While I can concur with a view which states that belief/personal experence [i:15610807b0]per se [/i:15610807b0] cannot be proved one way, or another, Hansard's 'Dur-Con' 'teachings' and claims are indeed open to critical examination and can be demonstrated to have validity or not. As I have detailed previously, and on the blog [
christopherhansard.blogspot.com] there are a number of glaring inconsistencies and misleading distortions in Hansard's exotic account, which convincingly reveal that he callously plagiarized Tibet's authentic Bon tradition. [u:15610807b0]This is the man after all who fraudulently asserted to me in a correspondence that HH the Dalai Lama had recognized his work!.[/u:15610807b0] Clearly there were no limits in terms of deception and exploitation. Further examples of the bogus nature of his invention are currently being researched and shall be publicized in the near future.
Meanwhile, I should like to return to the themes of 'power' and 'influence' and, by way of a traditional Tibetan tale, explore, albeit tangentially, the nature of such ‘qualities’.
[i:15610807b0]An elderly mother who lived in Kongpo, a region to the east of the Tibetan capital. Lhasa, was a person of great faith who cherished a heartfelt respect for the Buddhist teachings. One of her sons, a trader, was soon to travel to the city and his mother asked him if he could obtain for her a rare and precious relic from the Monastery. It was one of Buddha’s teeth.
The son was entranced by the excitement of city life, and devoted his time to the pursuit of his business. It was only on the long journey back to Kongpo did he realize he had completely forgotten his mother’s request. Without the relic he wondered what he could say to her. As his horse passed along the track, he noticed the decaying remains of what looked like a dog and a thought came to him. He removed from the skull one tooth, wrapped it in some fine blue silk and then tied with a traditional Tibetan scarf, a Khata.
His mother wept with joy to see her son and was completely over come when she saw the relic he had brought for her. She carefully placed it upon the altar, next to assorted statues and water-bowls and there it sat bathed in the warm glow of the butter lamp. Each day the mother made offerings to the relic, rice, butter, flowers and mantras were said over the relic for the benefit of all sentient beings. The mother’s motivation and respect was so genuine that one day a remarkable transformation occurred, there on the altar sat a solid gold tooth![/i:15610807b0]
There are of course many layers of meaning to such stories, but clearly this tale reveals that mind and sincere motivation are capable of genuine power, even the ability to transform. It reminds us too that it is not the object itself that generates the magic but our individual desire to believe and the quality of that belief, which if pure, and not based upon [i:15610807b0]‘self’[/i:15610807b0], is capable of extraordinary achievements.
Some former clients and colleagues of Hansard have spoken of [i:15610807b0]his [/i:15610807b0]abilities, [i:15610807b0]his [/i:15610807b0]presence, [i:15610807b0]his[/i:15610807b0] healing, projecting upon him a spiritual gravitas which actually should be more properly attributed to the desires and hopes of those clients themselves. In a sense Hansard’s [i:15610807b0]‘powers’ [/i:15610807b0]were conferred to him, invested with a ‘realism’, nurtured, and experienced, through a willingness to believe.
Tibetan religion, of Bon or Buddhist tradition, teaches that we have individual responsibility for our mind and actions, this is a difficult and painful reality, as many of us would prefer to project such accountability upon others or to external circumstances. In that context, are those who were deceived by Christopher Hansard, able to exempt themselves from any sense of individual responsibility? Was it a relatively simple task for him to manipulate those who, at a subconscious level may have actually wished to relinquish control and responsibility, and who desired to believe in Hansard’s Dur-Con fantasies?
That however does not excuse or tolerate the reported abuses inflicted upon clients by Hansard, and while there may well have been a cult-like atmosphere operating, it does not fully explain why people choose to surrender their critical faculties and become automata-like followers. More importantly it does not absolve them of any ethical responsibility as individuals. It is highly unlikely that those in close association with Christopher Hansard were not aware of the reported abuses. It appears they chose to remain silent, and only now have one or two voices appeared, issuing warm words of ‘healing’, ‘forgiveness’ and ‘compassion‘. Noble sentiments, but one simply cannot understand, or justify, any complicity which maintains a shameful silence as women and men were, it seems, being physically, sexually and emotionally violated.