What’s the Distinction Between a ‘Spiritual Ego’ and a Genuine Guru

[Joseph Maynor]

Curious.  Let’s discuss.

[Toby]

Guru = Silence. Ego = Concepts.

[Dodo]

41 minutes ago, Toby said:

Guru = Silence. Ego = Concepts.

But if the Truth cannot hold it's own in an argument, then false teachings that can hold will prevail. Concepts are rather important for spreading the Truth (for Humanity's sake).  For the dream characters that we are  For spreading love & freedom and for having a better dream. 

Edited December 17, 2017 by Dodo

[cirkussmile]

For someone in complete ignorance it's easy to believe a spiritual ego.

For someone with no ignorance it's easy to see that the spiritual ego only talks about concepts that goes away from Truth. Spiritual ego knows a lot about the world and things in it but he doesn't know who himself is

[Deep]

Genuine guru: speaks from experience, loving, humble, honest (tells people what they need to hear), no agenda, not dogmatic, and caring. 

Spiritual ego: refers to scriptures, dogmatic, lies to attract people, hidden agenda, pretends to love but tries to change people, and hasn't experienced non-duality. 

[Azrael]

A spiritual ego tells you his wisdom pro-actively without understanding that by explaining he divides the truth in untruth. A genuine guru reacts to a question to get rid of the distinction between truth and untruth that is being assumed by the question.

[Shanmugam]

@Joseph Maynor  I think you need to change your username to curiousjoseph.. .. Most of your threads start with the word 'curious'..

A fake guru can pretend to be a genuine guru, repeat the genuine guru's words and may even suppress his egoic tendencies in public. So, it is not easy to find this distinction, especially for someone who is still a seeker...

But internally, a truly realized person is not identified with body and mind, he is completely detached and he doesn't see himself as anything..He has a subtle ego just to be able to function in the world, and this subtle ego is devoid of any concepts or ideas about a separate personal self.

[snowleopard]

Being solitary and reclusive by nature, I've never been attracted to the guru scene or circuit, so I've never really had the problem of choosing one. I feel that with or without a guru, there is still no substitute for deep inquiry. However, as a wise guy once said: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' So I guess maybe look to the guru's 'yield' -- i.e. the 'graduates' -- for the evidence. I also resonate with the idea that the best gurus make themselves redundant as quickly a possible.

 

[Joseph Maynor]

I thought a little bit about this.  One thing I thought of is — the a guru is all about providing a tool to someone for them to help themselves out.  The Spiritual Ego, on the other hand, wants to have disciples.

Edited December 20, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj]

Wake up and see for yourself

[zazed]

I may have been or am a spiritual ego at times. I think everyone on the path is or has this disease at times. Reading a lot and having a knack for understanding lots of concepts mentally, but not necessarily seeing lasting change or effect on the way i live my life. There is a lot that has been written by many authors, video's on youtube and such. Instead of sitting and actually meditating, instead of seeing what is actually there to find in life, just keeping reading, talking, thinking about spirituality, with the mind.

So perhaps a spiritual ego is an armchair guru, one who perhaps has learned a lot about spirituality, can talk about it in great length, but isn't therefor any closer to enlightenment.