ur attempt to elucidate some of the factors contributing to man's dilemma is in the spirit of support and enhancement of the already existing knowledge and understanding about the solutions to man's suffering. The paths to man's liberation have been known since ancient times. They have been formulated in various ways depending on the era and on the teacher.
We are not offering fundamentally new solutions here. Nor are we opposing the already existing solutions or the already existing teachings. The major teachings, like those of Buddha, Christ and Mohammed, are timeless and universal, and have done much to serve mankind. Our attempt is to bring to light some of the considerations that hinder both teacher and student. We want to point out some of the factors that are ignored, not acknowledged or not taken into account in most circumstances. We want to understand first why so few people in the world respond to the already existing teachings, and then why most of the disciples of any teaching do not actually accomplish the task. We want especially to investigate, as much as we are able to, what does make a given teaching effective in isolated cases but not in the vast majority of others.
We will not go into much detail about the factors already known and generally accepted, such as the influence of the environment, society, the economy, childhood conditioning, and the paucity of real teachers. Our concern with causes already mentioned—such as the part played by egoism, selfishness, attachment, ignorance and desire—will be to discuss them from a different point of view.
It is interesting to note that these causes not only account for our failure to relieve our suffering, but also account for the suffering itself. The existence of suffering, the lack of freedom and contentment, is seen as caused by ignorance, selfishness, greed, attachment and the like. These factors are, in fact, an explanation of the lack of enlightenment and fulfillment. And solutions found usually involve elimination of these factors.
Although these factors explain also the difficulty of pursuing spiritual paths, simply explaining the difficulty does not allow us to eliminate it.
Let us for a moment turn our attention to one of the commonly known factors contributing to man's suffering: desire. Many teachings have stressed that if man indulges in fulfilling his usual desires, this will contribute to his suffering, and, more particularly, will make it difficult for him to traverse any path of liberation. Desire for pleasure, for love, for security, for anything, is seen as a major barrier to realization. Most religions and most teachers have given this message to humanity.
But the response to this message is minimal. People might admire and love a teaching, but do not usually respond to this insight about desire. Some might, out of devotion to a teaching or teacher, genuinely believe this understanding about desire, but they still would not respond to it, nor act according to their belief. In fact, frequently, they would not even try to follow this teaching.
Let us look at the majority of Buddhist students, for example. They believe in the truth of Buddha's teaching about desire. But it does not really touch them, or their lives, in a way that will lead to their emancipation. Only a few will completely respond to it.
This is very curious. The understanding is accurate. Desire is actually one of the main roots of suffering. This has been seen by all realized beings. The students believe this understanding, have faith in their teachers, love the Buddha and his teaching. However, they do not actually live their lives according to this truth—not in any significant way.
Again, this is curious. In fact, this is the same dilemma we have discussed in Chapter One. But now we see it in a more specific and concrete way, and maybe this narrowing down of the focus will help us in our understanding. Let us look more closely at the situation. The student believes that desire is the root of suffering as the Buddha, and his teacher or guru have told him. But does he really believe it? If he does, he believes with his mind, with his intellect. But his heart does not completely believe, neither does his body. Although he says he believes, and might understand on some level that desire is the root of suffering, he continues desiring pleasure, love, recognition, security, material possessions, fame and so on. And more than that, he strongly believes in the rightness of this desiring. He does not question these desires at a deep level. His life is constructed of them, in all ways shaped by them. More than anything else, he believes in his desires, especially in the depths of his unconscious. And so, at this deepest level, he does not believe in the Buddha's teachings, regardless of how much he loves and respects the teaching and wants to adhere to it.
And because at this deep level he does not believe in the teachings and unconsciously actually rejects it, he cannot be touched by it and he cannot follow the teaching in his life, or finds it difficult to follow because in the deepest part of his unconscious he cannot relate to it. If he really looks at his experience, he will not find any reason why he should believe it. He has not experienced the truth that desire is the root of suffering. Believing the teaching does not make it a knowing for him. He cannot believe deeply because he has no experiential knowledge that desire causes pain. He may see that the pursuit of certain of his desires, for material possessions or relationships or status, for example, are connected with his suffering. He may even see that even when some of his desires are gratified, he continues to suffer. A new car brings only a temporary pride, a new job a brief rise in self-esteem. But whatever new desires arise to replace the old ones, including the desire to end his suffering by becoming “enlightened,” entail precisely the same suffering as did the original “naive” ones.
A student's belief in the teaching regarding desire is undermined by the deeper unbelief and rejection of the teaching, and he rejects the teaching because he believes himself. He believes his experience. His teacher can see very clearly that the student's trouble is due to his desires, but he cannot see that himself.
So the student is not touched by the teaching, because, according to his personal experience which relies on, and has always relied on desire, it is not true. The teaching is true for Buddha, but not for him. It is true, in an ultimate way for him, but he doesn't know that. In fact the teaching contradicts his basic beliefs and all his understanding of his experience. At the depths of his personality, he believes he will get whatever he wants or needs by desiring it enough, and that he cannot have what he wants unless he desires it. In fact, at the very depths of his unconscious he feels and believes that he will not survive physically if he does not pursue his desires. All realized people attain their realization by seeing for themselves that they actually believed in their desires for their very physical survival. The average person believes this also, but he does not know he believes it. This belief, nonetheless, runs his life to an extent that very few people are aware of.
The Noble Truth that desire is at the root of suffering is such a deep truth that it is not easy to see experientially, except after long inner work. It is naive to imagine that the student will be convinced of this deep universal truth just by looking at his everyday desires and by noticing the frustration that arises. When an individual suffers due to desire, he usually attributes the suffering to the lack or loss of gratification, and not to the desiring itself. This means he believes desire is fine if gratification is forthcoming, if he gets what he wants.
But this is not Buddha's teaching about desire. The issue is not the possibility of no gratification. The teaching is very clear that the movement of desire itself is suffering. But this perception is very subtle. It cannot be understood except at very fine levels of consciousness. In fact, the complete conviction about the teaching regarding desire does not come about until the later stages of the path, when the individual can see and feel for himself that the teaching is indeed true.
For the average student, the situation is very difficult. The student not only rejects the teaching, in a deep, unconscious way, but in addition, he cannot see how this teaching is relevant to him or to his life. His everyday concerns have nothing to do, as far as he can see, with the question of desire or no desire. His everyday preoccupations, where his attention and interest lie, are not on a level where the question of desire is relevant. Maybe he is concerned with certain difficult life situations, and his real interest is in learning how to deal with them. Maybe he is concerned with some emotional conflicts that need first to be resolved in order to even have the energy to think about desires. Maybe he is primarily concerned with issues of self-image that are difficult for him to disengage from.
Of course, at the root of these concerns lies the issue of desire, but his awareness cannot go to that depth. He will have to deal with his own concerns first one way or another. To expect him to see all his preoccupations from the perspective of the issue of desire is unrealistic.
We see, from all of this, that although the teaching regarding desire is accurate and of great value, it is not relevant for the average student. It is not relevant because he is not able to relate to it in any real way. The teaching, as it is stated and propagated, is not appropriate to him, to his life and to his state of consciousness.
This teaching will be powerful and effective when it is given to an individual who has done a great amount of inner work, and who has developed his awareness and his state of consciousness to a very subtle and high level. When the individual reaches the state of inner development where it is possible to see personally the issue of desire, the teaching can then act. But even then, it is not enough for the individual to be able to perceive the subtle movement of desire for him to be willing to let go of desire. He must also be at the stage where he sees and feels that desire is a nuisance, an obstacle. He must be able to see and feel that desire is an issue to be dealt with.
It is easier to understand this point if we consider something simpler than desire. Let's consider a person who is habitually critical and judgmental of other people. This person can be quite aware of his bent of mind. He can also be aware of how badly he feels when he is critical. But this does not necessarily mean he will stop. He might continue being critical in a very righteous way, regardless of his perception of the situation. He still does not see his criticalness as something undesirable. This is a very common situation.
The criticalness is seen as “ego-syntonic” for this individual; that is, it is in accord with his personality and does not feel alien or undesirable to him. It goes along with, and is part of, the person's conception of himself. It is not felt as disharmonious with his wellbeing. A trait, like criticalness, has to become “ego-alien” for a person to do something about it, or even to see it as an issue to be understood. “Ego-alien” means that it is experienced as being alien to the ego, as not consistent with the person's interests, as conflicting with the rest of him.
So no trait or part of the personality can become an object for understanding and dissolution as long as it is ego-syntonic. When it becomes ego-alien, then the person will become uncomfortable in such a way that he will be concerned about looking at this part of the personality and doing something about it.
Returning to the issue of desire, we see that desire does not become a focus for inner work until the individual sees it as egoalien. For the average student, desire is experienced as ego-syntonic for a long time, and hence it is not seen as an issue. This is especially so for persons in the human community who have not chosen to follow the path of inner work. These people are very far from seeing desire as being ego-alien. In fact, desire is part of the fabric of everyday life for most of humanity.
No wonder then, that so few individuals respond to such teachings. To say to the average man that he must eradicate desire in order to be happy is absurd. For one thing, this has no meaning for him; but more importantly, desire is still ego-syntonic. The form that the teaching is presented in is experienced as ego-alien by most people. The teaching itself is experienced as ego- alien. It will have to be experienced as ego-syntonic for there to be a response. This means it will have to be presented in a way that is ego-syntonic. The teaching must take into account that the student must experience in his own life that desire is an obstacle, that it thwarts him in his purpose.
So the issue here is not just a matter of accuracy in stating the teaching. If the teaching is to be broadly and comprehensively effective, it must be presented in a way that is digestable to the average person, and digestable to the student. This is a matter of communication, of appropriateness, of tact, of skill, of understanding. The individual's mind and state of consciousness need to be taken into consideration for the communication to be appropriate and effective.
We have discussed the situation in very general terms, and only in regard to the teachings concerning desire, but our understanding has a much wider application. It applies to the more specific situations, and to other deep issues of the teachings.
In the relationship between teacher and student, it is the responsibility of the teacher to communicate appropriately and with tact. This is what makes a teacher a good and effective one. An effective teacher will handle a situation in a very personal way for the student, taking into consideration the unique situation of the student and his state of consciousness. He will see that the issue of desire, for instance, will have to wait until the time comes when the student is ready to understand desire. He will do what he can so that the student will eventually arrive at the stage where he will experience desire as ego-alien, as disharmonious with his wellbeing.
But if the teacher keeps discoursing to all his students on the subject of desire, without regard to individual variations, obviously he will not be effective in his work with them. Only a few of them will be able to respond and benefit. And we ask, how is this the fault of the student?
What we are finding here is that the inner work is a very intimate and personal thing. General teachings, regardless of how deep and universal, do not work. The teaching will have to be formulated and communicated in a way that will effect the particular student in the most intimate and personal manner. The teaching must speak to the student's heart. He has to be able to relate the teaching to his own life in a very personal way. He has to see that it deals with his everyday concerns and conflicts, specifically and deeply. Otherwise the teaching is not useful, is not effective.
There are teachers who do take into full consideration their students' state of consciousness and particular life situation. But they are rare, and most teachers, at least most well-known teachers, do not operate this way. They offer the general principles of the teaching without discrimination to all their students, and their systems have set principles and set practices which all students have to abide by, irrespective of their individual differences.
Individual concern with the student's situation must not be confused with a personal relationship with the student. The teacher might be paying personal attention to the student's suffering and progress, but he might still be dealing with the whole situation from the perspective of the general principles of the teaching. In other words, the teacher might well be very concerned about the particular student, but still be talking to him, and attempting to deal with him from a general perspective that is neither appropriate nor precise for the student's situation at that time. For instance, the teacher might be trying to focus the student on the issue of having or not having a self. And although the student's issue is certainly at the deepest level that of self or no-self, the student might be far more concerned and far more in conflict over the issue of having or not having value. The student might be so concerned about his lack of self-value that he cannot relate to the question of self. And as a result, the teacher might tell the student—albeit lovingly and compassionately—that he is too concerned with himself, that he is self-centered and that is why he is suffering.
Although this is true, the issue of self is still ego-syntonic. Regardless of how much the student loves and respects his teacher, he cannot make the issue of self his personal concern. He is concerned with the issue that he feels he has no value. He says, “I feel and believe that I have no true value.” The teacher says, “You are too concerned with yourself. Maybe you need to disidentify with your sense of self.” The student, although he might outwardly agree, will feel deep inside, “This guy is not talking to me. I am suffering because I feel worthless, I feel my self has no value. I need to deal with this before I can even think of having or not having a sense of self.”
Both teacher and student are right, but they are communicating at different levels, and the teacher has not understood what is more crucial for the student to deal with at that time. The fact is that if the student deals with the issue of value, and understands it, he will be able to move from it, and eventually will see that the issue of self is at the root of it. He will arrive at this deeper level in his own time, but not until this other more urgent layer, value, has been recognized and worked through. We might tend to think that because he feels that his self has no value, it will be easier for him to let go of it. But the conditioning of the personality does not work that way. It is likely that if the individual feels a lack of value he will not let go of his attachment to self, because this is supposed to bring liberation and fulfillment, and he feels too worthless to deserve such an attainment
We are seeing more and more that the teaching cannot be done in a general way. Universal teaching, regardless of how deep and true, must be tailored to the specific needs of the particular individual. Otherwise, the teaching will be ineffective, and it is no fault of the student
A particular instance is very instructive here, that of the teachings of Krishnamurti. He has been teaching for about fifty years now about a certain understanding. His teaching is mainly that of centerless, egoless awareness. If a person just pays attention to the process of the mind, how it is self-centered, how it consists of knowledge that depends on time and memory, there will arise free awareness, empty of all self or ego, and this free, egoless awareness will bring an end to fear, conflict and suffering.
In his discourses, Krishnamurti brilliantly describes this aspect of reality, the aspect of emptiness-awareness. His elucidation of this way of experiencing reality is possibly the best there is. He is speaking of a very deep truth, one of the deepest possible for a human mind. It is a truth that actually points to a necessary condition of enlightenment and liberation. However, how effective has Krishnamurti been? Thousands and thousands listen to the truth of his discourses. His followers love him, can see and appreciate him as a free man, but how many understand this deep and universal teaching, and have attained the realization that Krishnamurti has attained? There is not one single instance known. Why is this? He embodies the state he speaks of. His teaching comes directly from his personal experience. Still, nobody understands completely. Nobody understands in a way that is real, a way that will make a difference, a permanent difference. He has been unable to communicate his perspective in its most important aspects.
There are people who do understand Krishnamurti fully, but these few already had this understanding through their own efforts, and were developed enough in their consciousness to be able to listen to him and comprehend him.
Krishnamurti's teaching, although it is simple, elegant and true, proves to be not relevant to most of the people who listen to him. They cannot understand him, because they need to understand many other things about themselves and their minds before they can even relate to what he says. His words do not penetrate them, his teaching does not relate to their personal lives. Many of them understand him intellectually, but that is not a real understanding, and they believe what he says, but it does not transform them.
Krishnamurti says his teaching is simple and direct. He has said that a person can listen to him and understand him, and be transformed right there, before leaving the lecture hall. This is all very true, but it is simple and direct only to Krishnamurti's own perception. The state he is describing is experienced as simple. It is simple, and ordinary, and very near to the individual. It is, in fact, the very nature of awareness: simple, empty, clear.
But his teaching does not take into account the state of consciousness of most of his listeners. Their minds are preoccupied with other things, are full of all kinds of concerns and conflicts that they are not about to give up. These concerns and conflicts make up not only their lives but their very identities. They cannot therefore just be simply aware.
Krishnamurti is in fact asking his listeners nothing less than to give up their ego and their sense of self identity. But there is a lot involved in this sense of self and much of it is unconscious, not available to awareness. It is the sense of self that still governs the mind, the movement of thoughts, the focus of attention.
Not only is it not easy for the listener to understand Krishnamurti, the average student cannot take Krishnamurti seriously. If the listener searches his mind and heart, he will most likely see that he is not concerned with what Krishnamurti talks about, that he does not see how it relates directly to his own experience. It is true that Krishnamurti talks about such things as fear, and these are concerns of everybody, but what he says about it is not in the realm of most people's experience. An individual can, at most, see that Krishnamurti makes sense, that his discourses are logical, but minds and hearts do not operate according to logic and common sense. Powerful forces operate in the depths of the mind, forces which must be understood first, or they will always prevent the individual from seeing the simple truth in Krishnamurti's teaching.
He might appreciate the simple and elegant truth of Krishnamurti's teaching, but his ego is usually not able to tolerate such simplicity. So, he ends up believing it only intellectually. The depths of his unconscious do not get touched. In fact, Krishnamurti's teaching is experienced by such an individual as alien to his best interests. This is true for most people if they are really honest with themselves. There is no reason for the listener to believe that the condition Krishnamurti talks about is desirable or that it will bring about his salvation. He outwardly agrees with Krishnamurti that emptiness and egoless awareness are wonderful, but inwardly he does not really know that Buddha said the same thing about emptiness and passive awareness, so that tends to support Krishnamurti's discourses, but it does not really touch the listener's heart. There is nothing in the person's experience that will make him really and truly believe Krishnamurti. Emptiness and passive awareness—regardless of how many enlightened masters have attested to its power and freedom—are only words for the listener. At most he can associate a vacuity with it. And why should he value this sense of vacuity or nothingness? No part of his experience tells him he should, so in his unconscious he rejects emptiness regardless of how much he believes in it consciously. Krishnamurti's teaching about the necessity of understanding the search so that the search will end, is cogent and useful. However, regardless of how much sense it makes to the mind of the listener, his heart most likely will not respond to such a teaching.
So why do people continue for many years following Krishnamurti, pursuing this state which he embodies and speaks about? The answer might be that there is in the students attracted to such a teacher, some inkling, some hint of the state of clarity and pure awareness. Krishnamurti's discourses bring this clarity more strongly into his listener's presence. The student is seeking his own clarity, so to speak, and since Krishnamurti is clear, the student believes that Krishnamurti can show him the way to it. But as we have noted, nothing is done for or about the enormous baggage of mind, emotion, self-image, etc, which the student believes to be his identity. Furthermore, Krishnamurti's teaching is not merely about clarity, which is desirable to many. His concern is about selfless or centerless awareness, which is usually unfathomable to most of his listeners.
The individual first needs to have learned a great deal about life and about his own mind for him to come close to understanding or appreciating the simple and beautiful teachings of Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti's teachings will be useful and appropriate for the individual who has refined his consciousness to such a degree that he starts seeing his ego or sense of self as alien to his best interests. Then, and only then, will Krishnamurti's insights be instantly transformative.
Krishnamurti is talking about himself, his experience, his state, and is genuinely trying to communicate it to others. Although his experience is that of freedom, it is not close to most people's experience of themselves. Even though they can appreciate the words they hear, it will be difficult for them to relate to the actual experience itself. He is not taking into consideration his listeners' situations, their minds, their levels of development, and states of consciousness.
Krishnamurti's consistent personal experience is of emptiness and its pure awareness, its freedom and its truth. He has known it for most of his life. By now it is his mind. It is he, himself, so it is what he speaks. A master's teaching is always an expression of himself. If he embodies freedom, then he speaks of freedom. It is not that Krishnamurti does not listen to his students. It is not that he does not understand them. But let us say he understands them within the framework of his own experience, from his own perspective. And that perspective of his, a perspective of pure awareness, of emptiness, of freedom from the mind, is a perspective that most of his listeners cannot relate to.
As we have seen, a master speaking to a student from his own perspective is not enough for effective teaching. Much more is needed, much more must be taken into consideration. Some teachers do understand this, and attempt to take the student's individual situation into account. But even then it is difficult for a teacher to disengage from his own state of consciousness and to tailor his perspective to the needs of his student.
Bhagwan Rajneesh, for example, seems to understand Krishnamurti's predicament, and tries to take the levels of consciousness into consideration. He knows the state that Krishnamurti teaches, but he knows that most people cannot relate to it. So he gives many different practices, and different kinds of discourses relevant to the different personalities and the various states of consciousness, and in this way tries to remedy the situation we are discussing.
However, we observe here too it is difficult for him to disengage completely from his own state of consciousness. Although he discourses on all kinds of topics, his main emphasis is always the loss of ego boundaries or the loss of the sense of ego and its separateness. He connects all practices and all teachings ultimately to the state of ego death. In fact, all his discourses are delivered from the perspective of a certain state of consciousness, that of cosmic or divine consciousness. His title, itself, is “Bhagwan,” “The Divine,” and he is a beautiful embodiment of this divine state. So his teaching is a teaching of the state of egoless divine consciousness. All his discourses are imbued with this level of realization. This consciousness gives his discourses their beauty and their universality.
As we have mentioned, Rajneesh offers various practices in order to reach his audience. But we have also noticed that when he discourses it is his own personal state which dominates, his own personal state which is communicated. He cannot discourse without his own state being the one communicated. This is a situation all spiritual teachers face. We have mentioned Rajneesh as an example, to consider this difficulty. The fact that the teacher's state is wonderful and his teachings are beautiful, does not guarantee effectiveness and success. The student might need something else.
Ultimately, it is true, the student needs to arrive at this state of egoless cosmic consciousness, for this is a stage on the way to liberation. But, this state might be irrelevant for him at the time regardless of how beautiful it looks on his guru. The student might need to see and learn a state of solid will, for example, because he happens to be in need of resolving his issues, his life situations, that are centered around the aspect of will. It is true the individual will have to learn to let his ego boundaries dissolve and let go of his sense of individuality. But how can he let go of his sense of individuality until he knows he has one? First he will need to see that he has individuality; he has to see and understand what individuality is before he can let go of it. He also needs to see how his ideas about individuality and his holding onto them lead to suffering. He has to see that his sense of individuality and his attachment to his sense of self do not lead to fulfillment and are not syntonic to his harmony or peace of mind.
An individual who is working to achieve ego death will be stymied in his endeavors if he does not first see very clearly and very definitely what ego is. Ego boundaries will first have to become ego-alien. The fact that a student intellectually believes that he needs to lose his ego, does not mean that he does believe it in the depths of his heart. In the depths of his heart he does not understand why he needs to let go of ego boundaries. The issue does not seem relevant to his mind, to his heart to his life situation. In fact, ego death is a meaningless thing unless a very high and refined level of inner realization is reached. Ego is not seen as the issue until the individual is close to the state of cosmic consciousness.
Rajneesh understands this when he says a person must develop an individuality before he can surrender it. In his discussion of the psychology of the esoteric, he speaks of seven levels of consciousness in what he calls the seven bodies. In this system, he sees the fifth level as that of crystallized individuality. This fifth body, which he calls the spiritual body, first needs to be developed. Then the issue of loss of ego becomes relevant to the individual. He also mentions that the most difficult stage to achieve is that of the fifth body, the spiritual individuality, and once this is achieved, the transition to cosmic consciousness is not difficult
This means that most people first need to develop the fifth level before the state that Rajneesh embodies can be most effective and transformative. So the state the student needs to see and learn is that of the fifth body, and a teacher who can embody this state of consciousness and operate from it will be most effective, for this state will then be communicated to the students who require it. It will be the fulfillment of their exact personal need at the moment
It is our assumption here that the development of certain capacities and virtues on the material emotional mental and essential levels is desirable, and perhaps necessary, for the individual who seeks to attain the enlightened state promised by the various teachings we are examining here. Examples of such qualities we have referred to in this discussion are value, strength and will
Buddhist, Sufi and Christian teachings often enumerate qualities considered as desirable to embody—love, humility, truth, for example. Here of course the same problem we have been addressing again arises: the student cannot voluntarily choose at an arbitrary moment to manifest humility, for example, until it is appropriate for his development, and until pride is experienced as ego-alien. (This matter is more fully discussed in Chapter Three.)
To put the matter conversely, the lack of such qualities, capacities and virtues constitutes a barrier to a person's realization. This is because their presence is actually normal in an optimally developed person, and their absence is always felt (often unconsciously) as a deficiency. In virtually every case, then, a significant part of one's motivation for spiritual seeking is to fill those felt deficiencies. Thus a teacher who is able to support a student in developing the specific capacities he needs to confront both ordinary human and spiritual challenges on the path, will be more effective than one who perceives and teaches only from a more “sublime” perspective.
This leads us to an important principle: the effective teacher will concern himself not only with the personal situation of the student, but optimally will also be able to embody and manifest the exact consciousness needed at the time by the particular student. The student needs to contact the teachings of the state of consciousness that is the exact resolution for his situation at the time. If the student is at the time dealing with issues of strength and weakness, for example, it will be inappropriate to try to teach him about freedom from desire or about egoless awareness or even cosmic consciousness. The teaching will be alien to him and to his interests, and hence ineffective. He will see it as alien to his wellbeing. He will not see it as speaking to him in a way that is relevant to his particular situation.
Some systems of inner work have tried to deal with this difficulty. In the past few centuries, for instance, the Sufi order of Naqshbandis in the Middle East had connections with all other Sufi orders. They would send the student to the order or teacher most appropriate for the stage of development of that particular student. Then, when he had absorbed that aspect of the teaching, he would be sent elsewhere to learn other things he needed for his ultimate development and liberation. Another system which has utilized a similar method is that of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet. In various disciplines there have always existed a few teachers who are developed enough to manifest whatever state of consciousness is needed by their students at any time. We will return to this point in the next chapter.
One thing we see here is that any teaching built around a particular method or even a particular state of consciousness is bound to be limited, and will be effective only for the people who happen to need that particular state of consciousness. No particular method or particular state of consciousness can be applied universally to all people. This point is rarely heeded by either students or teachers, and ignorance of it always leads to frustration and waste.
For an example, we can take the systems or teachings formulated around devotion and surrender. A disciple is asked to surrender to his guru or to God. Some people have a need, at a given state, to practice surrender and devotion, and thus can benefit from systems emphasizing surrender. But even then the teachings are not really efficient. This is because surrender is a state of consciousness that requires much understanding and much preparation. Not only that, surrender can become ego-syntonic at one time, and not at another. The individual who is learning to assert himself because he was always weak and submissive should not be expected to view surrender as something syntonic to his best interests. In fact, his problem is that he surrenders too easily, out of self-deficiency, in a superficial way which is neither true nor real. As Rajneesh has said, an individual first needs to have a sense of self that is precious and for which he worked long and hard before he can surrender it; otherwise, what is he going to surrender? If he has no self, then he cannot give anything, to guru or to God. And, if he has a weak sense of self, then his surrender is vacuous. He is not really surrendering. A weak ego cannot surrender; it can only submit
Even if surrender is understood as surrender to experience, it is not realistic to ask a student to surrender, because for most people, surrender, which is felt as being without defenses, means getting hurt. As children, people had the capacity for surrendering to their experience. Their hearts were open. But that openness did not bring about fullness and pleasure. The child, without defenses, was repeatedly hurt in that openness. Therefore openness of heart and surrender of defenses are usually equated in the unconscious with vulnerability, and this brings up the memory and fears of deep hurt. These fears, these associations with surrender, need to be understood and resolved before the individual can experience surrender as syntonic; otherwise surrender is seen as threatening, as contrary to what is best for him.
It is an unskillful tactic for a teacher to insist that a student surrender. The student may then try to surrender—but he is simply submitting to a superego demand. A more useful and compassionate approach is to help the student understand his fear of surrender and his resistance to it.
Also, when a student is expected to surrender to God or to reality, the question arises, why should he do this? He does not know what God or reality is. He hears that it is good and wonderful. His guru tells him that surrendering will bring about the experience of pure love and benevolence, but he has no personal knowledge of this. What he does know through personal experience is that surrender means pain.
He must first have some experience of surrender, and some exposure to sublime reality, before he can trust enough to let go of what is actually keeping him from this reality. When he has some taste, some experience of this reality, then surrender will become syntonic to his own aspirations. When he sees and tastes the love, beauty, and the grandeur of reality, then he cannot but surrender. At the very least, he will long to surrender.
A teacher who expects his students to surrender without regard to their personal situation, without helping them deal with their conflicts around surrender, is like a priest who expounds on selfless brotherly love to his assembly and then expects his listeners to behave from that perspective, and is disappointed if they do not. A Christian might consciously believe in the value of Christ-love, but he really has no experience, not even the vaguest idea, of what this means. He cannot act on it because he does not know what it is.
Most Christians have no experiential basis for believing in selfless love. Why should they be selfless? They do not know, do not understand why this is a good thing. Such a Christian's mind and heart neither understand nor believe in selfless love. He does not believe it because he has no personal evidence that it is desirable. He cannot see that selflessness leads to freedom. Instead he sees selflessness as loss, loss of what he cherishes and desires.
There is much talk about selfless love, selfless giving, selfless existence and so on. But the majority of human kind does not know what “selfless” means, let alone that it might be a beneficial state.
Since most people do not even know what it means to have a self, how can they know what it is to be selfless? So, when we preach selfless love, we are not communicating to most people. We are not taking into account how they think and live. This is inconsiderate, for to them, selfless love and selfless existence are quite alien, both in their minds and their experience.
The development and realization of selfless love, of Christ-consciousness, will liberate the individual, will bring about fulfillment. Christ's understanding of human suffering is very deep and true; his solution is universal. But it is not an easy thing to understand, to learn or to embody. Many things have to be learned first. Many things have to be developed in the soul before Christ-consciousness becomes possible to see. And then more inner work and refinement is needed before selfless love arises.
The issue of self or no-self does not become a personal issue for the student until he is near the end of his inner development and spiritual growth. Before that point, the question of self and no-self will be experienced as irrelevant.
Buddha saw that many people around him were very conscious and highly developed spiritually, but were still suffering; their realization had not freed them completely. He saw this for himself too. And only at this point did the issue of self or no-self become important to him. Solving this issue was his final accomplishment, the acme of his realization and his contribution to humanity.
This illustration demonstrates that for a teaching to demand selflessness of the beginning or even intermediate student is ridiculous, or at best, ineffective.
So we reach our final understanding, that some important factors contributing to the problem of effective spiritual teaching are those of communication, appropriateness, and most importantly, the fit of teaching and student. In general, we see that neither the average individual in the world nor the student on a chosen path is generally addressed by spiritual teachings in ways that make sense to them. Their minds, their situations and their states of consciousness are almost never taken into consideration. They are presented with teachings that they can only see as alien to their experience, as contrary to their well-being. So even the seeking student cannot really make the teachings his personal concern, because he does not see how they relate to him or to his life. And the average person can see no reason to look more deeply into the teachings.
If we do not make the teaching our own, if we cannot apply it to our lives, then the teaching cannot work for us, regardless of how deep, true or sublime it is.