"The guardians of the inner circle were thus the only ones who knew the full picture of what was going on. This gave them an incredible feeling of power and responsibility"Disciple of Adi Da, another guru who pursued female disciples and needed enablers.
If someone has pure view, he would be having sex with everyone, old, young, homely attractive, rich, poor, all species, because to a being with Pure View all beings are deserving, not just young women who fit ego driven erotic preferences of an already married older man who has to shave to hide his grey hairs.
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When looking at lamas like this, I always remember the teachings of streamwinner, once returner, non-returner and arahant within Theravada. Someone can be a non-returner, very highly spiritually realised, can have broken six of the ten fetters and weakened the last four, and yet still have an addiction to power. So it is very important to realise that someone can be both very highly realised and abusive at the same time. All religions agree on this. It is also important to realise that there is quite considerable latitude within Nyingmapa and Kargyu. Tecahers are supposed not to be bound by conventional morality.
Corboy: I dont buy this. Am just a private citizen, and am not a teacher.
Men want to do it and not feel guilty, period. Or if they dont want to do it themselves, they get a kick out of justifying the right some other fellow to do it whenever and to whomever he wants, enjoying the other fellow's rooster like behavior at a safe and vicarious remove.
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When looking at lamas like this, I always remember the teachings of streamwinner, once returner, non-returner and arahant within Theravada. Someone can be a non-returner, very highly spiritually realised, can have broken six of the ten fetters and weakened the last four, and yet still have an addiction to power. So it is very important to realise that someone can be both very highly realised and abusive at the same time. All religions agree on this. It is also important to realise that there is quite considerable latitude within Nyingmapa and Kargyu. Tecahers are supposed not to be bound by conventional morality.
IMO, this all sounds like cherry picking to leave an easy escape hatch so a powerful lama or rinpoche can do what men have always done, but use dharma to justify it.
Ozzy Osbourne in his biography (
I am Ozzy)is so much more honest. He doesnt quote Dharma or invoke some exalted tradition. He simply said, he liked to do it cuz doing it felt good.
IMO even though these arguments are supposedly from old Tibetan traditions, they are tired old reasons for the rich and powerful to act on impulse. What makes this worse is that Buddhas teachings are perverted to justify the very lifestyle that Buddha abandoned when he left his life as a prince. Had using beautiful women been the rapid means to enlightement, Buddha could have remained in the palace. But he did not.
And he had promised in the Pari Nibbana sutta that he had taught all that was needed for liberation, and had held nothing back.
European feudal barons allegedly had the
droit du seigneur--the right for the baron to have first use of a newly wed wife of a serf before releasing her to her husband.
At least no attempt was made to strong arm Christianity into justifying this use of might making right. This was a mere exercise of power, and not claimed to give spiritual benefit to the baron or the poor ladies or their unhappy husbands.
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Personally I enjoyed many things about him, but basically did not like him. He accepted me as an old student of dharma and was respectful, as I was of him, but we grated on each other a bit. He does not accept being teased in the way Sogyal Rinpoche does.
Sogyal has a long record of sexually using his students. He is not exactly a quotable example.
The turbulence created by a teacher who sexually uses the bodies of his students will interfere with the equanimity needed to maintain a climate for dharma practice. Equanimity is one of the Brahma Viharas--four abodes needed to cultivate wisdom.
Two, the effort needed for students to
ignore or spinsophisticated rhetorical justification for the rooster-like behavior of Ole and other male teachers who supposedly do this without concealment and with alleged approval of thier wives--even to ignore and come up with ingenious and ingenuous reasons to justify violation of the Buddhist precepts is energy that is subtracted from Dharma practice.
Which brings us to what I term Devotional Enabling.
Such as Ole's wife allegedly sweetly enduring and permitting all this. THat is how she projected her image. Was she free to exhibit how she actually felt? You dont know that. You were helping her husband, the big strong brute with the power and clout. This was a visit to Australia, come and go. Was Hannah going to do anything else but put on a good 'game face' of the kind that wives have done for ages? (See the list of royalty married to wandering husbands below)
And the mental gymnastics (some call it thought criming, I call it cognitive
kama sutra) needed by students to justify the behavior of teachers such as Ole and Sogyal and Chogyam Trungpa...
Devotional Enabling--A Badge of Superior Attainment?"To them, telling the truth would have been the easy way out, and they even looked down on me when I advocated telling the truth, as if I were just not advanced enough to understand the subtleties of the art of devotional lying. "
An honorable, honest guru needs no enablers.Some might find life with an honorable and honest, scandal free guru to be boring.
Only a dishonest and abusive guru needs repeated apologists and needs a network of celebrity enablers. And a retinue of secret keepers
Adi Da was the first guru Ken Wilber endorsed--before he went on to endorse Andrew Cohen and Marc Gafni.
Broken Yogi, a former disciple of Adi Da, and a member of his inner circle has some most interesting things to say. That around Adi Da there developed a culture of
'devotional lying'.
The entire essay is worth reading. But I am going to cite this part
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As mentioned on the Daism site, the general policy in Adidam is that only good news gets reported, and this creates a culture of lies. It works both ways.
Adi Da is not supposed to hear bad news, so Adidam for years resembled a Stalinist cabal, where all the bad news was kept secret from the leader, and he was fed lie after lie about the glorious happiness of his loyal followers.
Likewise, people outside the inner circle were not to hear bad news or stories of Adida's abuse of both people around him, or his abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Or, if some such stories were to get out, they would be described in a "spiritual context".
(Corboy today, substitute 'Evolutionary context' or 'Integral context' or higher level teaching--guru yoga)
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In essence, only Good News was to get either in or out.
The guardians of the inner circle were thus the only ones who knew the full picture of what was going on. This gave them an incredible feeling of power and responsibility.
Lying to both sides of the community was taken to be a kind of sacred puja of service to God. Of course, the people became very twisted up and perverted inside by this life of lying, but they generally took pride in being able to "handle it".
Most devotees couldn't handle it.
I've had many conversations with inner circle people about this issue of lying, and it's kind of fascinating to hear people rationalize it. You would literally think that it was some kind of spiritual path to enlightenment to hear them describe it. To them it was almost the epitome of devotion to their Guru, because of the sacrifice it required on their part.
To them, telling the truth would have been the easy way out, and they even looked down on me when I advocated telling the truth, as if I were just not advanced enough to understand the subtleties of the art of devotional lying.
I would advocate telling Adi Da the truth about the community, and telling the community the truth about Adi Da, and on both counts was always shot down as hopelessly naive and "stuck on integrity". And I'm talking about conversations at the very highest levels of Adidam, not some local mid-level bureaucrat
.
So if you get a special charge out of being Keeper of Secrets, get a special charge from Devotional Enabling, you will find it too boring to be disciple of an honest scandal free guru.
Pay attention to what Broken Yogi wrote
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The guardians of the inner circle were thus the only ones who knew the full picture of what was going on. This gave them an incredible feeling of power and responsibility.
Today you could probably tell yourself that this tension is a sign that you are one of the Evolved, the special elite.
Problem is, to get that feeeeeling--you gotta have a guru or leader who has secrets to keep. Heavy duty secrets. And that means you need a scandal ridden guru. You need a guru who is hurting people.
To get that o so special tension of being enabler, you need a guru who has secrets to keep.
And that means a guru who needs a fresh supply of prey.
Do we have here an unspoken culture of devotional enabling in the upper reaches of Integralista World?
Something similar to the culture of devotional lying described by Broken Yogi, something that gave some inner circlers a power-rush-a power rush from feeling themselves the keeper of the secrets?
If leadership in Integralista World actually unconsciously need to act out the drama of devotional enabling, that means they need scandal prone gurus.
Gurus who dont generate scandal dont require enablers.
It may be that persons who crave the tension of enabling rude people and bullies would find life with honorable gurus to be boring.
And we have Wilber's infamous screed praising Rude gurus. He has never lived under the brutal authority of rude gurus. But---could it be that Wilber needs to befriend rude gurus because he has the need to endure the tension of coping with their scandals?
Compasson Olympics /
Victoria Cross for Scoundrel Apologetics?Its hard to find ways to see the pathos in a repeat abuser of power and trust. So to find that pathos showcases how very special and evolved the apologist is.
The scoundrel is the black velvet behind with the diamond of Devotional Enabling gleams yet more brightly--the misbehavior of the scoundrel showcases the sanctity of the devotional enabler who makes excuses yet again that the scoundrel deserves our pity and -- escape sanctions.
Do those who practice devotional enablng need and enjoy the feelings of lordly magnanimity generated by Ken finding reasons to preach that these scoundrels must be pitied and forgiven and deserve a wider, evolutionary perspective of compassion? Every time these characters create scandal, Ken can mount the pulpit as forgiving and saintly Pope of Integralism and showcase his talents for unconventional compassion.
Now look at Kenny's advice that persons troubled by Gafni behave with restraint, compassion and mercy.
Where's the advice to Gafni? Its the persons who already have functioning consciences who are told to exercise restraint.
The guy who has failed to excercise retraint isnt given this advice at all!
We are told to look carefully at this sitauation. If we follow Ken Wilbers advice this means intellectualizing it into vapor.
Ken is not a licensed mental health professional. He is not required by law to take CE classes on counter transferance. Ken Wilber has been a law unto himself for the past 30 years.
Actual mental health professionals at details. But unlike Ken Wilber and other guru/lama/rinpoche apologists they also look at how long the misbehavior has been perpetrated and whether the miscreant acts on naive impulse or has been planning and setting up multiple layers of complicity, arranging to attract and groom and give preferential attention to those who are attractive, vulnerable and easily mainipulated.
Here is a textbook on psychiatry and the law. Seeing and classifying patterns of behavior is important for it determins how likely someone is to be amenable to rehabilitation.
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Wives who endure the behavior of serial adulterers are a dime a dozen. If the adulterer is powerful and wealthy, he can afford attorneys in event of a divorce. The wife may be older, not have the energy for a long legal battle and may have spent years being emotionally battered into acquiescence. She may have burned her bridges and have no friends or relatives outside of the warped franchise her husband has created.
She may have grown used to a plush lifestyle and not know how on earth to live otherwise. Talking to a social worker or almoner about where to find a council flat may seem as hard to imagine as living on the moon.
The wives of Henry Edward IV, Edward VII, Henry VIII, James I and IV, Charles II, James II, William III, George I and George II, Francis I, Henry II, Charles IX, Henry IV,
Louis XIV and Louis XV all endured their husband's adulteries.
And these are the ones known to history. Many a wife has endured the intolerable without the added insult of the husband claiming that his wandering gaze is part of some sort of enlightened activity.
If having lots of women and glamour were the way to rapid enlightement, Buddha could have remained prince and practiced tantra in the palace.