Friday, March 25, 2011

3/25/11—Finding a Guru

Today's Draw: Spiritual Leaders (V) from the Tarot of Transformation—Taking The Hierophant Off The Pedestal. Do you know a spiritual leader who has fallen off their pedestal? Do you honor your own inner teachings? Do you know who the best guru is for you?
 
Today's card is the Hierophant or Pope in most decks. It talks about tradition and dogma and spiritual leadership. But in the Tarot of Transformation, it comes with a twist. It speaks of how integrated the ideal modern spiritual leader shou...ld be. And how flawed many of them are.

The card talks about integration in the sense that an ideal spiritual leader would integrate teachings from all religions. But would also be integrated in the sense that they would not only be wise to those teachings, but also wise to successful ways of navigating in the real world.

Off the top of my head, I might think of Dr. Wayne Dyer as he is now in 60s. He's overcome addictions. He's faced death. And he's come to peace with who he is. No real dramas in his life anymore. And he is also very well educated in all the different spiritual teachings in the world. I don't really follow this stuff, so I could be wrong about him. But this is how I perceive him. He's integrated on all fronts, including social, emotional and spiritual. Very few measure up to this standard and even he could easily fall off that pedestal. But this is the kind of integration the card speaks of.

The card also speaks to honoring the spiritual teacher within through meditation, intuition development or other practices that might yield insights that have meaning to you. So the question about who is your best guru above is actually a trick question, because the answer is "you".

OK, so here's why today's card is relevant to me. I've been working on a book for quite some times that addresses some of the stuff in this card. And while I totally see the "integration" thing, my take is that it's so rare. So if Dr. Dyer fits the mold, for example, how many others can say the same? Either they're short in the integration of teachings from around the world department. Or they're short in the knowing how to successfully navigate the human world department. Or both.

So my take is that you should totally seek spiritual teachers, whether they're Joel Osteen or Marianne Williamson or Oprah…haha. But see them as who they are. Human. Don't raise them above yourself, but see them as teachers. Because they don't know everything. And anyone you put on a pedestal will fall eventually. And any disappointment you have over that is of your own making if you see them as superior to you. Because YOU are your best guru. And being a good guru means exposing YOURSELF to different things and demanding high standards of YOURSELF.

So,,all that said, I will say that the people I feel I've learned the most from in MY journey are Gary Zukav and Deepak Chopra. Both are men who are imperfect. Even though Gary's life seems spotless now, he's basically a hermit. And there's nothing wrong with that, he still teaches. But it also shows that there are teachings about interacting with the world at large that he could learn. Which is my point. None are perfect. And we'd all learn a lot more and appreciate the teachings a lot more if we stopped seeing our gurus as exalted.

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