Gurus and the god within

What is it that makes us drawn to others that hold up the mirror to us and say “look here is your power”, and then let them take the credit for it?


The process of going from innocence, disillusionment and then finally adulthood is determined by the time it takes for us to be willing to see the truth. Raw, ugly, wounded, insecure, brutally and beautifully human.


The first heart break from innocence to disillusionment is the hardest. The part of us that longs to see our ideal of perfection in the world will protect our minds from acknowledging the truth about less than god like behaviours in humans. What can shatter quickly for some, can be a slower more drawn out process spanning even past the emo heavy teen years into early adulthood. It’s the sacred aspect that we clamber to defend, after each beating and disappointment.


Some people reach that disillusionment much earlier. Even in childhood. The pedestalling of their parents as gods, drops after a divorce, or they are left to raise themselves in front of the television. The danger is when they grow into adults and then still see, relate and project that disillusionment onto the world, and hold onto the expectation of further victimization and heartbreaks.


Pedestalling / guru worship occurs when we have suffered that initial heartbreak of dropping out of the Eden of innocence into the harsh realities of the less than godly character traits of man, experiencing the whips and beatings, and we see someone, who in our weakened, impressionable or vulnerable state, becomes the perfect idealization of what we wish to be, or have in our lives.


It is the EXTERNALIZATION of the god within.


Automatically a codependency occurs, we are drawn like moths to a flame, seeking the light we believe is living within that person when we aren’t strong enough to hold that light within our own lives. If this person responds and interacts with us, without rejecting our advance to connect in their lives in some way, 1 of 2 things can occur:

1. They negate the need for our pedestalling of them, and instead direct our focus, fascination and questioning towards our own empowerment.

Or 2. They can consciously or unconsciously take an ego trip off the attention and, again, conscious or not, enter into an energetic trade with us.


And this is where it gets interesting. Because it’s like saying to someone, “ok I’ll look after that need, if you look after this one.” Both parties can be happy to play their part in this until one day it just doesn’t feel right any more. It can be so unconscious that the desire to part from this union may not even be articulable. But the soul’s desire ultimately always leads us towards further growth, whether we accept the challenge of change and uncertainty, or we have to be dragged kicking and screaming (and it will come to that if need be).


The boundaries in codependency can be extremely unclear, because on some level there never were any. There has been a handing over of sovereignty. There has been an investment made in the other with a clause that states we are always to be included in their picture and vice versa. Doesn’t matter how clean and tidy the agreement is on the outside and the day to day operation of our relation. Our energies have become 2 entangled balls of string, because from the jump off, attachment existed. “You got something I need, I got something you need.”


People can exist in codependency without the slightest awareness of it, but more than likely the unwillingness to acknowledge it and therefore unwillingness to acknowledge their responsibility in its creation. It doesn’t have to be as obvious as the “university professor sleeping with his student”.


The codependency is comfortable when we are too chicken shit to allow the structure it gives our world to crumble. The other party can wake up one day and pull out of the codependency and we can just go on to recreate it with someone else. “You got something I need, I got something you need.” “You hold my stuff, so I don’t have to look at myself and I’ll hold your stuff, so you don’t have to look at yourself. ”


There comes a point where we can decide to go on chasing this thing we’re seeking outside ourselves until the end of eternity, like any good addiction, or we can calm the fuck down and find our core. Plant our feet, and do some serious fucking homework. Nobody can do your homework for you. That’s always been the point! Guru worship or pedestalling does not give you a cheat sheet for the final exam! You’ve got to find the answers within, cause that’s where they always were. That childhood wound of feeling rejected by the group will not be dissolved with our fantasies of merging with our idealized god man/woman. If anything it will make them more human and less than perfect in our eyes, and open to our projections of disappointment, disillusionment and victimization. Hence our tantrum throwing, inner child’s prophecy of never being loved or never feeling good enough has been fulfilled. So scratch that cat , we’re onto the next fantasized human ideal of godlike perfection that we can find. Lather, rinse and repeat that shit.


My wish for myself and for the world is to really have eyes to see the world and human behaviour for what it is. Ego trips occur every where in all walks of life, like a good friend told me today in conversation: “I think for many people they are so caught up in the rat race and the competition of life, power, ego and jealousy. It’s how we’ve been wired. And to act from your heart space is a choice, but you have to be aware of the individuals who proclaim to be… and don’t truly come from it”


To this I’d add that letting go of the pedestalling of others is about allowing our hearts to break again, but instead of going into the dis-empowerment of the victimization of feeling our needs haven’t been met, choosing to find those needs fulfilled within ourselves. It’s acceptance of everyone as they are, not what we’d prefer them to be. It’s not condoning their behaviours, but it means not resisting or denying the reality of their true motives and thoughts. Then we can just see them as they are and be ok with it. Because there’s nothing else that we need them to be.



Maurice Katting is a Massage Therapist, Reiki Practitioner and Vibrational Healer based in Melbourne, Australia

You can connect with him at

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