Do We Need A Mentor?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In reality, of course, there is no such question, just as in reality there is no question of who you need to be - a man or a woman. You are already either a man or a woman, and a guide in the form of a concrete living person who undertakes to lead you to the top, you either have him or you do not. Met such - good. Not met - no worse. In both cases, there are pros and cons, their own nuances and peculiarities, therefore it is impossible to answer this question unambiguously, but it is very possible to speculate and talk about this topic. Let's try …

As usual, let's start with an example and from afar. Imagine that you are lost in a big unfamiliar city. You need to get to, say, a train station, but you have no idea where you are at all, where the train station is located, and you also don’t know how to get from point A to point B. You also don’t know what the station looks like, because you’ve never traveled by train before, but from the stories of other travelers, you have heard that this is such a special place from which you can go on a long journey. Such are the initial data.

What is your choice in this situation? There are four obvious options: 1) slam forfeits to slow down a taxi, trust the driver and drive to the destination in no time; 2) try to navigate and find the way to the station on your own, using road signs, advice from passers-by and general considerations about where the station may be in this city; 3) haphazardly wander the streets until the station shows up by itself; 4) generally spit on the search for the station and stay in this city.

All four options, one way or another, sooner or later lead to the same result - the station will one day be found. But on every path, there are dangers and pitfalls. And although this is far from the most accurate analogy to the process of spiritual search, the "guide" is quite suitable for clarifying the topic. See what happens.

If our task is to get to the train station as quickly and smoothly as possible, take the train and take off on a long, wonderful journey, then a taxi is the best option. Fast and reliable. But at the same time, the trip will cost us a certain amount of money, we will not really see the city from the car and will not be able to orient ourselves on the terrain - without understanding or realizing anything, we will simply find ourselves in the right place. And most importantly, we will have to take a significant risk and trust the taxi driver, who can give us a lift, or maybe let us down.

If we are in no hurry to get to the train and generally like to figure everything out on our own, then we can turn a simple task of finding a station into an exciting quest for mapping the area, exploring the city and calculating the optimal routes to our goal. Tired, out of breath and full of impressions, we will get to the station and there we'll see whether to leave immediately or wander around the city some more. In this scenario, we rely only on ourselves, and this is what can play against us - you might not find the station or even disappear in some gloomy gateway.

In the third case, for some reason, we can be convinced that it is impossible to purposefully find the station, and at the right moment, when the traveler is "ready", he in all his architectural splendor himself appears before him out of thin air, and that for this it is only necessary to walk correctly around the city - to contemptuously ignore the road signs, turn strictly to the left at all intersections and drag a heavy suitcase behind you … or two at once - so the chances are higher. And you also need to mutter mantras about the station under your breath - maybe the station will hear them. In this case, there is also a certain statistical probability that the station will be discovered, but most likely we will not pay any attention to it, because we imagined meeting with the station in some other way - like light pouring from heaven, accompanied by the singing of angels, or something like that.

And, finally, if we are not interested in any station at all, we are not going to go anywhere and we simply like to wander around the city, stop in cafes, talk to people, make new acquaintances, breathe fresh air in city parks and just gaze aimlessly around, then even stumbling into the station, we will marvel at its beautiful architecture and go to wander through the city further. And if someone forcibly tries to put us on a train, obviously, we will not surrender without a fight, because we do not need the Turkish coast … with pleasure we will go on a journey.

Now let's try to superimpose this picture on the situation of spiritual search (although the same parallel in general could be drawn in relation to ordinary psychological work).

Passenger path

Passenger path

In the case of a taxi driver - a guide, teacher, guru - we have a chance to get to the goal faster and without unnecessary adventures on our heads, but we risk very much that we are forced to trust another person, without being able to check him for lice.

Our driver may be a completely honest person, but he mistakenly thinks that a suburban train station is a train station - a conscientious delusion, so to speak. What if he is an outspoken swindler who has no idea where the station is and just wants to cash in on your gullibility? And we can also find ourselves in a minibus that picks up tourists all over the city, promising to take them to the station as soon as the salon is full or the required amount is typed to pay for the trip, which never happens.

But normal decent taxi drivers, conductors are, in general, not uncommon. There may be more scammers and sincerely deluded people, but this does not mean that relying on another person is an unreasonably risky undertaking. Risky, but justified - you just need to be aware of these very risks and be prepared for the impending dangers.

And here there is one more specific nuance, which should not be of concern to everyone, but it is still worth voicing it. Let's say we are talking about a really knowledgeable, respectable person who undertakes to take you to the train station, and he really succeeds. Here he is the station, here he is the train, everything is honest and real - you can go wherever your eyes look. No catch. Only one subtlety - you never saw the city, did not orient yourself in space and did not understand at all how you ended up at the station.

There is nothing wrong with that if your goal is travel. But if you suddenly want to become a guide for someone else, you will find that you have no idea where the station is, and how to get there. You were brought here, yes, but all you can do for other lost tourists is to confirm their hopes that the station really exists, it can really be found and it really is a gateway to the wonderful world outside the city.

This is the problem of many teachers - they colorfully and fascinatingly talk about the station and how the taxi looked like, in which they got to it, and what a wonderful world they opened outside the city, but they cannot offer the listeners any specifics about how they get to the station yourself. Willingly or unwillingly, they become the drivers of those very spiritual minibuses that cheerfully roam around the city and spread the good news around it - the station exists! - but in practice they never achieve it.

You can often hear teachers take pride in modestly mentioning the lineage to the fifth generation to which they belong, thus clumsily pointing out the truth of their awakening. But this is what makes them potentially not so good teachers. Their awakening, perhaps, is the most real, exactly according to GOST, but a person who was led to the top by the handle and blindfolded (so that it would not be scary!) Is not the same as a person who broke all bones along the way, but who made it to the top on his own. They will imagine the way to the top in very different ways.

And there is one more feature that those who have been driven into happiness with a firm hand, while they blinked and looked around in confusion, are faced with. It turns out to be more difficult for them to assimilate the experience gained - for a long time the picture can blur in the eyes, again and again plunging the person into the usual drowsy state, as if nothing had happened. By itself, "double vision" after waking up is, apparently, a common thing. But for a person who did not understand how he was brought here, it is more difficult to cope with this double vision - for some time he still has to seek help from an ophthalmologist, a taxi driver, so that he again helps to focus his gaze at the station.

Thus, the speed of achieving the result under the guidance of the guide has its downside. But in any case, there are no insurmountable problems here, and if you really want to, then nothing prevents you from returning to the city and learning to navigate in it on your own, without outside help. And it will not be so difficult, because now it is already clear what exactly needs to be looked for and by what criteria - it will just take some additional time for this work.

Path of the Pathfinder

Path of the Pathfinder

In the case of independent searches, when we prefer to rely only on ourselves, no less dangers await us. Not knowing the ford and having only a vague fragmentary idea of the purpose of the search, we can confuse some tram depot with a train station - it looks like it! And then there is the metro - also about trains and the railway, and it is also very similar to those stories about the large central station that we met in advertising travel brochures. But neither the tram nor the metro will take us out of the city.

In addition, on this path, it is really possible, literally and figuratively, to break all your bones. And it's not a fact that after some regular fall there will be enough strength, health and patience to get up and continue the journey. The chances of getting lost, crippled, or simply losing hope of reaching your goal are very high.

But the longer you wander, the better you know your surroundings. The more shoes we stop, the more bruises we fill, the more dead ends, ambushes and traps we find on our way, the better guides we become for others and for ourselves. So, if wandering around the city is delayed, this in itself is not bad - this has its advantages. And the most important of them is that the result achieved on our own is always deeper and more conscious than the one that we get under someone's too sensitive guidance.

And the danger of being mistaken and mistaking one for the other, which follows us on our heels on this path, can be completely neutralized, at least occasionally checking the clock with other travelers and - why not ?! - with taxi drivers who are always ready to help you find your way, and, moreover, completely free of charge. This path will take much more time, but if we are in no hurry and we like the process itself, then why not?

The path of the righteous

The path of the righteous

In the third case, when we, having heard enough of that unimaginable nonsense, under which the true essence of spiritual search is buried, we believed that at the right moment "the station just happens", and therefore there is no point in looking for it on purpose, our search stops before it starts, and now we are wandering around the city senselessly and doom.

We may passionately want to leave the city that has become hateful to us, but we mistakenly believe that the station itself is the one who humbly and patiently lives a righteous life - he turns only to the left and carries his suitcase with his cross. And in the context of looking for a way out of the city, this is indeed a very dangerous situation.

The belief underlying this “strategy” implies that no result is a sign of insufficient righteousness, which must be practiced even harder - lugging two suitcases instead of one, turning left, not only at large intersections, but also in yards and on paths in park. You have to try harder to be righteous - eat righteously, dress righteously, pray righteously, treat other people righteously - and everything will work out.

And so a person tries more and more, and moves more and more slowly, and the chances of finding a station decrease the more the longer a person follows this path. And, in the end, the path itself replaces the original goal for a person - righteousness comes first, and the prospect of finding a station is pushed back to the afterlife or the next karmic incarnation. Belief in the kingdom of heaven remains, but its achievement is no longer perceived as a real practical goal, achievable within one life.

Nothing good can be said about the path of righteousness. Perhaps this is not the worst way to live in the city among other similar righteous people, but this path has nothing to do with finding a train station and getting out of the city. And even if the station is right under his very nose, he most likely will not see it, because he is convinced that this cannot be - the station is inaccessible to mere mortals, which means this is all the machinations of the devil.

And this is not about Christian believers, but about all "spiritual people" who sacredly believe in one or another standard of righteousness widespread in our culture and believe that a "spiritual" way of life in itself leads to the awakening or salvation of the soul.

The party-goer path

The party-goer path

Well, and with those people who like this city and they are not going anywhere from it, in general, there is nothing to talk about, everything is simple. Perhaps these are the healthiest and happiest people in the world. In any case, it is not at all difficult to find a point of view from which it is their approach to life that looks the most sound and natural.

The snag happens only when one of these burners of connoisseurs of life is faced with the topic of spiritual search, finds in it interesting intelligent people who are enthusiastically looking for something mysterious and beautiful, and - as part of their raking strategy of getting all possible pleasures from life - insists that he, too, be showered with this cool spiritual foolishness.

This is where problems begin, because a person finds himself in a situation of dangerous drug incompatibility - spiritual nonsense, when interacting with social nonsense, turns into an explosive mixture that can tear a person's mind to pieces or, at least, infuriate him and bring him to white heat due to the futility of all attempts to combine the incompatible.

There is no way to load your entire life on the train and go on a journey with all your friends, relatives and favorite toys. A cool spiritual high requires that the old life be left behind, and this comes into irreconcilable conflict with the main strategy of accumulating benefits and pleasures in this category of people.

And then grievances and claims begin - what for, they say, this spirituality is needed, if all my accumulated belongings in this eye of your needle will not creep in! Perhaps this is some kind of wrong spirituality - green and immature!

But the point here is just that this is the very situation when you cannot sit on two chairs at once. Moreover, both chairs are equally good, and there is no problem in staying to live in your beloved city. Therefore, if there is anything to be offended at, it is only at your own greed and capricious desire to mix yourself a cocktail of obviously incompatible ingredients.

The station and the train are not to blame for anything here, and their doors are always open. You should put aside your whims, come to terms with the fact that the spiritual journey requires certain sacrifices, and then there are no obstacles left - you can go. Well, if there are enough miracles in your homeland, then leave your spiritual searches sometime for later - maybe one day, the usual toys by themselves will cease to be so interesting. Then head back to the station square.

And do not spit in the well - it will be a shame later!

★ ★ ★

Here's a long-drawn-out story …

It is obvious and completely logical that the golden mean is to rely on yourself, but at the same time do not hesitate to consult with those who have already found the station or have been looking for it much longer than ours. There is nothing heroic about going into a dead end and sitting in it for several years, instead of asking for help, and getting out of this dead end in no time. The experience of overcoming the next trap will still be postponed and will certainly come in handy in further searches.

Thus, we minimize the risks of two main paths - independent and under full guidance - and combine all their main advantages.

It remains only to repeat that there is no choice as such. But looking back at your life, you can catch what your own tendency is - whether you are a purposeful traveler who needs to be in time everywhere, or a tracker who likes the process of self-orientation in the terrain, or a righteous man who is stuck in his righteousness, or an idle tourist., which, in general, does not need anywhere, because it is well fed here too.

And whatever the answer, now you are exactly where you should be. There is no mistake. The only question is whether to be fully aware of your position and all its potential dangers, or to continue to fight on sharp corners, not having time to group before the strike.

Mindfulness is our everything!