When I was very young there were a few things that I wanted to be. I wanted to be an archaeologist. I wanted to be a professional baseball player and I wanted to be a rock and roll star. I had the capacity to be any of them. I achieved the first by discovering the Hermetic Sciences which is really what the archaeologist thing was all about anyway. I played baseball and all of the other sports from the time the sun came up until the time it went down. What I mean is, whenever I could or was allowed to. Since I grew up on military bases I could always find a field and players. I was a left-handed pitcher and according to my father (who played semi-pro ball) and who never had anything good to say about me, I had major league potential. That he could even bring himself to say this meant that I must have had some talent. When I was sixteen I separated my elbow and that was the end of that.
As far as the rock and roll star thing... the jury is still out on that. I’ve certainly had some small success and will have more. I don’t know how that will be resolved. In any case, it won’t be rock and roll but rather another venue. Today... I don’t care about these things at all. I no longer need the Hermetic Sciences because I made the connection I was looking for. The world of baseball players would not work for me. I would make Bill Lee look like a Mormon elder. The world of rock and roll is a dark place except for the shining light of vanity and that’s a black light of its own.
This isn’t about any of these might have been scenarios and... then again, I guess it is. I know some people wonder why I display certain negative behavior in the comments section now and then. They may also wonder why I wax scatological on occasion or why I do any number of things that aren’t really necessary and which serve to diminish me in the eyes of my readers. The truth is that I do it on purpose to protect myself from being taken for something I don’t want. I do it to mark up my surface. I do it as a form of reverse cosmetics. I have my reasons.
Throughout my life I have sometimes found myself being cast in a certain light by mostly well meaning individuals and also disappointing them when I didn’t live up to the standards they set for me. It was like being given parameters to operate within according to what someone other than me had determined I should be.
I’m good at some things and not very good at others. One thing I’ve shown some talent at is acting. It’s an easy thing for me to do and I’ve had success at it, even made a very good living from it for awhile. I’ve been around a few spiritual masters. I know the routine. I know some people who used to be something else before they became a spiritual master. Of course, there are degrees of spiritual mastery. Some of them are unquestionably in the zone and some are acting out at a particular level. The spiritual master game isn’t all that hard because... even when you fuck up it can be explained as a conscious lesson for the students as if it was on purpose to begin with.
In the spiritual master game anything can be- and has been- justified; a hundred Roll’s Royce’s, millions and millions of dollars, young naked girls and boys, double standards, gold plated bathroom fixtures, whathaveyou... there are a lot of Bennies. You don’t hear about the negative aspects but I’m going to cover some of those today. Before I do, I want to finish up on a couple of things.
I could play a spiritual master. I could internalize to where my complete focus was on self-control and everything else would follow. This is a key to the whole routine. The key to the rap is to route everything back to a particular simple point. It doesn’t matter what you are talking about. You just cycle everything back to your signature note. You can choose from a large list. You treat everyone the same and you speak to everyone as if you are speaking to the same person. You can either keep your mind empty or you can hold focus on a specific attribute. You take control of your posture and your gestures. You get into the role. You believe that you are what you seem. What happens is that others believe you are what you seem and power comes from the collective focus.
You cultivate detachment. This is an important point. You give your whole attention to whatever and whoever has your attention. You maintain your poise and you project welcoming warmth. You can actually do this. Performing these things with an inflexible regularity will eventually turn you into a spiritual master, at least as far as the appearance given. The focus of your followers supports this in various seen and unseen ways. Working the force of what is directed at you is another key to the system.
But the downside... hmmm... No one talks about what it is like to endure endless, stupid questions or having to answer the same questions over and over. You have to process various desires that are directed at you each and every day. There is a scrutiny that makes your life no longer your own. Well... a spiritual master isn’t supposed to have a life of his own. As soon as the number of followers reaches a certain amount, you acquire flacks. You acquire people representing you on their own initiative. You acquire an inner and outer circle and you have to process the ambitions of particular personality types that infallibly show up. You must mediate the internecine rivalries. A real spiritual master has these conflicts already resolved within himself but... real spiritual masters are as rare as hummingbird teeth.
There are people around whose avocation is to challenge spiritual masters, to make them uncomfortable. There are people who steal and there are people who fall out of love with you. Some of these people get on a mission to destroy your reputation and they will tell lies about you. Some of what they say may be true but there will certainly be lies. You will wind up listed on the Guru Rating System. Your time will not be your own. You will have to endure the company of people that it will be very difficult to like and you can’t send them away. These people will certainly show up. People will hang on you. People will constantly talk about their problems. These will be the same problems that you solved a hundred times before but which can never be solved because these people need these problems. People will want to fuck you... in all sorts of ways.
A certain type of old lady will show up. She’ll have a lot of money and she will be in love with the sound of her own voice but... you won’t be. You’ll have to hear about how wonderful you are all the time by the same people who will tell the world what a big fake you are when they fall out of love with you. People will use you as a backboard to show how wise they are and never hear anything you say. You’ll be in serious need of a vacation but there are no vacations in the spiritual master game. You’ll wonder at night, when you can’t sleep, why you didn’t become an accountant instead. You will have to watch everything you do because people are watching everything you do. You’ll have to give talks all the time and write a whole lot of books. People will write compelling publicity blurbs that will be very embarrassing AND certain people will want you to expand your theater of operations and the number of ongoing projects and they won’t stop because that is what they do.
You will have to resolve things in your past with the miracle of your present and people will come out of the woodwork and tell exaggerated tales about the person you used to be. You will be responsible for other people, in a certain respect, quite literally. You could well become addicted to pain killers. This particular pathology is not uncommon in the spiritual master game. You will be invited to New Age seminars and sometimes have to sit on stage with other spiritual masters and respond to the same stupid questions you hear every day already.
I could go on for several more pages about the downside of this trip but I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s more than a full time job and it’s a lot like having head lice after awhile. So... if you should ever wonder at some time in the future why I act a certain way that does not seem to be in my best interest or makes me look like I couldn’t be a spiritual master if I say and do things like that well... you’re right, thank god.
'Love is Bound' is track no. 12 of 12 on Visible's 2007 album 'Almost A Capella'
Lyrics (pops up)
23 comments:
Nina;
email me that new number of yours because I will call you this weekend. I'm a little too dragged out to go looking for the comment where you put it; please excuse me for this. It has been a trying day.
I'm assuming I am right and prescient in doing this.
And so it goes.
In the moment you think you are a spiritual master then you are not. :(
Be Les, I will be Dodgy, a One who respects the true Les Visible in you.
Rock on dude :)
Isn't is amazing how whatever our parent/s told us we were, we spend the rest of our lives proving they're right?
We just get a few brief smooth and shining hours inbetween detours down the roads to ruin.
I understand the worship issue and deal with it by evaporation. Real friends, real loved ones, know all the dirt and love us anyway. I am a happy loner, but it seems that we can be very rich in companions with under ten people (not including animals). You are in my ten. I have no doubts at all you could have been and can be, anything you ever want.
As those aspiring to ascend see things that one would expect to help turn around those heading in the other direction, the temptation born of noble self sacrifice is to descend just a little in order to see where the other is and to pass on the higher insights. Having gathered a following with all the strings and attachments one may find getting back to that point of enlightenment somewhat more difficult and perhaps even imposible. Be therefore more wise to leave not a trail of crumbs to mark the path, instead leave heavy marker stones that stay in place for others to find on there journey, and tempt them not with fleating tidbits to use as a means for enticing a following. Be.
Hey Les
Hermetics, baseball and rock and roll?
The grateful dead sang the national anthem for the Giants season opener and they won the world series that fall.
Whooopie!
the ungrateful remnants of that outfit are still playing the same tired music to the same tired audience in the same venues
For a lot more than $10000 a show!
You on the other hand are LES
Your words work in a way that goes beyond any of the three paths you saw ahead as a kid. The force is with you brother.
Arent you glad you don't have to send your goons around policing the parking lot for unofficial T shirts and other contraband?
Srila Prabhupada: If you simply want an ordinary education, you have to devote so much time, labor, and understanding to it. Similarly, if you are going to take to spiritual life, you must become serious. How is it that simply by some wonderful mantras, someone can become God in six months? Why do people want something like that? This means that they want to be cheated.
Reporter: How can a person tell he has a genuine guru?
Srila Prabhupada: Can any of my students answer this question?
Disciple: Once I remember John Lennon asked you, “How will I know who is the genuine guru?” And you answered, “Just find out the one who is most addicted to Krsna. He is genuine.”
Do you mean that ENLIGHTENMENT decoder ring I ordered might not work--aw crap--foiled again!!!
Jj
The role of writer suits you better anyway Les. Your production and connection to your muse is astounding (to me.) The example you set in distilling the focus and projection of your energy as words does the work of any ten gurus, warts and all.
Something interesting happened last night. I saw you had not been around and then discovered why on Smoking Mirrors. I then made a second comment here, on Origami, to the body of One Mind reader/commenters, it went like this: "Imagine Visible ... imagine Visible seeing his welcome screen light up ... imagine Visible signing into his blogs ... imagine Visible approving comments ... imagine Visible relieved ... WE CAN DO THIS."
When my post went into "preview", all of a sudden, the page filled with comments. I erased my message, mind a little blown and continued on to read them.
Love, nina
Les,
Steady Starbuck, let not fame or fortune deter you from your own true aim for taking the time and energy to try and make the world a better place through helping people to really think about what is the truth and what is just smoke and mirrors.
God, whatever you may think him to be is giving you the power to reach people more than 1,250,000 times so far. That's a lot of truth.
You reap what you sow.
Please keep on sowing, cultivating and weeding.
Your type of gardening is the true green future of humankind.
Kudos, Mouser
First comment in a while ... for whatever reason, mostly just haven't felt up to it.
Today I was sitting like a sea cucumber or some other animal from before the development of central nervous systems in front of my computer, watching Battlestar Galactica all the way through (well, just the final season) for no other reason than I don't feel good for much else at the moment. During the very last episode, Gaius Baltar (scientist, politician, cult leader, and secret traitor to humanity) is about to ship off the dying Battlestar with his cult when he makes a last-minute decision to stay and join a suicide mission to rescue the kidnapped human-Cylon halfbreed, Hera.
Paula (the cult's second in command): But Gaius, our people need you!
Gaius: I don't belong to you, Paula. I never belonged to you. You appropriated me. I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I led you to believe ... they're all yours now, Paula, enjoy them.
Funny you would've chosen to talk about exactly this kind of thing just after I watched this scene. In a previous episode, Gaius - who'd shamelessly used the cult for power, sex, protection, and anything else you can think of - finally cracked a bit as their obsequious, needy fawning finally got to him.
Well spoken. Time and again we see a teacher set out with the best and purest intentions and then go on to spectacularly self-destruct in some sordid scandal. I've wondered how often this is due to the unmanagable levels of psychic energy coming from followers, who literally give the teacher their power. This energy then seems to hyper-inflate any remaining imbalance, leading to a fall. A razor's edge needs walking here. On the one hand, the teacher wants to do as much as he can to help others but he is no help to anyone if he loses himself. It would seem wise to sometimes play the fool.
"You give your whole attention to whatever and whoever has your attention. You maintain your poise and you project welcoming warmth. You can actually do this"
YES,yes
Spiritual master? Master of One?
Bright and clear, we are all spiritual and masters. We get all the goodies at the begining. The trick is using everthing else.
Nice work Les, more detail and nature of the "whys" today! To show the door and where it opens with in you, very nice.
Le Mat
The irony is, you are doing exactly the right thing. As you say, all those pathetic people who need the glow of someone they believe has seen something, and they hang on like groupies at a rock concert. Can anyone help them? Not really. What is the role of a real master? Here is my opinionated remark. :>)
The real master will simply point and say, if you are really intent on understanding truth, you will follow no one. You can't follow anyone, see that first. Second, you are the door, you yourself, you have to go through it alone. You cannot follow or lead. If that sounds harsh then maybe we weren't really serious about it all after all. Better off following the rock star.
Signore, senor, sir, sahib -
Made my day, and my week, and my year, and throw in a few decades too.
Hope this day is easier (?), how ever "easy" manifests in your world.
Wow, lay it down, brother. Beautiful unveiling. I've watched pretty much all of what you describe go down. I've experienced the understanding of the role's requirements and rules and focus and such. The boredom, the imprisonment. So great of you to spread the full picture out on the table. It's something needed to be said for too long, in this new-age phase of the Kali Yuga. Thanks!
I see always some percentage of the youth aspiring to this particular 'career-path'. Seeking the mentor, serious/assured looks on their faces, blah blah you know it all...
In my view, anything real is a calling, pure and simple. It was that way for tens of thousands of years, so I don't see how it would be different now. You 'found out' what you were supposed to do. You and the master kind of 'show up' like you had some pre-arranged co-ordinates.
Seen both the 'called/fated/karmic' styles and the 'self-aspiring' (don't know how else to describe it) styles. So very glad it was never a path of much interest to me (but fascinating as hell to watch). Working at just being a real musician in the world is what was like an imperative, and doesn't restrict other studies/work, and provides nice cover, and 'drummer' is even better. heh heh.
You, however, seem to be a man of many many talents, and prolific in all. And all at a very advanced level. (are you Sag. by any chance?, heh heh.) I don't know if you really 'need' any of those "Bennies".......
respects,
bholanath
So be it
Les, you should consider taking a course @ Regent University.
That would guarantee you an expert prefabricated comeback at any situation that might develope.
Oh, and the class rings are the REAL ENLIGHTENMENT decoders that jj spoke of.
Besides, they have some really hot chicks going there...
Wellok Les
To summit up. I suspect my own little brush with the DJ system left me thinking a mistake must have been made
First I was a bit worried that the cancer was a physical manifestation of the experience I had wrought upon myself whilst cruising INNER PERFECT recreational Baby Hawaiian Woodrose trip
The music-player stopped... buffering - somewhere in one of the adjacent apartments a kid was catching it, too much, too loud, too long
you're freaking, be cool, it just seems worse, bee cuase bee coz
mind your own business
you don't want to know what goes on in the back-room of the candy store, kid - you don't really want to see the deals we do at the meat plant - piss off!
whoosh, back from the vice-centre of the galaxy - shit! nah... it's just godda be the Godfarter movies
tra-la-la, just lying here on the bed freaking because the vibe set off a stream, be cool
shouting, screaming on the street
no fucking way!
freaking monkey climb tree - where's my fucking tree
dive for the kitchen, get a cigarette, now! go,go,go - what the fuck, no,no,no
folks are standing on their balconies and leaning out of their windows
I cannot be making this happen, I know I'm high - ohfuck I'm creating this freakout - cigarette, smoke it in one drag, on the floor, keep low, keep it together, think happy thoughts
a woman screaming, cars doors slamming, wheels screeching
stand up be a man, it's just a coincidence, someone's been abducted whilst you were triping
shows over, everybody starts going in, closing their windows, just like when an ambulance leaves
the old lady opposite looks over at me and raises her right hand to her ear, surely she's just srcathing her head, it's just a fucking hallucination, she's 15 feet away, she's seen all the action and she wants me to call the cops
hello officer, in about 6 months time I'm gonna lose a bollock but what I really want to tell you is that just a mo ago my bad trip created a kidnapping or something, well, the neighbours looked pretty slack-jawed so I thought
it would be best not to
later in hospital I remember reading about other cuckoos who have it as a fool time okaypation
when I signed the document which stated it was my choice to undergo the prescibed treatment I didn't really believe all that medicine crap and survival rates... I did it for the money, no standard treatment = no insurance. 200,000 alive 600,000 dead
shit, looking back on it I can understand why the Dr. gave me an extra stern stare when I asked him if anyone had ever opted out
I'm still happily surprised that belief has nothing to do with results (in coping with them, perhaps)
if I hadn't had the good luck to have fucked up on my celibecy vows
I might have got the bright idea to unwittingly commit suicide with the help of all the alternative bullshit selling quacks
Then later I got pissed off with myself because as you so writely pointed out, there's the missing candy and then there's the wrapper
I think mine says - unbelievably bitter and sour with a goofy suffokaystink fluff sarcasmicentre
Still that's all bridged over the spilled milk, there's fresh tears hot and fierce cooling in the fridge
cheers
Hi Nina;
Well... many of the things that power our visible technologies are invisible AND my experience has shown me what can be accomplished at a distance by directed or channeled intention.
Thursday afternoon I was sitting here and a thunderstorm came on. There was a boom! and the internet was gone. I got the little icon about 'limited or no connectivity'. This I never get; or haven't gotten down here.
Rebooting and all the other things I tried didn't work. Meanwhile I couldn't even get my computer to open into windows because I couldn't type my password in. I was sorely perplexed. It seemed the only thing I could do was reinstall windows. Finally I noticed that the ALT button was jammed. One odd event is one thing and two in tandem is quite something else.
Through the day, nothing I did would put me back on. Even though I had disconnected the wireless and done other things there was no solution. Finally, late in the night I simply unplugged the wireless and presto! I was back on. It was all pretty strange as it did not conform to the expected course.
As for the rest of you (grin). Your usual fine contributions. I have to add something here because of a couple of emails that I received. I was NOT talking about the readers here in my posting and I wasn't really talking about myself except for my perceptions and certain erratic behavior I exhibit at times. I've no problem with people saying nice things about me here and no problem with them saying things which are not so nice though, we don't get much of that.
Since I'm not playing that role, the negatives I mentioned don't apply here. I do sometimes not post a comment when it is incoherent (as just happened yesterday) and 'seems' to be tending toward the unpleasant and sometimes when reason tells me not to but that is very rare and if people would just think about what they are saying before they say it there wouldn't ever be a problem.
Okay then... off to town for a bit.
Good morning Les and All,
Thanks for the post! :) It reminds me of something:
"The art of stalking is learning all the quirks of your disguise. To learn them so well no one will know you are disguised. For that you need to be ruthless, cunning, patient, and sweet.
Stalking is an art applicable to everything. There are four steps to learning it: ruthlessness, cunning, patience, and sweetness. Ruthlessness should not be harshness, cunning should not be cruelty, patience should not be negligence, and sweetness should not be foolishness. These four steps have to be practiced and perfected until they are so smooth they are unnoticeable."
- Don Juan
Okay, I suppose this is not directly related to any of this, but I was given this this morning and I want to share:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faBd_0eyMFw
- Gary
Damn Les, you really are just smart as hell. I'd never have thought of it that way but you nail it with ridiculous perfection. On a couple of your lines in this one I just started laughing; not because anything was funny but because it was just so damn good.
Hi Les, interesting article.
My take on what a "spiritual master" is - it consists of one having knowlege and direction of one's inner self.
The outer appearance being secondary.
A person can be "master" of a craft, an art, a course of study, I suppose, of any type of human activity.
It would probably be good for humanity if people engaged in wanting power over others, like politicians, devoted more energy to achieving power over themselves.
Reading between the lines it seems one Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh just copped a hiding. I think one has to take what's been said and written about that particular guy with a liberal shake of salt - anyone who was banned from half the countries in the world had to be onto something good and positive ;)
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