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jeff foster satsang- what a disappointment
Just watched Jeff Foster's Satsang in New York. And what an incredible sense of disillusionment with this erstwhile promising young teacher. He came out with tired old cliche ridden statements of a neo-advaitin hue ( very reminiscent of Tony Parsons, probably the crudest neo-advaitin teacher on the circuit) and as usual was trying ever so hard to make his simplistic neo-advaitin statements seem profound by posturing with his usual holier than thou comportment in the satsang (in this regard he's beginning to remind me of those smiley born again Christians with a smug sense of certainty about their insights). Of course, none of his fawning and uncritical audience was going to really challenge him about the endless problems with his " message" and his complete lack of understanding of the "spiritual search".
What is tragic is that many earnest people will take this message to heart and will cease to apply themselves in an earnest way to become free.
But my diagnosis of why he's so popular in spite of the singular shallowness of his "teaching" (or lack thereof) is this: We in the west are beset by what Karl Marx called commodity fetishism which means that we are fundamentally alienated from who we are and this is primarily brought about by the force of social relations dictated by capitalism. therefore when we seek liberation its also in a Mcdonaldised form, the same way in which we seek all other forms of gratification and enjoyment in capitalist society.( i.e our ego structure is very deeply ingrained and A few neo-advaitin platitudes ain't going to shift this when it comes to the spiritual search).
In other words, we think that just by coming off the street, going into satsang and listening to the pseudo wisdom of Jeff Foster will do the trick. Of course, you get a bit of a "wisdom hit" from the obvious verbal skill of Jeff foster, maybe for a few hours but then when you're back at home you are once again confronted with your same old suffering self.
There's lots more I could say in this post but I'll reserve it till later in the interests of brevity
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To stop seeking is liberation.
The irony though, the liberation from seeking must be sought and realized. There is a great deal of effort and momentum in seeking, when the seeking stops, so does all the effort and momentum.
One becomes enlightened, when we know that enlightenment can be sought, but never found.
David... permit me to use an analogy in response to what you said. Hopefully, you have some experience in driving cages (a motorcyclist's term for cars).
Effort, certainly, is involved in depressing the accelerator.
But effort is also involved in depressing the brake.
Both the accelerator and the brake involve effort to activate.
I would like to suggest to you, however, that effort-lessness involves depressing neither.
And that effort-less cessation is not quite the same thing as effort-full cessation.
Effort is still effort, in any shape or form.
And it may be our efforting, in depressing either the accelerator or the brake, that is the veil.
i was at the meeting with Jeff in NYC. interesting that it's referred to as satsang... seems to me that the word implies a meaning of expected truth and sacredness. that in itself sets one up for an imagined outcome, and possibly disappointment. Jeff was the first to admit that he had nothing to say. (i can't explain why i stayed at the meeting, other that it was preplanned and paid for!) and yet, of course, he talked for at least an hour before opening the meeting up to questions, which, i have to agree, he answered mostly with familiar (to me) words that i'd already heard from listening to previous meetings(satsangs), You-tubes and from reading his book, Revelation of Oneness.
you know, he's a sweet guy - gentle, no pretenses and, like everyone else, prone to getting tired. that's the way he appeared to me: tired. who cares? he had some valuable stuff to say, and i honor his courage to get up in front of people and say it. did he get it right? if you think he did or didn't, well, maybe that's a reflection of your own important point of view? let's call a spade a spade here: preferences, judgment, like & dislike - where are they coming from? from the sense of self that holds them. and we all have them... so what?
for some of us, practice for 30, 40 or 50 years seems to make a difference, seems to 'prepare.' for others, one sentence shifts the world. who's to say? i see it as wonderful that there are so many perspectives being shared in the name of 'enlightenment' or 'awakening'... seems like it's absolutely appropriate, considering that there appears to be so many facets of the one.
"We discover it [the self] by being earnest, by searching, inquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery." Nisargadatta Maharaj- I am that
Hello dear all,
Many advaitin teachers selectively quote someone like Nisargadatta so that it seems he did not recommend practice i.e. some sort of effort. If your fist has been clenching an object for some time, at first you need to apply effort to let go to counteract the inertia which has set in. But the admonition to "just stop" as some of the advaitin teachers recommend (from ponjaji's advice to just keep quiet and see what happens) to me is laughable and preposterous as a serious "practice". You can get glimpses that way but that's about it (Sailor Bob calls this pausing the concepts, Eckhart Tolle calls it practising the power of now)
When people came to Ramana he would 1st recommend self enquiry- if the student wasn't up to that he would then recommend meditation and so on to the lowest rung which would be something like japa or karma yoga I'm not sure. The point is that these 2 spiritual giants of the 20th century both recommended levels of practice, they didn't just provide verbal advice such as relax into the moment or dwell into not knowing (to be able to do either of those 2 things well actually takes alot of practice).
When an apple fell on Sir Isacc Newton's head and he suddenly had an epiphany into the nature of gravity, his mind was prepared by perhaps years of thinking about the problems of mechanics to make sense of an experience common to all people (falling bodies) but they were unable to make that breakthrough insight into the nature of physical reality, unlike Newton. The point is that spiritual insight occurs in the mind but not just any old mind, it has to be a mind which has been prepared; You can understand Advaita teachings intellectually but to gain true insight into the nature of oneself or reality your mind needs to be prepared for this knowledge. If you are an entry level student of Physics there's no point teaching that student quantum mechanics or general relativity.
What I observe in much neo-advaita discussion, satasangs, books etc is that this key element of preparation is completely ignored to the detriment of the "earnest" spiritual aspirant. Many of the advaita teachings especially the non-doership element have been latched onto by many as a magic key and they think if they just listen carefully to the verbal pyrotechnics of someone like Shankar enough they will hit the advaitin jackpot; if not today then maybe next week when his latest DVD comes out.
As the dalai lama said to someone once when he came to the USA- on the spiritual journey you need all the help you can get. So by all means its OK to indulge in some well written advaita material, to go to satsangs etc. Just dont deceive yourself into thinking a run of the mill AHA moment such as your mind stopping is the same thing as liberation
I didn´t watch this particular satsang (Because I´ve seen hundreds of hours of satsang material [especially on NNH], so I´m pretty much filled up in this experiential department. It can get too much at some point.) But I do remember seeing a Jeff Foster video on youtube which I found quite enjoyable. It really gave me a positive perspective on this guy. At some point he admits that even when he started teaching there was some ego figment that presented itself as the enlightened guy. I bet there are a lot of teachers who don´t have the clearness to see this, and so have have to keep telling themselves at some level when they wake up in the morning: I am an enlightened being.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcFfiuY-Z2U (this is part 4 of 6)
That said, I don´t know that much about him (haven´t read his books or anything), as I´m zooming in more and more on just 2 or 3 teachers that feel right. If you really feel in your gut that Foster is not your man, then listen to that and look further (maybe you guys will ´meet´ again and maybe not.)
For the record: the are also some teachers that I don´t like. (In my opinion Osho had some major dead spots. Sai Baba [holy crap!] And I don´t get the rave about Dr. Shankar. And then there are a lot of teachers that, in my opinion, start speaking too early.)
I don´t really have a strong opinion about Foster, but he seems sincere.
Hey, zube.
I didn't catch all of Jeff's presentation/discussion, since I had a day's full of errands to perform.
You said something that piqued my curiosity, though.
"What is tragic is that many earnest people will take this message to heart and will cease to apply themselves in an earnest way to become free."
It's a two parted question:
a) how did you acquire the skill to accurately gauge, with 100% certainly, someone's earnestness in his/ her efforts; and,
b) why would you be so concerned about someone's else's earnestness in the first place?
I ask because when I started to place my fullest attention on the earnestness of my own efforts, a funny thing commensurately occurred:
any interest in gauging the earnestness of other people's efforts ceased.
Thanks in advance.
Peter this is such a wonderful post! The minute I speak of what is not my business, but is either your business or the business of the Universe, I know that it is not essence speaking in any way. Byron Katie puts it so well with her three kinds of business.
I found just what you did! I carried the question, "Who's business are you in?" with me for months. And every time I was out of my own, Suffering occurred. Certainly fantasy was afoot and there was no absolute truth, or even relative truth, being spoken from my mouth. Now I can't even imagine saying things like, People Will, or People Should, Or they Need to, without laughing HYSTERICALLY!
As Katie says, "Who needs God (Source, Truth, whatever) when you have your opinion." Ah, the I Know Mind.
Funny now, too, how even "I" am seen as not my business. Then it got really fun! LOL.
Thanks for your fabulous words! Great wisdom that.
Lisa
I think some seekers surely get frustrated,distressed and in doubt hearing teachers tell there is nothing to seek or find etc.
Meanwhile there are those who feel more grounded and sure walking their own way no matter what words they hear.
On the other hand I think there is no way to stop earnest seekers in their seeking.It is for them a genuine way of living this kind of life.
If a seeker is not earnest, sooner or later he will stop the seeking anyway.
What I noticed was that "seeking nothing" is a realization, NOT a strategy. So funny how the Mind wants to turn a description of "awakeness" into a strategy for "achieving" it. That's how it keeps it's job, I guess!
It's like if a teacher says," I am so happy watching a beautiful sunset", and my mind-made build-a-better-me self turns it into, "Beautiful Sunsets will make me happy." and Then I sit and sit and watch sunsets and I still hate my life and want to kill the Pinhead teacher who told me that the way to happiness is to watch sunsets. Ah, what is said and what Mind hears are never the same, huh? LOL.
Someone on here wrote so beautifully about effortlessness around this stopping of seeking, vs. efforting. It was so perfect a description of this scenario!
Dear Lisa, thank your for your somment.
But maybe you would even see my reply to Peter`s post here below: 11/10/2010.
Anna Yes great stuff, thank you for pointing me to it!.
it is so clear today that the only pain I could have around any of this is the illusion of preference for one over the other.
When I see everything as NOT TRUE and everything as TRUE at the same time, preference has not context, and everything just arises and falls back, and none is of more value than the other. Efforting, Not Efforting. Preference only comes to life with the thought, "I".
Otherwise, it is just fun to watch! This, now that. No biggie.
"If a seeker is not earnest, sooner or later he will stop the seeking anyway."
Are you implying, Anna, that earnestness only exists in efforting? And that there can be no earnestness in ceasing one's efforts?
I'd rather ask than assume that this is what you are inferring.
Ramana Maharshi once said:
"Just give up the individual 'I' and there will be no need to find the real 'I'.
Sounds like a strong argument for cessation to me.
Good that you asked Peter, thanks - since my imperfect English might cause a bit of confusion.
By earnest I mean "serious" about something which is vital for the person. It hasn`t much to do with effort, which is more a possible consequence of earnestness.
Besides effort shouldn`t need to be conceived negatively.
For example:
If the search for peace of mind is vital, I`ll search until I find it, even if it takes a life time. I wouldn`t listen to any Jeffs trying to ensure me that there is nothing to get.
And effort could even be experienced as pleasent, giving a feeling that I am struggling for the right thing.
If the search isn`t vital, maybe it will be dropped as soon as the focus goes on something else.
As for Maharshi selfinquiry, it doesn`t work for everybody and even if you effortlessly find your "true nature" it can take a long time to integrate it into your everyday life.
But if it doesn`t, then - wonderful: you don`t need arguments for stopping the search. It ceases by itself -effortlessly.
Thank you, Anna, for clarifying that. I have a better handle of what you were sharing earlier.
Speaking only from personal experience, I am very familiar with an effort-full life.
When I was a young child, the significant adults in my life did an admirable job of shaping me to be-come an effort-full person.
I suspect that many, if not most, children share the same experience that I had too.
Many parents, relatives, church elders, teachers, etc. exert great energies to shape children into be-coming effort-full people.
A not surprising dynamic, I might add. Adults, who spend most of their time be-coming, will tend to nurture and create little be-comers to be-come older be-comers.
Efforting is synonomous with be-coming to me, Anna.
And be-coming can be an affective diversion or distraction from be-ing.
Which kinda explains why I feel the way that I do about efforting.
Thanks again.
Well Look he's liberated.That doesn't mean he has no ego. Just that he can't be bound to it.
So of course he's gonna portray one.
And why would he use an ego oriented towards making you feel good?
Be honest with yourself here.
Why did you go to this?
If you're there to awaken. your going to take a lot more than a slap in the face of your ego. Your going to watch it's desecration from front row seats.
He was smug? So what?
You question why he's popular. Two reasons.
One is the Booming spiritual marketplace.
Two. Unique selling point. (youthful exuberance)
Now rather than sitting around complaining about why your "teacher" wouldn't give you a back rub. Lets get to the crux of the matter.
Why oh why do you think you need a teacher?
I take it you've been to many such satsangs.
Why can you not stand on your own two feet and do this for yourself?
Isn't this about you rather than any teacher?
All spiritual teachers fail. All of them. They need to fail for their students to see beyond them.
The fact that you have seen beyond this man and sit on your ass moaning about how HE did not deliver to you. Speaks volumes about your actual aim in all of this.
Your aim. As far as I can see. Is to have some spiritual Guru, reach down from on high and lift you into the clouds of non dual abidance. Without any damage to your fragile ego along the way.
As such.
you will remain the eternal seeker.
http://burningtruedotcom.blogspot.com/