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Hi Harijee!
Now dayes the Guru consept is misused by many.
For me it seem that it is not corectly presented.
Times is different and a lot of things changed.
In this regard arrising a question wath is the proper understanding of Guru nowdayes in modern time,?

This topic was discussed at great length here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=81

If you want something different than this discussion, then your inquiry has to be much more specific!

I read some text in the link /
But i didnt like the mood of some people there.
I think that proper cosept of Guru is not so bad in fact in many cases it is very good expesially for neofites .If people doesnt use it for buisness .
Nowdayes it is going own mass brainwashing and people in general complitly lost.
Nobody knows wath he is doing and why.They realy need someone who lead them and knows deffenatly the goal.
Guru means teacher /There are different teachers with different qualifications.Some just give information .
In sprituality area Guru means more then information deliverer.He should be real Mistic otherwise he will not really know wath he is doing and will misslead people.
If one find such qualifyed person he is very lucky.
It is exactly wath said Lord Krishna in Bhagavat Gita.
And also guru should teach his followewrs to become independant and strong .
It is exactly wath you are doing. You super perfectly fit with cosept of real guru (in the meaning of Bhagavat Gita) .
Althought nowdayes this cosept lost it purity because of its mass expoatation.

Aw shucks!

Of course I understood your desire to have a comment from me independent of the usual raging discussion that arises when discussing this topic, but I wanted to avoid all of that and so I pointed you elsewhere.

When a word attains another meaning, it loses its original meaning. When I returned to the US after being away from here from 1971 till 2004, I saw that American english had transformed radically. I needed subtitles on TV shows for years to understand many of the things that were said. Because I had to deal with translators all the time when I lived outside of the US, I had to speak plain english without using idioms. Like my first sentence of this text is an idiomatic usage that was common when I was a kid (centuries ago, gee) but that nowadays might not be understood, the word guru now means something quite different than it used to.

I mean, the Gita quotes it rarely and moves on. Yet, religious organizations center their existence on it. One could say that this is because ISKCON, for example, was founded by such a great guru that he transformed the concept to what we have now today. And because of his being who he is, all other gurus pale in comparison. In the early 1980's I wrote an introduction to the Vyasa Puja book wherein I warned of turning Prabhupada into Jesus Christ. I warned against placing him on such a platform that he attains almost mythological status, an avatar!, the likes of whom will never walk the earth again and upon whose lotus feet all heads rest. No one actually got what I was saying. I became used to not being heard. Sad...

When people lose their personal vision, they tend to create a mythology that is increasingly more rigid and ruled by fundamentalism. Because thinking for oneself is troublesome, accepting a predictable ideology is not only easy, it insures one of success. After all, the authority is right and everyone and everything else is wrong, more or less, so placing oneself on the right side of spiritual understanding becomes the most important act one can do. Sticking to this becomes a religious requirement.

I do not use the word guru because it is filled with preconceived ideas. But because you asked, and no other reason, I can reiterate that my concept of the word is to denote an experienced person who is a teacher and mentor who guides others through the process of implementing spiritual knowledge in their lives. This mentor intends to give you what you need to experience life according to your desires. The mentor says, "So you want to understand self in relation to God and the universe? Ok, here is the information and tools you need to do it. But only you can do it. No one else can do it for you. When you learn how to connect to God and the Divine Energy and Love that God is by using the information and tools I give you, you will then experience who you are and who God is at the same time."

This kind of teaching only works when the student has the capacity to stand on his or her own two feet, the courage to enter into the unknown with the intention to emerge in a state of knowing, and the heart to feel the love that exists within themselves and all around them. Unless the recipient of the teaching has the capacity to understand it, practice it, and embrace it, the teaching cannot fructify into a deep and meaningful connection with the divine beings.

If you think Radha and Krsna will be available to you if you simply follow and do what you are told to do, all the while worshipping your guru with undivided attention and devotion, then you will do so. Those who do not believe that or have a different experience will seek other paths. Some have been waiting half a lifetime to receive the results of their austerity and feel they have painted themselves into a corner where their ultimate fallback plan is to die and get mercy. If they are therefore frustrated that all their struggle came to this, they might want to see things from another perspective and take the bold step of redefining that old, and somewhat worn concept of guru.

All of what I have stated in this text relates to a usage of a word, not to specific individuals. If it seems I am directing this to a particular person in a negative mood, I suggest rereading this text after calming down. Think of that individual as a mentor and feel how comforting that concept is.

Dear Hari,

Thank you for this interesting comment. I also found the discussion you referred to as disturbing and not really focused on the topic.
You wrote : " When people lose their personal vision, they tend to create a mythology that is increasingly more rigid and ruled by fundamentalism. Because thinking for oneself is troublesome, accepting a predictable ideology is not only easy, it insures one of success. After all, the authority is right and everyone and everything else is wrong, more or less, so placing oneself on the right side of spiritual understanding becomes the most important act one can do. Sticking to this becomes a religious requirement."

Going backwards from "fundamentalism" as the final stage of process, it is not so difficult to agree that "religions" are rigid, separatistic, mythology-oriented, and difficult to reform or change once they get to the point of being "well-defined" by "guru". But you have also written that it happens "when people lose their personal vision" and that it is "because thinking of oneself is troublesome". What do you mean by that?
Otherwise, your summary of how a rigid fundamental "guru-based" religion comes to being is exactly how I perceive it today.
Best wishes,
Akhila

A person who thinks for him or her self assumes great personal responsibility for his or her life. This is work, an effort, a burden, and sometimes unthinkable for one who lacks confidence in themselves. All of this is troublesome. A person struggling to make sense in their life may sometimes come to the conclusion that it is far easier, safer, and perhaps wiser to accept the words or directions of someone they decide has a better vision of life. They then can comfortably relax their personal critical thought process and therefore relinquish to some extent their personal responsibility.

In some cases, placing ourselves in the hands of another is a good thing, and in some exceptional cases it can be the best way to act. The problem I am discussing appears later on after we see the long term results of having embraced the thought process or way of life given by someone else. If we eventually see that relying on someone else is counterproductive to our own evolution or to our health, prosperity, peace, harmony, or more, we realize that handing the responsibility of our lives to someone else was a mistake.

Ultimately, we all have to take responsibility for our thoughts, words and deeds, and the subsequent creation of our goals, ideals and expectations, and above all, our everyday choices. No one can attain the higher levels of spirituality without being responsible for their choices. No one can avoid thinking for themselves for long, regardless of how much faith they have in the thoughts and words of others.

Thank you for this explanation.
The mentor system has become very popular in science nowadays, in opposition to the old authoritarian system. If we could copy this idea from the scientific world, in the beginning you have to rely pretty much on your mentor(s) as you need some basic skills and knowledge to develop but in course of time, as you develop, you become more and more independent from your mentor(s), and in the best case, you are starting to become a mentor yourself. So, I think that the religion systems that make their adepts more and more rigid and fundamentalistic, thinking in terms "us and them" only, "us" being of course the right ones, are a product of a spiritual devolution not evolution.
The worst thing that may happen is when questioning the old truths becomes an offence and leads to ostracism or elimination from the group (from the right ones).
The funny thing is that there are good and bad mentors too. Or those who let others develop more and those who actually limit them.
What I like in your presentation is that you inspire your listeners to develop by provoking them to consider the unthinkable as possible, and that you never limit the ideas to one complete and definitive concept.
I heard from one spiritually developed person (who sometimes says pretty odd things, even for me who used to be open to any ideas) that there are two types of spiritual mentors divided in a quite simple manner: those who teach you to develop love for yourself (the dark side - sounds a little bit ironic), and those who teach you to develop love to all others (the light workers - probably a sort of bhakti concept). What is even more interesting is that both categories lead to the same goal according to this person. Spontaneously, all of us in this forum, feel much better with the latter.
I hope you excuse me this small digression or even better, your comments on it are more than welcome.

I agree with all that you said but when you started quoting someone else, you lost me. How can you love others without loving yourself? And how can loving oneself be bad? If one loves oneself to the exclusion of others, then sure, not good. If one loves oneself as the divine essence one is and loves all others in the same manner, then fine! Is it not?

kamalamala1 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:22 am Nobody knows wath he is doing and why.They realy need someone who lead them and knows deffenatly the goal.

Wow! Just like early communists (192x years) proposed to drive humanity to happiness with an iron hand (железной рукой загоним человечество к счастью)

The person is the only authority to know The Goal. However:

1. Knoledgable man (guru? or not guru?) can explain why person's goal is bad or not good enough.

2. Just like the shop-window nicely presents good, a good organization (what? I said organization? really?) may nicely present The Goals, The Gods, and The Achivements.

Hari wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:13 pmA person who thinks for him or her self assumes great personal responsibility for his or her life. This is work, an effort, a burden, and sometimes unthinkable for one who lacks confidence in themselves.

There may be completely different reasons, say, in case of me (but note, that I accepted ISKCON, but not a some ISKCON guru).

In short, I chose ISKCON due to my personal feeling/beliefs/plausible reasonings, but

1. I paid too few attention to discrepancies.

2. I felt myself not educated/advanced/... enough to chose right thing.

In fact, to pay too much attention to discrepancies is bad due to side-to-side throwing, so one need to know sweet spot. #2 is more complex and it seems that there is another, more deep/apropriate reason and point of application of forces, that can improve my life now (not in past). (Who said laziness? But do laziness exists?)

Hari wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:13 pmA person who thinks for him or her self assumes great personal responsibility for his or her life. This is work, an effort, a burden, and sometimes unthinkable for one who lacks confidence in themselves.

And then I think that you oversimplify the situation up to incorrectness. That is, the approach "do ordinary, mundane things and get, say, mystic powers as the result" is definitely attractive. I do not want to say that all ISKCON folks can really get mystic powers, but the approach may _*really*_ work, may it?

kamalamala1 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:09 am the proper understanding of Guru

The topic is really interesting.

Hari wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 8:13 pm ... ... a lot of letters ... ...

It noticed again the style. It seems that you provokingly oversimplify things and wait for your interlocutor to say "Stop! But how then ...", and in such a case you shall go deeper.

kamalamala1 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:22 am Nobody knows wath he is doing and why.They realy need someone who lead them and knows deffenatly the goal.

Also, it seems that vedas greatly encourage a person to reach almost any goal. Even crazy goals. Because our planet is in raja-guna, isn't it?

We all need teachers because we all need to learn when we do not know something. A teacher who is also a mentor is wonderful. Learning an established art or science properly requires learning from someone who knows the subject well. We all agree on this.

I have problems with using the word guru because it brings up many things that are not related to teachers and mentors. Since I feel that the important concepts of teaching and mentoring should not be colored by unfortunate historical usage of the term guru, I avoid using the term and also do not wish to discuss it.

I like to discuss education, learning, knowledge, research and development, and so on in the context of evolution. I do not like to discuss the term or concept of guru. So I will not. Does this clarify things more?