There is a lot of fear involved in being in control of your development. For starters, if you fail you have no one to blame but yourself. If you have a guru – a source of wisdom – you can blame hte guru. You might even become disenchanted with the guru, and move onto another. I imagine the easiest analogue to point to is fad diets. People jump on diets as a way to become the person they want to be, physically. However, eventually they become dienchanted because the diet doesn’t work (or something) – and move onto the _next_ diet (as opposed to taking real control).

So I share your instinctual fear of gurus; who actually occupy the same role that, say, the Church – and directly, the Pope – has in Catholicism. That may be part of why it’s attractive, if your friend grew up Catholic; she would have become accustomed to listening to authority figures when it comes to morals, ethics, etc. A guru is an authority figure outside of the church, but in the same vein.

Personally, I wouldn’t say that the fear is necessarily rooted in the requisite love and trust, but the sacrifice of responsibility – the very thing that I believe is required. I share that believe, at least, with the Existentialists.

A better approach to gurus, I imagine, would be to observe dispassionately – attempting to avoid all the pitfalls in belief – and then make your _own_ conclusions, such that you don’t sacrifice responsibility. You can then benefit from the wisdom of gurus, without falling into the associated traps – one of the more insiduous ones being the “all or nothing” trap. Taking an example from psychology: Freudian theory. Freud developed a very interesting (disturbing?) theoretical framework that had the virtue of explaining _everything_. Unfortunately, because it explained everything, _anything_ a practitioner came into contact with actually _proved_ the theory. But that proof required you to buy into the theory in the first place. And once you both in, nothing you encountered would disprove it.

Basically, Freudian psychology is a cult. A very enticing, all-encompassing cult.

A imagine a number of gurus operate in a similar manner.

And I think that the quote – “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” – refers more to the sense that when the student is ready to learn, the student _will_ learn – the teacher is irrelevant. The “teacher” is merely the “spark” the alights the student’s understanding, not the source of wisdom in themselves. Much like Franz Ferdinand’s (the Archduke, not the band) assassination was the spark of World War I – but it was _only_ the spark because Europe was ready to go to war.

Just a few thoughts :-)

Love;
Michael

Jac