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Shahriar Shahriari |
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Message of the Month
July, 1999
Blind Leading the Blind
This expression is so well known and its absurdity is so obvious that none can miss the point it is trying to make. Yet although we realize this message through our mind and logic, somehow we miss the point and do not integrate it in our consciousness nor do we apply it in our daily life.
I have come across many, many friends, acquaintances and others, who are desperately looking for leaders, coaches, gurus, teachers and preachers. They are grasping for any technique that comes their way, disguised as seminars, books, audio/video tapes, or the Master’s decrees, to name but a few. But alas, the one thing that can help them, they will not seek. They refuse to seek themselves, to think, to go within, to ask their soul or their own selves.
Of course these are the blind seeking guidance, a helping hand, someone to take them to the land of happiness and salvation, the Promised Land.
And alas there are those who have had glimpses of their own lives, their own selves, and have mistaken those visions, and sometimes hallucinations, for the light, the path to salvation, the gateways of Paradise. They have fallen in love with their own visions and have made it their life’s mission to teach and preach and lead others to that beatific land.
Under the disguise of high-sounding words such as inner child, inner soul, higher self and such like, they have convinced themselves that their vision is the truth, and are busily converting others to their ways. After all, there is security in numbers, and in this life that offers absolutely no security, it is better to have something solid to hang on to. Perhaps a system, or a technique, or anything that can shield our eyes from the unpredictability and insecurity of life.
And of course, these are the blind, who have mistaken their inner dreams and visions and hallucinations for the light and sight.
But this is not the sad part. The sad part is the fact that the blind of the first group, desperately seeking anything but themselves, are feeding the frenzy of the false gurus and teachers, whom like everything else in this abundant universe of ours, abound. They invalidate themselves and validate these false teachers, without knowing what they do. They listen to the blind leaders and buy into their visions, since they themselves have seen none.
As for myself, I have learnt the hard way what to trust and what not to trust. I have learnt to only ask guidance of those who do not aim to go anywhere. To only seek advice of those who have none to give. To only learn from those who have nothing to teach. And to only believe those who have nothing to say.
After all, didn’t the Chinese proverb say, "he who says, does not know. He who knows, does not say!"?
© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
July 1999
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