I would have to disagree with you there Luis (but this is "general religious debates" anyway, so I'm in the right place!).
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the Greek tradition has a venerable history of elders and disciples. In Russia, this developed into the institution of
starets:
Starets | Eastern Orthodox religion
Starets, (Slavic translation of Greek gerōn, “elder”), plural STARTSY, in Eastern Orthodoxy, a monastic spiritual leader. Eastern Christian monasticism understood itself as a way of life that aimed at a real experience of the future kingdom of God; the starets, as one who had already achieved this experience, was the charismatic spiritual guide who could aid others in attaining spiritual progress and success. In eremitic, or Hesychastic, monasticism, which flourished from the 4th and 5th centuries throughout Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, monastic obedience consisted primarily in the personal relationship between the gerōn and the disciple.
As you can see from the encyclopedic entry above, whether in the form of the 4th - 5th century and later Byzantine
geron in Hesychast mysticism or the
starets in the Slavic world, the system was oriented around the direct and internalized experience of the teachings as mediated through an unbroken chain of spiritual masters and disciples. The fundamental importance of having a guide for practice and advice was emphasised as follows by Saint Nikiphoros the Hesychast in his short work
On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart (1276):
Concentrate your intellect and lead it into the respiratory passage through which the breath passes into your heart. Put pressure on your intellect and compel it to descend with your inhaled breath into your heart. Once it has entered there [. . .] train it not to leave your heart quickly, for at first it is strongly disinclined to remain constrained and circumscribed in this way. But once it becomes accustomed to remaining there, it no longer desires to wander outside. For the kingdom of heaven is within us (Luke 17:21).
Most if not all of those who attain this greatest of gifts [attentiveness, prosochē ] do so chiefly through being taught. To be sure, a few without being taught receive it directly from God through the ardour of their endeavour and the fervour of their faith; but what is rare does not constitute the norm. That is why we should search for an unerring guide, so that under his instruction we may learn how to deal with the shortcomings whenever we deviate left or right from the axis of attentiveness. Since such a guide will himself have been tested, he will be able to make these things clear to us and will unambiguously disclose the spiritual path to us so that we can follow it easily. If you have no such guide you must search diligently for one.
A very similar dynamic became formalised in a ritual setting among Sufi Muslims, where the teacher was known as a
pir:
Pir (Sufism) - Wikipedia
Pir or Peer (Persian: پیر, literally "old [person]", "elder"[1]) is a title for a Sufi master or spiritual guide. They are also referred to as a Hazrat or Shaikh, which is Arabic for Old Man. The title is often translated into English as "saint" and could be interpreted as "Elder". In Sufism a Pir's role is to guide and instruct his disciples on the Sufi path . This is often done by general lessons (called Suhbas) and individual guidance. Other words that refer to a Pir include, Murshid (Arabic: مرشد, meaning "guide" or "teacher"), Sheikh and Sarkar(Persian word meaning Master, Lord). In Alevism, Pir's are considered a direct descendant of Ali.
The title Peer Baba (पीर बाबा) is common in Hindi used to give a salutation to Sufi masters or similarly honored persons. After their death people visit their tombs (dargah) (मक़बरा) maqbara).
The path of Sufism starts when a student takes an oath of allegiance with a teacher called Bai'ath or Bay'ah[citation needed] (Arabic word meaning "transaction") where he swears allegiance at the hands of his Pir and repents from all his previous sins. After that, the student is called a Murid (Arabic word meaning committed one). From here, his batin (inward) journey starts.
A Pir usually has authorizations to be a teacher for one (or more) tariqahs (method). A Tariqah may have more than one Pir at a time. A Pir is accorded that status by his Shaikh by way of Khilafat or Khilafah (Arabic word meaning succession). Khilafat is the process in which a Shaikh identifies one of his disciples as his successor (khalifah). A Pir can have more than one khalifah. The term Pir is also used by Nizari Ismailis whose missionaries in the past have used the title Pir. The current Nizari Ismaili Imam Agha Khan is also the Pir within the Nizari Ismaili Shia sect.
And should you be in any doubt about the fact that Abrahamic
gerons/starets'/pirs also, when expediency demands, shed "
any particular expectation of faithfulness to written scripture", it should be borne in mind that the 19th century Russian Orthodox manual of spiritual life entitled
The Way of the Pilgrim (a manual written by an anonymous wandering "Starets") explicitly permits an aspiring mendicant to fall under the tutelage of a Muslim
pir if they cannot find a Christian
starets in their locale. Why? Because spiritual guidance, even from an elder of another religious tradition, was considered preferable to having no contact with a teacher.
After all, the Sufi aim of
fana (self-annihilation) through the practice of
dhikr (remembrance of God, relying upon postures, recitation, control of breath and focus upon the heart) is almost indistinguishable from the Christian pursuit of
theosis (union with God, which the Syriac mystics of the Church of the East in the 7th - 8th century called
tullaqa (annihilation)) through the practice of
hesychia (prayer of stillness) again by following a psychosomatic method (albeit in both cases the practice can only prepare one and open them up to the Divine Light, not compel the grace of God). i.e. Compare the thoughts of Al-Ghazali, the great Islamic philosopher of Sufism:
"...Now, when this state prevails, it is called in relation to him who experiences it, Extinction, nay, Extinction of Extinction, for the soul has become extinct to itself, extinct to its own extinction, for it becomes unconscious of itself and unconscious of its own unconsciousness, since were it conscious of its own unconsciousness, it would be conscious of itself. In relation to the man immersed in this state, the state is called, in the language of metaphor,' Identity'; in the language of reality,' Unification..."
- Al-Ghazali (c. 1058–1111), Islamic theologian, jurist, philosopher & Sufi mystic
With his earlier Christian predecessor St John of Dalyatha, also known as John Saba:
"...The ground on which I have been proceeding has been altered before me. My intelligence has been astonished by the marvel which You provoke and henceforth I know myself as not existing...
My soul from then on was remaining as if in annihilation but without passing away. Friends were blotted out of my heart, unloved as enemies from of old. When I became weak, for a time He left me like this, amazed at Him and what is His. From that time I was existing without mind as non-existing, without perception, without vision, and without hearing, but in amazement and great stillness. There is no movement or knowledge there since in the experienced one knowledge has forgotten itself and even how to know...
[The soul] is supremely illumined again and penetrates into the holy and greatly resplendent light. It gets absorbed in the glory of vision and is amazed. [Then] everything is lifted from its sight as being non-existent, and [the soul] forgets itself, being united to the light of the glory of the Majesty. It is captivated by its beauty and sees the glorious Persons [of the Trinity] through knowledge, that is, through unknowing, which is higher than all knowledge and all those who know..."
- Saint John of Dalyatha (8th century), Letter 4,16; Discourse 8
There are very real differences between the Dharmic and Abrahamic religions but I certainly don't consider this to be one of them.
