An untrained or inexpert guru/teacher can be a real and present physical danger. I have seen it happen so I do not talk from theory or clever hypothesis..
When I first got on the Yoga Path it was almost by 'accident'. I had been reading and following all kinds of spirituality, when one day on Boxing Day 1985...I was in Sears looking at the $1. books and in there was a beautiful book on yoga...with positons, mantras, meditation, breathing and concentrations...It was obviously not a $1 clearance book...'Richard Hittleman's'30 day yoga meditation plan'.1978..Bantam Books. At this time I knew nothing about yoga and meditation, and was a alcoholic. I started the exercises and surprisingly I found it understandable and natural to me. So I was off doing the meditation exercises and the breathing/pranayama excercises. I found it very relaxing and I did it the same time everyday..My drinking became more controlled and within three months stopped altogether. One day as I sat cross legged on the floor doing the exercises a sudden surge of energy hit me in the chest and knocked me on my back. I was shocked and thought I must have done something wrong...I didn't know it at the time but this was the Kundalini-Prana rising and cleansing...I could feel the energy after this in meditation and still do...I also was reading the Sufis at the time.....and had this imaginary guide Ibn El Rasa who used to tell me to take the middle way.He was always there in my mind when I prepared for meditation...or what I took to be meditation at the time--concentration.
I did another trip to Australia at this time...and ran into a talk given by a man called Sadguru Butler from Hawaii....it was free and in a large Hotel Hall. I was reading about the Huna at the time and had read all of Max Freedom Long's books, so I asked him a few questions but he couldn't answer them. Anyway he gave out a picture of Krishna to everyone, the one with the deer and I still have it. I was still doing my yoga exercises and meditation everyday but I had a feeling to learn more about this philosophy. So I went to the Adyar Bookshop and bought the Bhagavad Gita and The Upanishads---Penguin Version..This essentially started my path in Vedanta, reading everything Sankara, Texts, Upanishads, and as much as I could find. I ended up in my ignorance following a fake guru, but luckily for me within 18 months I found 'Be as you are' by David Godman in the library and took it out several times until I bought my own version. I was au fait with the sanskrit and concepts now but the non-duality and Advaita of it all took me some time to absorb properly. So even though I followed the fake guru Sai Baba for 15 years, even becoming an office holder, the philosophy I was learning on the side was Ramana and Vedanta...This really saved me.....As I knew of people that had lost their lives or committed suicide around this organisation, but I was unstable -far from it.I had strange things happening at my house as well...strange appearances not only to me but to my wife as well. One one day Ramanavami Day....the incense we used for our home Bhajan formed three perfect concentric circles, which it had done often before. I thought it was just the type of incense but on this day it did that and then unraveled itself and formed a perfect Sanskrit 1....Myself and the kids all saw it and it was only when I was describing it at the 'Temple' that they told me incense cannot do that as it would break and crumble....One pointedness was apparently the message...
Anyway later on another trip to Australia....(I moved a lot between both countries)I knew a person that had been reading all the Brunton books and trying all kinds of meditation at home, as he was out of work at the time...He had no guru,,,,or teacher and unfortunately he became mentally unbalanced or 'went round the twist' as his wife said...
Another time I was meditating and I ended up in a completely 'dark' place or plane, a plane of nothing just me the observer of it..It was pretty scary and if I hadn't of known some mantras and gurus....I may have been stuck there, as I couldn't wake up so to speak...As it happened I managed to return from this non-dual plane, and I changed my concentration method in meditation afterwards.........always preparing well with mantras and bhajan music and doing japa as a preliminary...There were others who I knew who were unstable and doing pranayama, whether they were like that prior to the pranayama or afterwards I don't know...
The lesson to me was that it is dangerous to play around with the mind, meditation and pranayama unless you have a qualified guru. As it happened, my Guru who I didn't know at the time,...was with me at the mind level and beyond all the time....Also the fact that I was into Vedanta and being into all the Ancient Hindu practises helped me a lot..
Many of the non dual teachers, satsanghers, charlatans, donation takers etc...do not know or apparently care who they area talking to and so called 'teaching'. They never publish names of people who have had mental destabilisation or they blame it on pre-existing conditions...They can never tell what an unguided person may do when their mind is brought out of a lifetime of conditioning and belief systems.
It is highly dangerous a path to step on is the spiritual path without a guide. That is why so many of these verbose verbal non dualists are actually a real and present danger to some of the people they become the unrealised teachers of...In India it is a science hoary with age and timeless...all the kinks have been worked out thousands of years ago psychologically.. These new non dual charlatans probably haven't even qualified in western psychology never mind yoga psychology....Being a clever speaker and being clever with words is still in the conscious mind,,,,not in the subconscious mind or vasana citta....Also these non dual speakers bring this tendency with them from a previous lifetime, which shows it didn't work for them then either and won't now....It is superficial and knowing what a Kind is doesn't make one a King.....and it can be very dangerous to others. Who may become mentally unstable and even commit suicide.......I say this as I know about such events......Om Namah Sivaya ..Tony.
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I FEEL LAKSHMANA SWAMY WAS THE GURU THAT LEAD ME.....t
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