E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
Author: David Christopher Lane Publisher: Alt.religion.eckankar Publication date: 1995
E-mail David Christopher Lane
directly at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I
want to go back to the home base now.
The Modus Operandi Behind The Cerebral Fireworks Display
Dietrich in a recent post raises four basic objections against the "Kirpal Statistic" (the idea that anybody can act as a conduit for eliciting inner experiences in would-be disciples, chelas, or students). I have argued that almost anybody can have inner experiences of light and sound and that we have a tendency to impute power on behalf of our chosen gurus when, in fact, it is our own neurology (or, to be generous, our higher structural potentials) which allows for such mystial excursions. In sum, we need the belief in outer guides to generate enough catalystic stimulus to "juice" up our own neuroanatomies in order to behold wondrous lights and sounds. We need "pictures", so to say, to ejaculate our hitherto undiscovered universes.
Now this does not mean that the experiences may not be useful, helpful, or even "higher." What it does mean is that we are essentially responsible for our mystical excursions, and that the guru is merely a means by which we lubricate an already pre-existing program that lies within our central nervous system (or, if you wish, our own astral/causal/soul bodies).
I see no evidence to suggest that gurus really are transmitting "shakti" or "shabd" or "radiant energy" (though undoubtedly certain gurus work better as catalysts, just as certain models--male or female--cause more "oohs and ahhs"). Faqir Chand once mentioned that if you put a criminal up as a guru and firmly believed he/she was God, you would derive almost the same results as you would with any other holy man. Why? Because it is our belief which is driving the neurological machinery, not the guru in question.
To be sure, it really does help to believe that the guru has power, just as it really does help one masturbate to pictures if he/she thinks the image is more than just an image. Forgive my crude analogy, but it is such an obvious one that it strikes right at the core of the problem... What gets us sexually excited is structurally quite similar to what gets us spiritually excited: the belief in the beauty of the other or the attractiveness of the other. But all along we are doing this to ourselves. The cliche may be too worn to use again, but it does work in this regard: beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Or, in our example, the "guru's power lies in the perception of the beholder."
It is that perception, self-generated as it may be, which is the real modus operandi behind inner experiences. Gurus like Kirpal Singh and others simply plugged into this fact and utilized it in their initiations and meditation sittings.
To say that "only people with previous life experiences" are able to see inner light and sound today begs a key epistemological question: "how do you know that? and are you sure that you are correct?"
Secondly, to say that saints give experiences of light and sound to those who have never seen or heard such things before overlooks the glaring fact that people from all over the world see and hear wonderful things.... even people who have never heard of Sant Mat or Radhasoami or any other Light and Sound ism....
And finally, to say that the master guides the inner soul and the like again begs a key question: how do we know that? Are we absolutely sure of this, or could there be a plethora of other explanations?
No doubt, there may be many answers, but let us not succumb to projecting more power onto gurus when the real power may simply lie within our own neuroanatomies.
E-mail The Neural Surfer directly
at dlane@weber.ucsd.edu
I want to go back to the home base now.
