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Who Is Your Teacher?

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
Today is Guru Purnima, a Dharmic holiday that marks the birthday of Ved Vsaya, a holiday in which Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains revere their gurus.

Who is your spiritual teacher, or if you do not consider yourself spiritual, who inspires you? How did you select this individual? What difference have they made in your life?
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
The Buddha and various others along the way, such as Dogen. I discovered Buddhism purely by accident, I wasn't in the market place. Actually, I was in a market place when I saw the advert for the "evening class."
How am I changed? Have you seen that film Sliding Doors?
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
I have not seen Sliding Doors.
The central character either gets on a train or doesn't. Thereafter there are two life narratives that follow the two outcomes. Think of Schrödinger's cat on the subway.
OK, you're not buying.
It possibly changed me quite a lot, I see the world in a different way, but this will have happened gradually I imagine.
What about you?
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
Today is Guru Purnima, a Dharmic holiday that marks the birthday of Ved Vsaya, a holiday in which Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains revere their gurus.
Who is your spiritual teacher, or if you do not consider yourself spiritual, who inspires you? How did you select this individual? What difference have they made in your life?
Shouldn´t a genuine guru tell everybody to be their own guru?
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Who is your spiritual teacher, or if you do not consider yourself spiritual, who inspires you? How did you select this individual? What difference have they made in your life?

I have many! Lao Tzu, Buddha, scores of writers (Carlos Castaneda, Richard Bach, Ken Kesey, various sci-fi writers..), composers like Beethoven and Robert Hunter :) , Ram Dass, of course!, Alan Kay, who among other things said "The correct perspective is worth 80 IQ points", Godel, Turing, Bill Joy. You might think that some of these people are just "influencers", but I think it's more than that.

These people have all given me useful perspectives that (I think), I've woven into a somewhat coherent philosophy and approach to spirituality. :)
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
What about you?

I've been my own teacher/guru, drawing inspiration and wisdom from many sources. Some of the greatest influences over time include, off the top of my head and in no particular order:
  • Carl Sagan
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Raymond Buckland
  • Scott Cunningham
  • Eckhart Tolle
  • Aldous Huxley
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Sadhguru
  • Sri Shankaracharya
  • Swami Vivekananda
  • Swami Sarvapriyananda
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
I've been my own teacher/guru, drawing inspiration and wisdom from many sources. Some of the greatest influences over time include, off the top of my head and in no particular order:
  • Carl Sagan
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Raymond Buckland
  • Scott Cunningham
  • Eckhart Tolle
  • Aldous Huxley
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Sadhguru
  • Sri Shankaracharya
  • Swami Vivekananda
  • Swami Sarvapriyananda
Is Tolle rather inspired by Buddhism would you say?
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
I have many! Lao Tzu, Buddha, scores of writers (Carlos Castaneda, Richard Bach, Ken Kesey, various sci-fi writers..), composers like Beethoven and Robert Hunter :) , Ram Dass, of course!, Alan Kay, who among other things said "The correct perspective is worth 80 IQ points", Godel, Turing, Bill Joy. You might think that some of these people are just "influencers", but I think it's more than that.

These people have all given me useful perspectives that (I think), I've woven into a somewhat coherent philosophy and approach to spirituality. :)
Care to expand on the composers thing?
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Care to expand on the composers thing?

Hmmm.. I find that spirituality™ is a hard concept to define. To me it's tied to philosophy, and my philosophy is mostly utilitarianism with a nice dose of hedonism tossed in. As James Taylor put it, "the secret to life is enjoying the passing of time". Good music is a hedonistic pleasure, and a fine way for humans to connect with each other.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Hmmm.. I find that spirituality™ is a hard concept to define. To me it's tied to philosophy, and my philosophy is mostly utilitarianism with a nice dose of hedonism tossed in. As James Taylor put it, "the secret to life is enjoying the passing of time". Good music is a hedonistic pleasure, and a fine way for humans to connect with each other.
Ah, OK. I only asked because music is a big part of my life and I wondered if philosophies of particular composers (and perhaps how that affected/s their creativity) was of interest to you.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Ah, OK. I only asked because music is a big part of my life and I wondered if philosophies of particular composers (and perhaps how that affected/s their creativity) was of interest to you.

Interesting. I would say that I at least feel like I can get a sense of a composer's philosophy by listening to their music. Does that sound right to you?
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Interesting. I would say that I at least feel like I can get a sense of a composer's philosophy by listening to their music. Does that sound right to you?
I think perhaps I could see how the music and the thinking behind it related to each other, given that I knew what it was (eg Cage and indeterminancy, Scriabin and theosophy).
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
My spiritual motivator was first an eternal spirit, who communicated no self status. Who loved me in a way incomprehensible to my natural human senses. Who allowed me to see my human family in their spirituality expressions as a natural and wonderful idea.

Everything and everyone taught me.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
Shouldn´t a genuine guru tell everybody to be their own guru?

Somewhat. I notice it's more gurus instruct but the student does the work. We can meditate all sorts of ways but if a tradition cause for an X result, some ways are better than others. They don't answer questions just guide you through the process. It's ideal to have a teacher but would assume it's not inherently necessary if practicing more broadly, I guess. No one way is at all better than the other in itself.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Shouldn´t a genuine guru tell everybody to be their own guru?
:) You see, Native, that stage also comes. But before that one learns things from many, books, elders, gurus.
I can't place it but perhaps I read somewhere in my books, Upnishads, where the Guru tells the disciple, "Young man, I have taught you what I knew. Now go and gather more knowledge".
My gurus are Buddha and Adi Sankara (Sankaracharya), or you can say, Gaudapada - Sankara's teacher's teacher, who was a strong atheist.

Yogananda, Sadguru are not in my list, but so what, to each his/her own. :D
Good music is a hedonistic pleasure, and a fine way for humans to connect with each other.
Here in India, music much more than that, it is treated and considered as 'divine'. Classical musicians get our utmost reverence. An Indian singer, Lata Mangeshkar, is most revered in the sub-continent and is considered an avatara of Goddess Saraswati. That is how we honor musicians.

220px-Lata_Mangeshkar_black-and-white.jpg

Lata Mangeshkar in 1953, when she was 23 (born 1930). Thousands of songs in 36 languages of India. Never once lost her note. She is the recipient of the highest civilian Indian honor (Bharat Ratna, Jewel of India). Other musician who were given this honor are Ustad Bismillah Khan, MS Subbulakshmi, Bhimsen Joshi and Ravi Shankar.
 
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