Saturday, January 29, 2011

Satsang

Satsang is Sanskrit and means to sit in company with the highest truth or to sit in company with a Guru. The Guru lectures and his devotees are listening in awe, then he answerers questions.

Human beings are pack animals. We are like chimpanzees. We are lost without a leader. We have lived in groups with leaders for maybe two hundred thousand years. This way of living has proved to be an efficient evolutionary strategy. Together with leaders, we were strong. Loners didn’t make it and they didn’t get any offspring.

However, the coin has also a backside. Because the majority is following the leader blindly, a mad and power-hungry leader can lead them to hell if he wants to. Hitler is of course the best example, but also many religious leaders, cult leaders, CEOs and politicians have created tons and tons of miseries because of their mad craving for more power and our inborn tendency to follow anyone who takes the lead.

Nothing is more important today, as I see things, in this stage of the evolution, than to stop following leaders. When we lived in small groups of hunters and gatherers, a mad leader wasn’t able to create too much damage. Today, with all kind of weapons of mass destruction the leaders are our greatest danger. Today we have to learn how to think our own thoughts. It’s not easy and it’s not always pleasant but it’s important.

Therefore, today, if we meet together to discuss the highest truth, the Guru should be dethroned. We urgently need to learn how to be together without following a leader. This is very important. To build a bridge or an airplane we need leaders who know how to do it but in spiritual matters, we are all equal. Priests, mullahs and preachers belong to the past. We are all on the same level now, at the beginners’ level.

There are also many female Gurus on the market but this makes no difference. No one should follow what any spiritual teacher say, male or female. And no one should sit on a throne and lecture others from above. If you can’t accept that we are all equal, if you insist to sit at the feet of a Guru, you are still living in the old world. You are then not yet awakened.

The truth will not set you free

If you are sincere in your search for the truth,
you will eventually come to a place
where you are able to see the cruelty of life clearly.

To put up with this unintended discovery
you will now have to find a drug,
a tranquilizer, a religion, a belief system, a hobby
or some other form of delusion that can carry you through
or you will have to kill yourself.
It is too hard to see things clearly.
You don’t need the truth.