| EVALUATING
THE SUCCESS
RATES
of
SPIRITUAL TEACHERS
an excerpt from
Spiritual
Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
by
Jed McKenna
Talk about it:
info@livereal.com
"How long has your guru been
teaching?"
"Well, uh, over thirty years."
"And how many of his students have achieved enlightenment?"
"Well, uh..."
"That you know of personally?"
"Well, uh, I never..."
"That you've heard of?"
"It's not"
"That there were rumors of?"
"I don't think..."
"What is it they're doing, Martin? The recipe for enlightenment
they're promoting - what is it?"
"Uh, well, meditation and knowledge, basically."
"And in thirty years they've
never held someone up and said, 'Look at this guy! He's enlightened
and we got him there!' In thirty years, they don't have one?
Don't you think they should have, like, an entire army of
enlightened guys to show off by now?"
"Well, it's not..."
"After thirty years they should have a few dozen generations
of enlightened people. Even with only a quarter of them becoming
teachers, they should have flooded the world by now, mathematically
speaking, don't you think? I'm not asking all this as a teacher
myself, mind you. I'm just asking as a consumer, or a consumer's
advocate. Don't you think it's reasonable to ask to know a
teacher's success rate? The proof is in the pudding, right?
Didn't you ask them about the fruit of their teachings when
you started with them?"
"Well, that's not..."
"Don't you think it's reasonable to ask? They're in
the enlightenment business, aren't they? Or did I misunderstand
you? Do they have something else going?"
"Nooo, but they..."
"If Consumer Reports magazine did a report on which
spiritual organizations delivered as promised, don't you suppose
that the first statistic listed under each organization would
be success rating? Like, here are a hundred randomly selected
people who started with the organization five years ago and
here's where they are today. For instance, thirty-one have
moved up in the organization, twenty-seven have moved on,
thirty-nine are still with it but not deeply committed and
three have entered abiding non-dual awareness. Okay, three
percent - that's a number you can compare. But this organization
of yours would have big fat goose egg, wouldn't they? And
not just out of a hundred, but out of hundreds of thousands
- millions, probably. Am I wrong?
an excerpt from
Spiritual
Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing
by
Jed McKenna
Talk about it:
info@livereal.com
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