Alchemy or Fool’s Gold?

I'm always on the lookout for good spiritual teachers, but never for a guru.

I don't trust people who want to be treated like they are some kind of god, while treating me like some kind of personal foot-kisser.

Most foot-kissers just come up in the end with nothing but a mouthful of dirt, rather than a nugget of spiritual gold, while the "guru" takes off on clean feet with your gold.

But life is full of lessons and maybe that's one that a foot-kisser has to learn before they can move on in the journey?

'Breaking Bad' Jasun?!

Jasun Horsley over at his 'Auticulture' blog wrote a very timely (or should that be timeless?) piece mining for answers ... and he included a shot of Walter White (Heisenberg) from the TV show 'Breaking Bad', which I happen to be watching for the first time (I'm halfway through season 4 right now).

Communities of the Abandoned: How to Tell Pyrite from Gold on the Spiritual Market?
Jasun writes in that post -

"At the heart of my distaste for these postmodernist, self-appointed fashion gurus is, no doubt, not a feeling of envy but one of “ancient” (primal) betrayal.

Whatever infant wounding I reenacted with John de Ruiter and Whitley Strieber, I continue to reenact in miniature fashion every time I stumble upon the latest piece of socio-spiritual skulduggery.

There are unresolved issues in my psyche that cause me to see red at the first whiff of spiritual power-abuses.

But right next to this visceral reaction is, I think, a genuine soul-response: the imperative to say No to reality distortion in order to say Yes to reality.

There’s really no reason to reject pyrite unless you are looking for gold.

And I have been looking for gold long enough to feel fairly confident in my abilities to identify the stuff of fools.
Some might argue that you can’t judge a book by its cover or an awakened being by his “superficial” behaviors.

Isn’t it better to give the benefit of the doubt than jump to conclusions?

I admit to having a knee-jerk reaction to these people, which is the opposite of measured and clear perception.

Fact is, as a seeker, over-exposure to spiritual hypocrisies has instilled in me the desire to create an impenetrable filter to prevent any more radiation from getting through."

Whitley's no guru,
but I like most of his books

I agree with Jasun about book-covers, but even foolish books can have a nugget or two of real spiritual gold in them.

Be Here Now ... Again

The Third Eye?

I want to live
I want to give
I've been a miner
for a heart of gold
It's these expressions
I never give
That keep me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

I've been to Hollywood
I've been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean
for a heart of gold
I've been in my mind
it's such a fine line
That keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching
for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

Keep me searching
for a heart of gold
You keep me searching
And I'm growing old
Keep me searching
for a heart of gold
I've been a miner
for a heart of gold

"The actual truth, perhaps, is that there is no consistent individual self or “doer,” only a series of actions, and that no “one” of us can ever be consistently one thing or another, only the sum total of all our actions (and then some).

But the way we are conditioned to perceive and receive others is on this basis (the belief that people are individuals), and to be honest, I don’t even know how to perceive otherwise.

Maybe that’s the real problem here, and what this post should be addressing.

On the other hand, maybe it is addressing it, since a guru can only become such by allowing people to perceive him or her as not only having but being a personal connection to the divine.

Such a context makes it difficult to perceive such individuals as anything besides all-good, or all-bad."

I guess people like Jasun and I have to keep searching, but be cautious when we see people dangling spiritual carrots on sticks?