Excellent conversation, very organic, great chemistry!
As far as gurus go, my personal, unfounded and highly unqualified opinion is that all gurus are charlatans. No enlightened person goes out of her/his way to heal or teach or gather disciples. I'm applying here the more colloquial interpretation of the term guru. If "guru" is understood just as a synonym for teacher then that's a different matter. Obviously, historically, transfer of knowledge was necessarily oratory and personal and I'd assume that this mode of learning is still preferable over (exclusively) doing research on the internet or reading books. But surrendering one's own intuition, intellect and moral compass to a supposed enlightened figure is not particularly healthy in terms of spiritual growth. Then again, some people appear to need this guru thing and maybe it's an essential step on their journey - who am I to judge. The guru in this scenario, though, is just the psychological complement to the disciple. The disciple desires a guru and the guru desires the disciples. And then you get the abuse as a natural conclusion from this relationship.
Wow, terrific interview Daniel. I gotta read this book, sounds fascinating.
Thank you, Jerome! Mick tells lots of great stories very engagingly. I also really enjoyed The Spiritual Tourist.
Excellent conversation, very organic, great chemistry!
As far as gurus go, my personal, unfounded and highly unqualified opinion is that all gurus are charlatans. No enlightened person goes out of her/his way to heal or teach or gather disciples. I'm applying here the more colloquial interpretation of the term guru. If "guru" is understood just as a synonym for teacher then that's a different matter. Obviously, historically, transfer of knowledge was necessarily oratory and personal and I'd assume that this mode of learning is still preferable over (exclusively) doing research on the internet or reading books. But surrendering one's own intuition, intellect and moral compass to a supposed enlightened figure is not particularly healthy in terms of spiritual growth. Then again, some people appear to need this guru thing and maybe it's an essential step on their journey - who am I to judge. The guru in this scenario, though, is just the psychological complement to the disciple. The disciple desires a guru and the guru desires the disciples. And then you get the abuse as a natural conclusion from this relationship.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts - I think you describe the pitfalls well.