Slay Your Gurus

All right, so today's episode is a bit conceptual, but also incredibly important for any man who's on a path of personal growth and development.

And it's simple. It's time to slay your gurus. That's right. It's time to slay your gurus. Now, I don't consider myself a guru, but this goes for me, too. I'm a coach. I help people transform and grow and guide them into deeper whole lives. And here's the truth. I don't have all the answers.

I have my own shadows, I have my own things I'm working on, and I have my own areas where I'm underdeveloped. And so sometimes I have to refer people to other places, and sometimes I have to acknowledge that a specific area is not my area of expertise. So the idea of the guru is something that goes back to cultures of the east and here in the west, we have a lot of cliche imagery of the guru, the enlightened being who knows everything and has all the answers.

Now, again, that's just kind of a Hollywood stereotype. The guru model itself evolved for very specific reasons in those cultures. And it's important to acknowledge that the cultures the guru evolved in were at a specific structure stage of consciousness and had a specific cultural context, meaning. Their societies were organized in a certain way, and the meaning making system of people within it was different than ours.

And the idea with the guru model at its purest sense was one of the ways to liberate yourself from your own ego was to surrender completely to another being of higher consciousness who could guide you and show you all the limits your way of being had. Now, that model tended to work in those cultures. The problem is, the guru model was kind of imported here into the west in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

And we have a different cultural context, and we have different structure stages of consciousness. Now, the idea with these developmental stages of consciousness, it's not that one is better than any other. They each have their place in the development of human culture and human consciousness. It's just that over time, with the right resources, we see them grow and evolve in certain directions, and those directions often hold more and more complex perspectives.

Now, what's important about that is that the more complexity your Structure stage of consciousness involves, the more it actually transcends and includes the consciousness that came before it. You can kind of think of it concentric circles. The more that can go wrong at the higher levels, because suddenly, with more complexity, there are more areas that things can go off the rails or pathologies can be created.

And so that's something we see based not only on the structure stage of culture here in the west, but also our different cultural conditions and contexts that we have a lot more emphasis on personal development and psychology and the DSM and all these different things that can go wrong in human development with attachment theory and parenting that aren't necessarily quite as present in other cultures.

Specifically some of these cultures that the guru model initially came from. They had stronger sense of communal ties and family and culture and tribe. So people weren't really dropped necessarily in the same way like they are here in the West. We have far more complex relationships with our parents in particular here in the west, than a lot of people do in the East. There's a great story. I don't know exactly which teacher it was, but tried to bring over something called loving kindness meditation into the US and one of the ways they generate this feeling of loving kindness is they just have people think of their mother and instantly feelings of just love and compassion radiate over.

Now, doesn't work so well here in the west, the teachers found out, because a lot of people have a lot of issues with their family of origin and their parents. What they found did work here was having people think of their pets and boom, immediate, just easy, unconditional love, feelings of warmth and loving kindness. Now, that was someone who realized there was a difference between the structure stage of our consciousness and the communities and the culture we're being raised in.

So long and short of it, what's going on here for us and what's so dangerous about this moment, as you may have seen, is pretty much. It seems like at this point, it's not a matter of if, but when some kind of damaging information is going to come out about some kind of spiritual leader, influencer, religious community. We've just seen story after story after story at this point.

The seals breaking in tales of abuse, be it physical, emotional, sexual, financial, caused oftentimes by different communities oriented around some kind of guru, some kind of person who claims to have all the answers. Now, part of what's going on here is, is something I mentioned on a previous episode as well.

In addition to our structure stage of consciousness, like our overall level as human beings, we're Uneven, right. We actually have different lines of development. If you've ever played a video game, an rpg, I like to think of this as your stats. You know, you have strength, you have agility, you have charisma, and rarely can you have them all. And as human beings, we're like that, too. We have cognitive lines of development, emotional lines of development, spiritual lines of development, professional lines of development, you name it.

We have all these different capacities that don't happen automatically. Now, some tend to lead others. A strong cognitive line is often an indicator of growth in other lines because you got to understand something or be aware of it before you can develop your capacity of it. But it's not the only one. Now, what's super important about this is what one of the major confusions that tends to cause all these problems with the guru model comes from, and that's that just because you have a highly developed spiritual line does not mean you can't have pathological or underdeveloped other lines.

What does that mean? Well, that means, you know, as a person, you may have an incredible capacity for altering the states of your consciousness and your brain and having oneness experiences or even transmitting oneness experiences. What that does not mean is you don't have mommy or daddy issues. You don't have shadow driving, your sexuality.

You don't know how to perfectly balance a checkbook. Those things are all different. They're all different. And waking up into your spiritual line of development does not automatically fix all the rest. So where does this cause a problem? Well, there's something in psychology called the halo effect. And quite simply, it's this idea that, you know, when we see someone really good at something or successful in something, kind of creates a halo around them.

And it's very common for us to project, well, if they're super successful at this or that or have deep capacity for something, then I got to give them the benefit of the doubt on these other things, right? And that's where the problem often happens. And this doesn't just happen in spiritual communities, right? Where our teacher, whether it be of meditation, breath, work, energy work, martial arts, you name it, right?

They may have deeply developed capacity in that line of development, and they may be utter experts in that, who you can completely give over your authority to in that domain, but that does not mean you should give your authority over to them in other domains, right? Does not mean they should be giving you financial advice or necessarily advice about your relationships or marriage or how to raise your kids.

I've done a lot of work on A documentary about cults and have known a lot of people involved in them and been kind of on the periphery of some for a long time. And that's often one of the biggest red flags as you get in is the cult leader, AKA the guru, starts guiding all aspects of someone's life, not just that specific sliver of their expertise. And so that halo effect, man, that goes everywhere.

You know, we see that not only with spiritual teachers, but business leaders, artists, musicians, politicians. Well, they're quite successful at this one thing, right? Elon Musk knows how to make cars, so we must trust him when it comes to X, Y or Z. And the truth is, no, everybody is human. Everybody has overdeveloped sometimes and underdeveloped capacities.

And the thing about kind of genius level folks when it comes to spiritual development or business, entrepreneurial, ship, or even athletes is often that comes at the expense of some other lines of development. Now, when we take the fact that people can develop unevenly in the awareness that oftentimes they are developed unevenly, and we couple it with one of the problems that comes from the halo effect, which tends to be a bubble that prevents new information from getting in.

You know, I kind of call this the entourage effect because we see it in celebrities, we see it in artists, we see it in spiritual teachers, we see it in anywhere. There's kind of a bit of a hierarchy once you get to the top. Oftentimes you just suddenly become surrounded by yes men, right? People who want to get a taste of that halo effect and assume that because you've had this success or this depth of transformation in one area, that everything else you're doing is going to be spot on as well.

And so there becomes a lack of information flow. The person becomes insulated at the top. And this is where gurus often, quite literally start to think they're God, because people treat them like that. But we see that with celebrities too, right? People who get into addiction or have financial issues. And the first thing, you know, I often think about is where were their friends? Where were the people around them to kind of give them a cross check in reality?

And the problem is this halo effect often excludes those people and prevents people from being held accountable. You know, we see this all over the place, the mega rich as well now. So tying this all together, the issue really becomes don't give over all your power to one teacher or leader. Don't believe that one person who's found some kind of success, whether they're a spiritual teacher, an influencer, a coach knows all the answers.

You want to be very selective about who you grant authority to and why. And what's amazing about this time and place we're living in is that's becoming a lot more nuanced as we learn about these different stages of consciousness and levels and lines of development. So the new capacity is not, well, you're the master. I surrender to you in all things. It's in this moment.

Who carries the most depth of wisdom, the most practice, the most knowledge, the most embodiment around this thing. And it becomes much more of a flex flow. So in my life, there are people that I turn to for support around shadow work or meditation or different practices, but they're not people I turn to when I need help writing a film project, making investments, or even making decisions about my family and love life.

Knowing that is incredibly important for you to carve a healthy path moving forward. You want to look for teachers, coaches and therapists who are aware of that and who know they do not have all the answers. And so part of the idea behind this episode for you to slay your gurus is to prepare you and, and give you the knowledge to make sure you're making wise choices on your path.

And part of what I've learned in my journey and part of what you can bring to the table if you're considering working with a teacher, a coach or a therapist, or some kind of spiritual community of some kind, is when it's a person, you know, there's some questions you can ask them. Number one, what do you think your shadows are? What are you still working on healing? Anyone who says they don't have any shadows and are done with their healing, Red flag, run for the hills.

It's bullshit. They're lying. They're spiritual bypassing or they're just totally disconnected. All humans have shadow. All humans have growth and development and healing work that continues throughout their lives. If they can't acknowledge that that's not someone you want to work with. Number two, who holds you accountable? Right? And this is where I think one of the killer apps right now that I keep talking about on this show, men's groups, but really any kind of co ed group can become incredibly important.

Who holds you accountable? Who will call you on your bullshit? Who will tell you when you seem like you're off the mark, who will give you feedback so you continue to grow. If they don't have anyone holding them accountable again, red flag, run for the hills. Now you can zero in on that even more by asking them, you know, what kind of coaches, therapists, spiritual guides or support group, like a men's group or a co ed group or a woman's group.

Are you part of and do you work with. Now, we don't all have to be doing those things at all times. We have different seasons. But if they're not doing any of those things again, run for the hills. Absolute red flag. You know, one of the things that had me completely trust one of the teachers I work with was he told me early on, I'm always gonna have a coach, I'm always gonna have a spiritual teacher, and I'm always gonna have a men's group, no matter how big I get.

And I trusted that. I trust that still. And I do the same. I have coaches I work with, I have lots of men's groups I participate in, I have therapists on hand. And I know firsthand there's a lot I don't know. There's a lot outside of my expertise, outside of my highly developed self that I not the best person to guide you on.

I'll happily point you in the right direction and support you in that. So those are some really important questions for you to carry as you start working with people. Because anyone that can't answer those is probably falling into the narcissistic guru trap and totally unaware of where they're not aware. And when you don't know that and you don't know these questions, it can be pretty easy to get intoxicated by the power of a teacher, a guide, a community leader who seems like they have it all figured out.

And it's so easy for us to project that halo around people who are really deeply developed in some capacity, because it just goes to stand right. Well, if they're really good at this, they must be really good at this other stuff, particularly when it comes to spirituality. So you got to do it. You got to slay your gurus. Don't expect one person to have all the answers. Get super clear about what level of development they excel in and where you're willing to grant them authority in the moment and around what they're not always going to have the answers.

Sometimes it's going to be up to you and you want to surround yourself. And you should look for people who are surrounded by others that hold them accountable, are at least conscious of doing shadow work, and are flowing between some kind of structure of coaches, therapists, spiritual guides and accountability groups like men's groups, co ed groups and women's groups, slayer gurus, the time for dysfunctional, abusive hierarchy and spiritual communities is over.

If you want to work with me and some of my men's groups, just head on over to Evolutionary Men SL events. And if you want to get involved in my intensive coaching men's group around dating and relationships, just check out our free training at Evolutionary Men webinar. Until next time.