100% and Cancellation

100% and Cancellation

116th Edition

Happy Spiritual Monday

This past week I had a conversation with a friend which covered a wide swathe of topics; from beautiful locations, to setting things right with old friends and beyond. One of the topics we discussed revolved around teachers and those who we hold in high regard, but more specifically, how they can fall from grace in a moment of weakness.

Before I begin to expand, I want to wish a Happy US Father’s day to my Dad, my Step Dad, My Brothers with children and all brothers who are doing dad life. You’re all doing a fantastic job, and I wish you love and ease on your journeys.

Pedestals

In line with fathers, many of us have father figures in our life - or mother figures. Whether our actual parents or our adopted/ assumed parent figures, we often place those we look up to on a pedestal of some sort. We do this naturally because we look up to people, it’s natural. This is a literal placement for us to look up and see them, hear them, learn from them.

What tends to happen with this act, is that once we have placed someone on a pedestal, we begin to immortalise them, in that we expect them to be perfect, better than human, flawless. This is where things get dangerous, because nobody can live up to such expectation.

In my time spent in the field of yoga, the guru was seen as he or she who held the attainment of the great mysteries and practices. I’ve seen many men ascend to guru status, and many more try to. There have been so many students, teachers, followers who have become devotees to these gurus and in doing so, they turn a blind eye to certain aspects of humanity.

Often these guru figures live pure lives, help many people, speak with sagely wisdom and share their spiritual practices and philosophies with those who choose to listen. In the same way that social media has given us a snapshot of the best side of people and gotten us to believe that is who they are, we forget there are other aspects to the character within the guru.

In the past decade, several big name gurus/ teachers/ people have been found to have slipped up, often in a sexually inappropriate manner or with regard to some substance use/ abuse. I am not here to defend this action, or to applaud it, I am simply sharing that it has occurred, and offering a perspective.

When someone is on the pedestal, they can be tipped off very easily, much like a precious vase may be displayed in a home, but easy knocked off by a dog or a child by mistake. When we believe these beings to be purer than pure, better than human, we all feel let down when it occurs that they are in fact human and are subject to human tendencies.

This is seen as the fall of a great, a fall from grace of sorts. It is a terrible day for the devotees who “believed in them”, those who “feel hurt by them” and who don’t know how to cope.

The Lesson vs The Delivery

In this way, it often occurs that someone who may have devoted a certain portion of their life and attention to the teachings of a certain person might immediately cease to adhere to anything they have previously learned, for fear that it might indicate their association to/with that person and their acts. They don’t want to be associated with the heinous things which have come to light, even if the previous decade or more has been ripe with sincerely positive guidance and wisdom.

The new term coined for such a thing could be Cancel Culture, where someone who goes against the norm of society gets cancelled from society, or gets blacklisted and smeared.

In today’s world, we seem to moving into more division, more separation and polarisation of ideas, thoughts - a true divide and conquer act. As we become more and more discriminatory, we become more and more bitter, angry, sad.

Let me restate - I do not condone inappropriate behaviour in anyone, but we have to temper our expectations for the humans we choose to listen to.

It is a well known fact that those who govern the world are more and more becoming professional con men and women, well paid actors who practice deception and are excellently skilled at speaking for lengths without saying anything of substance. These are who we refer to as the “Leaders of our world”. Most of them are regular perpetrators of heinous acts, more and more of which is coming to light in recent years in a way such that we are desensitised to it. It is simply expected, because no soul in their right mind would want to assume such power over others that they would ascend the ranks into politics.

Simply put, we almost expect anyone at the government stage to be slimy in some respect, so when they are shown to actually be, we just nod and say “well, that’s terrible but what are you gonna do?”

When someone has taken up a more noble path, we scrutinise them with a microscope and expect better - maybe it’s warranted, but that’s not the point I am to present here.

My point is that we have bigger value in everyone’s words and actions than just their short comings.

I’ll go back to the example of yoga, for it makes a bit more sense here.

Let’s pick a hypothetical western guru in the yogic arts, Ram Doe. Let’s pretend he has years, maybe decades of history of incredible insights and teachings, which have helped millions of people find peace in their lives and happiness in their days.

Then one day it comes to light that he has had some affairs with students. We didn’t expect him to do such a thing and we are appalled. He is blacklisted, and we don’t want to utter his name again. We try to move on as if it never happened.

But we forget the impact he had on us directly. His teachings may have been the skeleton key for our life turning out great, and yet we are poised to dismiss him in entirety for one action that we did not agree with, when in actual fact, we never really knew his whole life at all anyway! I mean, who do we really know for sure? We kid ourselves and believe we know celebrities because they do exposés, interviews, share some aspects of their being, but we don’t know them or what they do behind closed doors.

The point is that they may have made a mistake, but they had a track record of wins previously.

100%

No one will ever 100% agree with another person on every single topic, it is simply not possible. Even though we use the phrase 100% often, I feel it to be more of a slang than a statement. Sounds pretty, compelling, strong… but it isn’t real.

In knowing that even our best friends will not agree with us on 100% of every issue, should we discount the value they do give to us?

Many of the teachers I have respected have both given valuable lessons for my life, as well as committed acts of the like I would say are appalling. I have been guilty of cancelling them in my mind, but I share everything above as an offer to reconsider.

We can be so easily blinded by a mistake that we overlook the gold, but if we are honest with ourselves, we aren’t necessarily perfect angels anyway! I have a long list of things I have done in my life which I am not proud of, some I’m disgusted by in honesty, but I did them, I have grown and I move forward. I am proud of the positive effort I have put forth and shared with people around me.

Lastly, if we find ourselves in harsh judgement of those around us, what does it say about our own inner judgement? Many of us look down on ourselves in a severe manner, and it is reflected outwardly towards those who are “caught” for their acts.

Regardless of the delivery man, what if we could see the gold in the message? It’s important not to discount someone’s value for a mistake, and I firmly believe we could all reassess the relations around us and our connections to those who maybe we once respected and now have let go.

Everyone is fighting battles we know nothing about, so have compassion and seek the gold. We don’t curse the dirt surrounding a nugget of gold when we dig it up, do we?

And so it is, with love.

PS: I had the pleasure of getting back on the tools in facilitating a sound journey this weekend, and it has inspired me to offer a more immersive experience with a couple dear brothers. I am curious to  hear from anyone who would be interested in spending 3-4 days in immersion - not retreat - with me and some powerful facilitators, and have created an expression of interest form here if you have 2 spare minutes.