The Age of The Guru is Over….
This truth has rung in my heart like a bell since last summer when my Lama came to live with me.
I learned many things while living with my Lama.
I learned of the ongoing, persistent, and pervasive culture of misogyny and abuse that is inherent within the monastic tradition.
I learned that the culture of Tibetan Buddhism is more invested in protecting its image than in reckoning with the truth of the harm done by misogynistic men and addressing it.
I saw how the patriarchal structure of Buddhist monasticism wove perfectly with the white supremacy culture of Europe and North America, and how toxic white supremacy is prevalent in many modern Western teachers of Buddhism, including my Lama.
I saw clearly how these patriarchal, hierarchical “spiritual” structures require us to outsource our own inner wisdom and capitulate to the wisdom of an outside entity- usually male, often white or light-skinned, and usually placed in positions of power over us.
I grieved for the years I had spent outsourcing and externalizing “Truth” in the form of “Guru” – a dynamic which required me to overwrite the whispering wisdoms of my own heart, and replace them with the words of my perfect teacher.
Except, of course, as displayed over and over and over again, particularly highlighted by the latest Epstein files release, the “Guru” is imperfect.
But the God within us is not.
It is time for those of us who have walked the path of Eastern or Western spiritual traditions—whether as lifelong practitioners, devoted students, interested newcomers, or sincere seekers—to stop ignoring the abuse, protecting abusers, and gaslighting ourselves about the real harm occurring within many of these modern and traditional spiritual organizations.
After 27 years of devotion to Eastern spiritual traditions, in which I took refuge in the Guru, the Lama, and the lineages, I’m no longer willing to overlook the culture of abuse that exists within Eastern spiritual traditions.
For 5,000 years, we have lived under the dominance of patriarchal spiritual traditions that require us to source our connection to the Divine through the guidance of a spiritual teacher, most often a man.
But patriarchal dominance is not enlightenment.
Hatred and dismissal of women are not signposts of realization.
You can not view women as inferior and realize your ultimate nature at the same time.
You can not be in unified consciousness with all of existence and yet claim some humans are inferior to you because they have a vagina.
That’s literally fucking insane.
And yet, this view has been accepted, normalized, and perpetuated by spiritual and monastic traditions for millennia. And we, as students and seekers, have continued to bend the knee to this insanity because we have been brainwashed to believe that somehow, some external “Guru” could ever know the truth of who and what we are, better than we know it within ourselves.
Because here’s the thing, the pure and true purpose of a Guru/Teacher is to point you back to the wisdom of your own heart as an infinite resource of support.
This is impossible in a hierarchical system where the wisdom of your guru is considered superior to your own, and you are encouraged to acquiesce, capitulate, and give your power away to this greater authority, who somehow magically knows you better than you know yourself.
This is exactly how we have situations such as:
These organizations all depend upon a hierarchical system in which students are required to capitulate to the all-knowing Guru.
A Facebook acquaintance of mine, Reverend Brigs Feltus, recently shared, “It is stunning how the masses in white supremacist patriarchal settler colonialist capitalist societies seem to still perceive fame, wealth, and success as evidence of true greatness. Wakey wakey.”
In the world of white Western spirituality, Good Image/Branding = Good Teacher/Expert. The substance of the teachings is less relevant than the packaging it comes in.
In short, in the race to rise to Guru status, the one with the best branding wins.
The Guru dynamic is unsustainable because it is rooted in power imbalance.
It functions through hierarchy. Hierarchy is a function of patriarchy.
Patriarchal systems are traumatic. This type of system devalues nurturing. For mammals that live in groups with social structure, nurturing is essential for healthy relational development.
Structures rooted in hierarchical patriarchy are trauma-inducing. And trauma begets trauma.
We are currently witnessing the display of millennia-old trauma everywhere, all at once.
Nurturing is the antidote to relational trauma.
Nurturing is the function of the Mother principle. The Mother is the source of life. We, as a culture, as a society, as a planet, have forgotten the face of our Mother.
The antidote to hierarchy is community. Communal wisdom is shared wisdom, wisdom resourced from multiple perspectives, multiple lenses, multiple voices- balanced with mutual honor and respect for all expressions of life, rooted in bliss, equanimity, openness, clarity, and joy.
It is wisdom rooted in the earth and the elements around us.
It is cultivated through a relationship with our body and our environment.
It is deepened and maintained by calling upon the resource of our environment and the beings within it as our teachers and guides.
There is no hierarchy in this space. There is mutual engagement, mutual respect: mutual, balanced, sustainable, enduring, tangible, embodied, TRUTH.
And all of these our Teachers, pointing the finger of knowing back to our own hearts.
Because… At. The. Heart. Of. It… you know, you know, you know, you always know.
You have just been conditioned not to listen.
But the age of the Guru is now over…
And the Return To Our Mother has Begun….
Happy Saturn/Neptune Conjunction at 0* degrees Aries, everyone!
A new world has officially begun.
