Depends what you mean by 'bringing comfort' R - presumably as in removing suffering from our lives. 'Clean living', or living through compassion and wisdom, and if not that at least by adhering to basic rules of conduct does tend to bring about less suffering, but good teaching in fact may well led us into places which are quite painful too.

So it's more about about helping to raise our insight and ability to live through love, than it is about reducing suffering.

It's all relative. There's a Buddhist saying that it's not unknown for a student to achieve realisation through devotion to a teacher that actually is knowingly or unknowingly a fraud. What matters (in the individual context) is the students internal situation and process.

It's possible that a knowingly fraudulent TV evangelist may assist many by e.g. introducing them to a valid and life changing view they otherwise would not have been exposed to, or that the teacher does not himself adhere to. That doesn't make them honest, it doesn't make them a suitable teacher for a student in different circumstances, and nor does it make it desirable that teachers in general be chancers.

Peculiarly enough though it's reckoned to be the setting aside of personal will and judging that leads to progress in such a situation, so having decided regarding a teacher there's choices to be made in this respect too.

But that doesn't mean that whether through luck, personal judgement or even a mixing of an ability to teach effectively to a level while simultaneously being on the fiddle that one of these guys may not do good for some.

The problem is to walk the line down the middle - to extract what is useful and helpful, and to withold judgement on what may not be.

We can as i said choose to avoid absolutely everything we don't regard as perfect, but (a) can we really judge this accurately, and (b) as above can we afford to do this?

Walsch's books are fact. (in that they exist) Were they divinely inspired, or the work of (say) a scheming charlatan? The point is that we can't ever know this for sure. Yet my own experience is that his books contain loads of solid and spiritually valid insights into life. Should the fact that (if indeed it was the case that he actually did plagiarise a bit of somebody's material) result in all of his stuff being dumped?

What would happen if we were to institute a law that teachers must be infallible, on pain of being banned and all their works destroyed? Who would decide? Is there even a remote possibility that they might get beyond personal bias, beliefs, interpretation and perception in deciding this? How many teachers' works (including the bible) would survive this process? How long would it take until competition started between opposing factions rooting for different teachers and/or interpretations, with the result that the teacher most favouring the strongest interest would eventually be deemed 'truth'?

How do we know with precision anyway what was taught and maybe more importantly meant by historical or even current teachers - given that what we are exposed to has been through multiple re-editings and re-interpretations?

It really doesn't matter what anybody says or does. We all live in our own reality as we travel forward in time, and we each have to decide what we accept and don't from the influences we are exposed to, and what level of certainty we apply to them.

Walsch could have been divinely inspired, been an imperfect (as is inevitable) channel, and at the same time thought he was hatching a get rich quick scheme  - all at once. (i'm for example a fan of his books, but was not enhusiastic about the pronouncements of the organisation he founded)

Our tendency to insist on infallibility is much more to do with ego and our liking for neat one size fits all answers than the complex and multi dimensional reality - it comes straight from our own mind, and is arguably the result of our having conceptualised (or been influenced by societal conditioning, or competing interests) and adopted the belief that teachers must be infallible to be the real thing.

Of course it's OK. It's happened, and given this our task is to figure out what's positive and what is not (if anything), and to respond appropriately to the situation. To say anything else is to refuse to accept the reality.

Not to mention that if we keep on throwing the baby out with the bathwater and we risk ending up like the spinster that never met a man good enough for her. But we're free to make that choice, or we can decide to move on to other sources - we don't have to persuade the world that we were right first....

Greetings,

When Rondel brought up the concept of comfort, I began wondering if  an analogy would be appropriate--
but I'll try it anyway --
If we came upon a starving person and all we had to offer was macaroni and cheese, would we hold back because we believe in more veggies, and less carbs? Would 'comfort food' be inappropriate?

Since we can't judge how developed the souls are that seem to need to hear these storytellers whom we find inadequate, should we deprive them of all but what we consider the best?

Bets

Everyone that posted on this thread makes a good point. It is a matter of perspective. Seems to me the man that did walk on water also stated something about letting the one who is without sin cast the first stone.

My point is which one of us has never chosen wrong action because of having a wrong intent?

Anything less than understanding and forgiveness indicates your little ego is alive and well. What is it that you fear?

Love, Kathy

Hi Roger,

Hmmm... it seems that you and I define ego differently. The development of ego is basically becoming self aware and in this sense I would agree that the "ego" gets a bad rap in new age theology. However, the ego in my definition and as it is used most often now days is basically what is commonly referred to as our "mask self" which is founded in fear.

I think what happens is that when we are born, we have a strong connection to an inner spiritual wisdom, what I usually call God. This connection gives us the feeling of complete safety that allows for the curious wonder and innocence that we have as very young children. As we grow this connection to spiritual wisdom fades and is replaced by parental voices that are intended to protect us and keep us safe. These voices speak of good and bad, right and wrong and teach us how to make decisions, how to act and react in varying situations, etc. As the child's connection dims his or her psyche tries to replace the original innate spiritual wisdom with a functioning ego, but because of the internalized parental voices, the mask self is produced instead.

The creation of a mask self is essentially an attempt to get back the feelings of safety we had before our inner spiritual connection dimmed. It is the lack of our inner spiritual connection to God that makes us feel deeply afraid in a mortal world. The only way to truly feel safe again is to find our way back to God... to rediscover who we really are, but I'm getting off track so back to the mask.

Depending on our beliefs, usually deep seeded ones that formed as a child is how the mask self develops and presents itself to the world in order to feel a connection with others, accepted and safe. However, it doesn't work. The mask can never succeed in producing an internal feeling of safety because the intentions of the mask are wrong intentions. The intent of our mask self (ego) is to try to protect ourselves by proving to the world that we are good. But it is based on pretense and denial and by not taking responsibility for negative thoughts and actions and the blame game plus a lot of other games ensues.

LOL... I could probably write a book on the subject, but I'll spare all of you and stop here.
 
Kathy

Roger, I happened to think Don posted about humility and what he says here is basically what my post was getting at. Humility and compassion are basically the antitheses of ego. Only through a lack of fear and ego can one truly love and understand as Don indicates here.

Quote:

Don:

Regarding worshipping God, as you know, Jesus said to love thy lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, and all thy mind. How can you completely love another being if you're in the worship mode? When you do so you put a barrier between yourself and that being. Shouldn't God be able to experience the same kind of intimacy that the rest of us experience? Would a being who lives completely according to love want to be regarded more highly than the beings he shares love with? To do so would be kind of egotistical.

I want God to be completely happy, and I appreciate greatly what he has done.  Because I believe he has the greatest good in mind, and knows how to achieve the greatest good, what he wills is important to me.

Think about it. If you were the first being to exist and you created many children to share love with, would you want them to worship you as if you were some kind of king, or would it be enough that they simply shared love, respect and humility with you, just as you share these qualities with them? Plus, if you understood that your children came from no other place than your own being, would you find it necessary to look down on them in some way, or would you realize that different parts of yourself have played different roles?

If a person truly lives according to principles such as love, humility, respect and grattitude, there is no need to add pretenses by making God out to be a being who desires to be worshiped.  Often people get into the worship mode, because they believe that loving God means that you have to fear him in some way. Love and fear don't go together.

Exactly Lucy.

In addition the human intellect does extremely well when it comes to gathering and interpreting information, but it is incredibly poor at utilizing the logical process.

Being logical to any significant degree seems to be beyond human capability even though most of us believe we are much more logical than what we really are. In fact we are just barely rational much less logical, especially when it comes to the most important aspect of spiritual growth, our relationships with others.

Kathy

How can you completely love another being if you're in the worship mode? When you do so you put a barrier between yourself and that being.

Someone (who was trying to use the possibility of meeting Jesus to awe my pagan daughter) asked her what she'd do if she met Jesus face-to-face.  She said she'd give him a big hug.

I thought that showed about the right attitude.