The Man and the Master

tween the man and the master was the whole point. But the fusion of the man and the master is one of the core fallacies of the mythic guru model. It often occurs quite naturally and almost impercepti- bly, because being awake to the Transcendental Brightness of en- lightenment is so extraordinarily powerful, whole, full and perfect that it’s not a big leap at all, for those fortunate enough to receive this ultimate gift, to assume that they are indeed perfected human beings with unquestionable wisdom – just as traditional lore has it. At Manifest Nirvana, we view the spiritual master as possess- ing a dual nature. Every true guru is simultaneously a relative body-mind personality with unique talents and deficiencies, and an enlightened being with a significant degree of stabilization in enlightened awareness. Enlightened awareness itself is perfection. But there is no way around the fact that the master always expresses himself through a relative personality structure that is, and will always be, imperfect. Human perfection – so much is clear - is unattainable. Like every human being, the master remains engaged in a continuous process of development and improvement - broadening his capacities and actualizing new growth potentials. And thus, the master’s expres- sion of the enlightened state is therefore, paradoxically, always colored and shaped by the condition of the body-mind of the man, both gifts and flaws included, while at the same time, at the deep- est possible level, it is also a direct transmission of the uncorrupt- ed purity and perfection of the transcendental essence of Reality Itself. An authentic master, because he is rooted in this Source Condition, is able to transmit a powerful measure of its inherent purity, brightness, and brilliance to his students – and to this day this remains the most precious gift the true guru brings to the spiri- tual process. At Manifest Nirvana we fully honor both these truths: the guru’s enlightened divinity and the reality of his necessarily imperfect humanity. The evolutionary gain that has emerged from distinguish- ing more precisely between the man and the master is that it has liberated the guru-principle from the mythic absolutism in which it has historically been locked up. It has become clear that the ancient presumption that the guru’s role is to exercise full author- ity over every single aspect of the student’s life belongs to an era long gone. Differentiating between the man and the master has resulted in a more nuanced approach to enacting the guru-student relationship – one that refines our understanding of the purview of the guru’s authority, and simultaneously empowers the student’s autonomy in ways that were not addressed within the ancient guru model. So where exactly does the genuine authority of the guru lie? The realization of the True Self, and all matters related to that process, is the area where you can trust the guru more than you can trust yourself. It is where you surrender to the guru, and where you relate to him or her with reverence and humility, always remember- ing that the Transcendental Divine Reality is what you have yet to realize. And so, this is the domain where the authority of the guru remains unquestioned. But even a profoundly enlightened master is not necessarily qualified to help you advance in the wide range of developmental potentials belonging to the relative domain of our human lives – such as your cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, log- ical-mathematical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, psy- cho-sexual intelligence, aesthetic intelligence, or any other kind of human growth capacity – unless she has also mastered any of these particular areas herself. And so, the actual authority, power, and jurisdiction of the guru needs to be restricted to the areas in which she is proficient. Simply put: it should mirror her actual expertise. As the purview of the guru’s authority is being reexam- ined, new space has opened up for students to take more auton- omous, self-initiated responsibility for their own developmental process. Rather than submitting every aspect of their lives to a single all-knowing authority, as was characteristic of the mythic guru model, today’s students freely determine how much trust they are ready to invest in their guru and how far they wish to go in their journey of spiritual awakening and transformation - even as they are still lovingly invited and wholeheartedly encouraged to embrace this process to its fullest extent. This relationship mod- el, where the extent of the guru’s authority is determined by the degree of trust the student is willing to invest, is more suitable for our postmodern era, as it places the basic responsibility for the student’s spiritual development in their own hands. The end re- sult is a more balanced and mature relationship, based on mutual trust between two cooperating adults. And this, we suggest, is a significant, as well as an empowering, evolutionary gain that has emerged from distinguishing between the man and the master. And thus, integrating the authority of the guru and the auton- omy of the student, by giving each its rightful place to shine in its own unique domain, captures the new flavor of the guru-student relationship we are exploring at Manifest Nirvana.