The Trouble With Gurus

There's an innate danger in getting too close to someone whose life and lifestyle you admire. And that is watching the illusions that you've built up around them completely dissolve when they suddenly become human.

This can be a blessing - you realize that they are human, like you, and prone to human actions and emotions, like you.

But it can also be unsettling to realize how willing we are at times to put those we admire onto pedestals, trusting thier wisdom, judgement, and intuition completely. At times, even over our own.

It's a danger, this. Because in the end, we are all human, prone to human actions and emotions, exceedingly imperfect...even the gurus we hold in such high regard.

This I realize as I watch the trajectory of a former-guru-cum-close-friend's life spin into a total 360 from what it was when we first met.

And the thing is, they seem deliriously content to keep letting it spin, because apparently, the wonderful life they'd presented for years, the wonderful life I witnessed and occasionally felt envious of, well....let's just say I've now learned was really, deep down, anything but wonderful.

They were far from satisfied...

But it's okay, because now they are really coming into themselves. Now everything is moving along as it should be. Now they can finally cast aside the mantle of who they were and delve head-first into who they were meant to be. If it hurts someone else, that's a shame, but other people just get hurt sometimes. In the end, we have to consider ourselves and our happiness and what is right for us, even if it seems catastrophically selfish to the outside world. Forget all that other stuff and listen to this new wisdom they have to share. Because it's the real deal. And they want to celebrate every step of it with all the people they love...except maybe the ones who aren't speaking to them anymore but whatever, they'll come around and if not, well, everyone is not meant to be in our lives forever and sometimes we just have to - forgive the cliche - let go. Perhaps they just can't accompany us into this journey to our higher selves. Bless them anyway.

Funny, watching these things as they unfold, wondering what happened, and how much of this person's current actions conceal the deeper reality that for much of the time I held them to such high knowing and regard, they really were not any wiser than me...and clearly, not happier.

It makes me a little sad to think I was thier friend, and yet could have missed something that's now so glaringly obvious, but to my credit, the persona was quite convincing.

And there's the trouble with gurus....