That would be nice. But how to know who is an expert in a tradition, unless one already has some considerable expertise or other certainties oneself?
I suppose one could have enough self-doubt not to be able to explore this. Some people go by lineage - in the Eastern traditions. If someone can show that they were given the leadership of an ashram or temple from a guru or master who got their leadership....and so on back in time. Could be that one reads one of their works and it strikes one as having expertise. Could be the prestige of the church or ashram.
To me there is no way to leave one's own faculties out of the equation, however, since popular things and lineages do not - or so my intuition tells me - necessarily have the value they proclaim.
I suppose a working assumption for me became at some point - Even though I am confused, I have enough sense and intuition to gradually find the means to get out of my predicament. Seems to me that if I am wrong about this, I lose nothing assuming it, since I would have no hope without it. But then I did not arrive at this - once minimal - level of self-trust through logic. At least I don't think so.
This is a very good way to look at it, thank you! I can relate to most of what you are saying here.
Oh, good!
I am a bit of a "mental/abstract type" - and this is something many people find offensive per se, as I have noticed.
I am not sure this is how you come across, at all, actually. I mean it is clear you have the facility with this kind of communication. It is also clear that you want a tradition to reach via this faculty. That you have a lot of passion about gaining clarity through rather abstract means. But you as a whole seem much more complicated.
I see LG as a much more mental/abstract type. For example the impression LG gives is that life and his ideas mesh completely. And have for quite some time.
I realize that on some level we are all hoping this will be the case for us also - so I suppose I am also saying that the strenght of the mental/abstract faculty is, in his case, overriding the experience/perception of anomalies and problems.
You must have something then that I don't. Because I don't have such positive experiences with the traditions I have encountered.
Mostly, neither have I. But I did experience a willingness to engage in dialogue, even with a doubter, skeptic, person with problems with the tradition, that you don't seem to have. Most of what I have read in your descriptions of encounters seem to describe people who probably do not practice in their religions the way people living in temples and ashrams do, for example. And there are examples of these in Christianity and Judaism and Islam also. People who have a more mystical relationship with God and have gone through hard times with that relationship. IOW people who are way past religion as fashion or military service or conformity and who can probably have conversations with similar people from other traditions, whereas the ground troops of the Abrahamic religions often see members of other religions as enemies or, at best, lost souls in need of saving or avoiding.
I think the invitation is implicit in the texts and traditions and stories the various religions toss out. Perhaps this was a naive read on my part.
Perhaps this has to do with your being of a certain age, or of a certain appearance, or something else altogether.
Could be. When I was really all over the place, trying a lot of different things I was first in big cities in the US. I think there is a kind of marketplace dynamism to the kinds of dialogues, such that it is understood that 'they' will meet skepticism, rajasic dialogue and crises. It could be a US thing too. I mean, if you are going to troll for followers in NYC or Boston, for example, expect some fairly passionate and blunt dialogue. I found this to be true even if I was dealing with foreign born and raised experts in a variety of traditions.
So local culture may have played a role and set my expectations even for future, outside the US interactions.
I suddenly feel like I am giving the impression I was a bull in a china shop - I suppose some cultures might see me this way, though frankly I think not. It generally took time and some degree of trust for my questions and issues to come out, unless 'they' were especially aggressive, which most were not.
I am quite sure I offended some people over the long run, but my sense was it was often followers. The leaders rarely seemed put off on the whole by the kinds of questions you are asking. Some followers, however, did think I should just shut up, the master had spoken, so it should be clear to me, and how could I possibly imply the Master's answer was inadequate (even for me only).
I suppose some of the masters could have been using me as an object lesson for their followers of the dense, lost fool, and we certainly did come to some impasses. I did leave or decide not to take up, well, pretty much everything. But for me it was because, in the end, they did not match my values, not because the tradition in question was not coherent or did not seem to 'work'. It took a long time for me to accept that I had a particular set of criteria, myself.
I usually feel pressured to see things the other person's way.
If someone tells me they are my friends, or that they love me, or that such and such is good, I will feel obligated to believe that and to align myself so that I would agree with them. Which often isn't possible, so I get frustrated a lot.
I've had this pattern. For me it happens very fast. It is like I give over authority to the other person. Over a period of a week or longer, it may seem like I am assertive or rebellious - though rebellion concedes authority - but in the moment I am seeing myself through their eyes. This has improved a lot in the romance/friend/love areas, but I still find it very strong in professional contexts and other non-intimate relations.
"Humans I can feel received by" - this is an interesting phrase. I tend to think I am being offensive if I don't feel received by someone.
Which really isn't fair to you. Everyone else has an unquestioned right to be themselves - which often is likely to be offensive to you - but you don't. Still, even without challenging this idea, there will be places/people you will feel more received by. Even if by some strange negative miracle this really is your fault - you have a bad nature (given to you by whom?) - it still seems morally acceptable that you would seek out people who make you feel less offensive and have the dialogue there.
I realize I may be suggesting a rather big undertaking: to find these people who are both experts and feel receptive to you. But it seems important. And this is not a digital suggestion. Just a sense of a gradient for you to travel and a main criterion. If you can move towards this reception, even if what you hit in the beginning is less than ideal, at least if it is a step in the right direction. And I suppose the underlying idea that you don't have to necessarily force encounters, with people who do not feel receptive, to work for you. That this is your task.
I don't really think it is.
Yes, and it is a great source of anxiety for me.
If I don't inquire, I don't think I can accept. But if I do inquire, I risk never being accepted.
Taken to the relationship with God/the universe this is a very strong and scary judgment. And I definitely can relate.
Yes. And then comes my feeling obligated to see things the other person's way ...
I've been thinking - I have this tendency to try to define myself exclusively by my circumstances. I could say I am "inverted" - have my insides out, and my outsides in, in a way.
Which makes it seem permanent. Seems like an important insight. I mean if your current situation is you, then how could it change?
Yes, that sense of having to trust them completely, despite not knowing how or why, and then feeling how your trust is worth nothing. And then deteriorating from there.
I tried very hard in some traditions. I really threw myself in them. In fact I think a lot of the followers never really understood their religions or dared the way I did.
In one, an absolute tenet was to bring everything to the guru. 1) most people did not even know their own everything. they were unaware of their doubts and complexity. 2) they hid all this from the guru and from themselves, but more from the guru.
I did not. I brought the guru EVERYTHING. (ok, there was much I did not know about myself, but I did take the idea very seriously and I brought what I found. And frankly I am really glad I did. I learned a lot. And its funny, the guru in question remembered me for decades, at least, occasionally referring to a friends I had who stayed in the tradition as my friend. Or referring to me in other ways and not without affection
(and irritation).
is is what I would hope. But at the same time, I have the fear that this is asking too much, aiming too high, and that I should settle for less instead, lest I damage my chances of ever being accepted and making any progress.
I mean, God is love and the Buddha is compassionate. Their representatives on earth should be, at least sometimes, incredibly pleasant to be with.
