Gurus hot & cold, structured & unstructured
Andrew Rawlinson
Adapted extract from a letter to the Institute.
I am writing a book about Western gurus and have developed a model of comparative religion (see the article 'The Yogi and the Mystic', edited by K. Werner, published by Curzon Press, 1989)
In this model the various spiritual teachings can be mapped as in the diagram below. This model is directly relevant to the question of a teacher's reliability and your Guru Quotient.
Hot [at top middle of diagram]
[Top Left Corner]
Hot Structured
The teaching: The teaching is never given all at once but only when necessary and then only in cryptic form. This is typical of all forms of esotericism. The teacher as magician or the one who knows the secret.
Examples: Hindu tantra, gnosticism, Gurdjieff (who also had some cool structured exercises).
Spiritual practice: series of leaps or initiations.
Transmission: by ordeal.
Images: magician, gambler.
The message: JUMP!
[Bottom Left Corner]
Structured [to left of diagram]
Cool Structured
The teaching: The teaching is open and complete but there's no point in reading p.100 before you read p.1. The teacher as clear discriminator or guide.
Examples: Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutras'.
Spiritual practice: graduated and gentle.
Transmission: learning how to use the map.
Images: yogi, craftsmen.
The message: WORK!
[Top Right Corner]
Hot Unstructured
The teaching: There is no teaching - only love and submission. The teacher as servant of God or
embodiment of God.
Examples: Meher Baba: 'I come not to teach but to awaken'. Subud.
Spiritual practice: submission.
Transmission: gift.
Images: lover, martyr.
The message: SUBMIT!
[Bottom Right Corner]
Unstructured [to right of diagram]
Cool Unstructured
The teaching: The teaching is constantly given (the same truth over and over again) but no one
understands it. The teacher embodies truth.
Examples: Ramana Mahrashi, Taoism and Zen.
Spiritual practice: just realise.
Transmission: none - truth already exists.
Image: sage, hermit.
The message: LET GO!
Cool [at bottom middle of diagram]
Andrew Rawlinson continues:
Essentially, the Guru Quotient is a Cool evaluation, tending somewhat towards the Cool Structured. There is nothing wrong with this in itself, of course, but it is one-sided; the Hot idea (both Structured and Unstructured) can be just as compelling as the Cool but it is based on different axioms.
What has tended to happen, I think, is that the liberal, humanistic middle-classes (who are themselves drawing on a Western tradition that is in the Cool Structured quarter of the model) have a deep suspicion of poor-quality teachers of the Hot persuasion. But good-quality exponents also exist (eg Ramakrishna; Meher Baba; Neem Karoli Baba, Ram Dass's master - see Ram Dass's 'Miracle of Love', Dutton, NY, 1979).
'One should also beware of using high-quality Cool values to discredit poor-quality Hot teachers'
Of course, it is always possible to provide a Cool critique of high-quality Hot teachings or teachers. But then one has to accept the consequences - eg dumping the notions of divine will, submission, grace, etc, all of which have their place in all the major religions. It is easy to see how this would appeal to an intelligent humanist but even so it is not something that should be done lightly. And on top of that, one should also beware of using high-quality Cool values to discredit poor-quality Hot teachers.
By analogy, there is a world of difference between European classical music and American blues. But comparing the best examples of each - say, Mozart and Billie Holiday - can be instructive even if, in the end, one ends up saying that one genre is superior to the other. But comparing poor examples - say, early Mendelssohn and Barry White or Luther Vandross in their 'blues' mode - with each other really doesn't get us anywhere. And as for comparing a good example of one genre with a poor-quality example of another - that's either a rigged comparison or an ignorant one.
The essential point, I think, is that (a) there are different kinds of good quality; and (b) comparing these different kinds cannot be done by people who don't actually see the different kinds of quality - like someone who can't appreciate Mozart (my son) or Billie Holiday (my mother-in-law). The result is that they can't really converse about music but only about certain forms of it.
Andrew Rawlinson, Meregill, Bentham, Lancaster LA2 7AN (tel 05242 61185).
Editorial comment
This is a fascinating and illuminating classification scheme; but nevertheless the ignorant and abusable beginner on the trail and at the bottom of the power mountain would still benefit from having (if necessary four different) ways to help sense who are the charlatan gurus in each quadrant.
And I still maintain that a disciple, however Hot the guru yearned for may be, would be well advised before or between jumping head first into the guru's influence, to take a Cool, unstructured look at what's going on - just as Wordsworth recommended the recollection of emotion in tranquillity. Very few people are permanently in just one of the four quadrants that Rawlinson depicts and they might as well therefore take advantage of the insights and perspectives available from whichever quadrant they temporarily find themselves in.
Response from Andrew Rawlinson
Adapted extract from a second letter to the Institute.
'Gurdjieff ran his groups like a slightly batty sergeant major; and he had children by several of his students'
As for detecting frauds in the four categories, it is a matter of how well each ideal is upheld. For example, Gurdjieff was a Hot Structured teacher: he enjoyed spending money (especially other people's); he ran his groups like a slightly batty sergeant major; and he had children by several of his students. Now what I'm saying is that the appropriate question (or rather the first appropriate question) isn't 'Is this out of order?' but 'Did Gurdjieff live up to the standards of a Hot Structured teacher?' (which means that he is bound to be challenging, disturbing and constantly trying to wake people up). If the answer is Yes, then he's high quality and one can only argue that he's out of order by applying a critique from another category. And we can do that - but then we should be aware of what we are doing. If the answer is No, then he's poor quality and it's highly likely that he misused money, power and sex - according to the Hot Structured ideal, that is.
So what I'd say about gurus, teachers or groups is: don't get involved with the Hot ones unless you can hold your own. If a guru is out to shake me up, it helps if I can say 'Get lost!' And if he chucks me out - fine. In short, take responsibility for yourself and your own actions. But on the other hand, it may well be that in being asked to give money, certain attachments and obsessions are revealed to me and that I'd be grateful for it. It may be that being forced through an intense practice (as in Zen sesshin) bbreaks down barriers of resistance that I could not have breached on my own - and I could be grateful for that, too.
It's not that I'm against warnings about gurus; rather, that behind these warnings may be a need for security that is unexamined and which is actually frightened of taking risks - a sort of stodgy bourgeois goo that is in favour of God, queen and country without examining what any of them mean. Of course, I don't deny that the Cool Structured ideal, which is based on clarity, fairness, balance and so forth, has its excellence. But this is high quality; the bourgeois goo is poor quality.
Editorial comment
This smacks of special pleading for Gurdjieff and his ilk. Since there are high-quality Hot Structured gurus who behave neither immorally nor unethically, why bend over backwards to make excuses for those who have feet of clay? And there seem to be very few cases of disciples being able to stand up to a guru, as Rawlinson advises. Their overpowering charisma is often how they came to accepted as gurus in the first place.
'Why bend over backwards to make excuses for those who have feet of clay?'
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