Guerrilla Tactics and Guruism

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -- The Buddha

In retrospect, I have been held back by others' dogma many times in my life, as have many/most/all of us. When seeking answers to a personal problem, one is almost guaranteed to encounter other opinions and perspectives that conflict with one's own sense of what ought to be done. The conflict can be subtle as to go undetected, and, to one who is vulnerable and in pain, the urge to be soothed by another's message can overwhelm one's intrinsic sense of guidance. I don't mean to paint a picture with too broad a brushstroke here; rather, I am warning against falling into the trap of guru-ism at one's own expense.

I encourage anyone who seeks my input to employ guerrilla tactics when seeking solutions to their problems. (Most of the time, I don't put it that way, but sometimes I do.) Why? It's all-too-easy to get drawn in to another person's dogma and lose sight of one's own. There are a lot of magnetic people in the world, many of whom are doing really good work, but whose messages can nevertheless feel like a catch-all problem solver to the desperate solution seeker. People turn to others for help, and that's well and good. But there needs to come a point at which the seeker detaches from the guru to evaluate what has been learned, to filter out anything that doesn't jive with inner sensibilities, and proceed into a decision, or other avenues of exploration. In other words, the seeker has to be the one to regroup and make the change in their life. No guru or dogma can do it for them.

There is so much information available about basically anything, or any idea, in the world. Our physical health is aided by a diet of nutritious food. Similarly, our spiritual health is aided by dynamic learning: the more we learn, the more we have available to help ourselves. What I would say, then, is to allow yourself to investigate the things that hold your interest. Learn about them. Read about them. Talk to like-minded people about them. Teach other people about them. Draw connections between the things you're learning and the things you've learned, and allow them to spur you onward toward new things. You, by pursuing your interests thus, will be creating a rich psychological framework for yourself; you will be cultivating your inner world, and developing it as your most precious resource. And drawing your knowledge from a variety of sources gives you a better chance at being flexible in your thinking, and able to tackle the inevitable problems of your life with dexterity -- after all, many times we must only look at something from a different perspective in order to see the way forward.

But it all comes down to you. These are my words, and my way of looking at things. If what I just wrote doesn't make any sense to you, and even if it does, keep searching. I think that, for many folks, especially in a world as nuanced, and as full of disparate information, ideas, and cultures as ours, it can be helpful to draw inspiration from a variety of sources, and to then employ guerrilla tactics (so to speak) in problem-solving.