is financially or emotionally desperate—which really brings us back to the whole issue of frauds—that unhealthy dynamic can actually persist and even spiral.

That's basically how cults work.
You've got one self-proclaimed authority figure and a bunch of lost souls.
They feed off each other.
There are plenty of cases where people follow a leader straight into total self-destruction.

Same goes for some therapists, too—their goal is sometimes just keeping the patient on the schedule... making sure the billing stays steady.😁

But hey, I'm sure there are actual "gurus" out there who truly want to help—like a mentor recognizing a protégé and starting to pass down their knowledge.
It's similar to how they pick successors in Tibet.