Liars and Cheats – All Of Them! Ekhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Mooji, The Pope, Sadguru, Amma and The Rest of Them.

Moving From The Truth To Our Own Truths

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“Civilisations evolve because people´s perspectives evolve.

I believe The Foundation Stone for the Conscious Communities and Cultures so many of us seek

to co-create needs to be “Radical Honesty”, or “Radical Subjectivity” - the felt-perception that

“all I ever feel is my own, unique, individual, limited, fallible, subjective experiencing”.

“Tweedledum was insisting that things either were or weren´t.

He was an objectivist, through and through.

Tweedledee wasn´t sure how Tweedledum could be so sure.

And now the whole of Wonderland was aflame with their debate.

“No, no, no!” objected The Mad Hatter,

“When I meditate I experience a bliss beyond the subjective!”

Alice placed a fingertip upon her lower lip, and a frown upon her brow.

“I wonder if your bliss is exactly the same as mine, when I meditate”she wondered, out loud.

“Goodness gracious – what a wonderful thing to wonder about!” the Mad Hatter exclaimed,

and poured more tea, excitedly.”

Liars and Cheats?!

Why do I say “Liars and Cheats – Ekhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Mooji, The Pope, Sadguru, Amma - All of Them”? Because, in my opinion, they pose as The Light of The World, as Messengers of God or The Goddess, as Embodiments of Ultimate Truth Itself – when in actual fact they are just human beings – limited, fallible human beings – endowed with wisdom no doubt, blessed with insight no doubt, knocked out of identification with their egos, perhaps – but limited, fallible human beings nonetheless!

Therefore: liars and cheats – pretenders, charlatans – as self-deceiving as deceiving of their adoring publics, perhaps – but deceivers nonetheless. And not only that... these purveyors of “peace and love”, as we shall discuss - by virtue of their pretence to “rightness” create “wrongness”, and thus sow the seeds of fixed positions, division, opposition and conflict.

This is my opinion.

My Opinion

I do not say “this is my opinion” as some sort of disclaimer. I don´t mean to imply that my words are “just” my opinion. I say “this is my opinion” to underline the subjectivity of my assertion.

I am not saying that my opinion is the truth (i.e. true for all people, in all ways, at all times), nor am I saying it is not the truth (who knows – maybe it is “the” truth!).

What I am saying is that this is my deeply considered, deeply heartfelt, limited, fallible opinion.

And it might well change. I don´t know if it will still be my opinion ten years from now. How could I? But it is “my truth” - right now. It is my provisional truth.

Why am I labouring this point?

Because it is precisely because I see gurus and guides and facilitators and mentors passing off their truth as the truth (their opinion as the truth) that I consider them to be irresponsible, exploitative, dangerous liars and cheats.

Don´t get me wrong – I´m not anti-spirituality, or like one of those people who are on a crusade to expose false psychics! I am against deception presented as benevolence. I am against the holy smile, the seduction to obedience – to disempowerment in the name of betterment.

It´s not that I want to bring these gurus and priests and rabbis down. I want to bring us up. I want to contribute to our collective integrity – to our collective awakening.

If a spiritual teacher were to say “I directly perceive the unity of all things. I directly perceive the interconnectedness and inseparability of everything. And this perception has led me, so far, to these opinions....” (for example), I would say “wow! That sounds amazing”. I would not shout “liar and cheat!” I would say “here is a human being sharing their direct experience and their provisional opinions”, and I would appreciate and admire that.

But if a spiritual teacher were to say “this is how it is: all things are unified. All things are interconnected and inseparable”, I would shout “liar and cheat!” I would shout “how do you know? Are you everywhere, at all times, in all places? How do you know?”

And even if this spiritual teacher were to reply “yes, I feel I am everywhere in the cosmos, I feel I am the beginning and the end. I feel I am inside every atom and outside of everything – all at once!” I would still shout “liar and cheat!” Because, I would insist “then say that! Tell us about how that feels. But don´t extrapolate. Don´t pose as all-knowing. Don´t tell us that what you are experiencing is the way things are. Tell us your truth. And if your truth feels, to you, like the truth – then tell us that! Tell us that your truth feels, to you, like the truth. But don´t tell us it is the truth!”

I´m not saying that the content of what these lying, cheating so-called spiritual masters and mistresses are preaching is untrue. I would have to be omniscient to know that. Might it all be true? Yes. Might it all be a hallucination? Yes. Might it all be divine revelation? Yes. Might it all be a cosmic psychosis? Yes. What I am saying is that they are liars and cheats because they are posing as omniscient - presenting their perhaps-expanded, perhaps-egoless, perhaps-exquisite, personal experience as Infinite Eternal Existential Truth.

Are all of our faculties fallible? Yes. Can we err in our perception? Yes. Might we have “spiritual” or “energetic” faculties beyond our currently recognised faculties? Yes. And might they be fallible too? Yes. So wouldn´t it behoove the so-called spiritual teacher, the one who purports to be educating us as to the very Nature of Existence Itself, to be, if not more humble and honest – at least realistic?! I believe the honest person can only make affirmations like “this is my opinion. This is my perception. This is my experience” - however mind-blowing or enlightened that opinion/perception/experience might feel to them. And if asked “are your teachings the Final, Complete, All-Encompassing, One Great Truth?” the honest person would reply “I have no infallible way of knowing! Perhaps beyond my current level of expanded experience there are infinite levels of infinitely expanding experiences. I have no infallible way of knowing!”

I believe these would be the words of an honest person.

As it happens, I personally agree with Ekhart Tolle that “we only ever experience the present moment” and that the present moment is a portal to a level of consciousness beyond our everyday personality-addiction. That´s my opinion. (Right now.) It is an opinion that happens to be in agreement with his opinion. But we could both be looking through a lens we didn´t even know was there, or arriving at limited conclusions due to the limited structures of our conceptual capacities. I believe that all Ekhart or I or anyone can say is “this is how it feels to me”.

And as a side-note let me just say that I have often heard people voice the fear that such Radical Honesty or Subjectivity (“all I ever feel is my own, unique, individual, limited, fallible, subjective experiencing”) will lead to a relativistic society in which all opinions are equally valid and equally invalid, and there is no ethical discrimination (love is no better than hate). That has not been my experience. Having shared the living-exploration of Radical Honesty with many people, I have seen them (a) realise they are not actually feeling their own experience – that they are not “experiencing their experience”, and then (b) begin to share a path of presence and intimacy (with their experience, and with each other).

So – to conclude this section: my opinion is that when Ekhart or Mooji (or any of the above), say “this is the way it is” - when they say, not “this is the way it feels to me”, but “this is the way it is” - they are going beyond their actual experience, they are generalising, they are univeralising themselves, or (to put it less kindly) they are lying. And to lie to people is to cheat them. It is to mislead them. And that, as I see it, is in direct contradiction with what such teachers proclaim themselves to be – guides on the path of truth.

Division and Conflict

And this leads me into the second part of my opinion – that not only are such so-called spiritual teachers dishonest misleaders – but the very fact that they promote the truth means they are simultaneously circumscribing the untrue. By saying (for example) “The Truth is that the Earth is Our Mother” they are endowing this dimension with maternal qualities – making statements like “the Earth is Our Father, imbued with paternal qualities”, or “the Earth is neutral, without personality” untrue.

By asserting the truth they create fixity, invite opposition, and open the potential for conflict. And such conflict, in my opinion, is completely unnecessary. Why? Because if they were honest - and simply, humbly, perhaps-fallibly shared their personal perceptions and conclusions as their personal perceptions and conclusions - then they wouldn´t be making a claim to “being right”, and therefore making others (those who disagree with them) “wrong”. They wouldn´t be inviting agreement and disagreement. They would be inviting the possibility of unlimited subjectivities, and dialogue beyond the combativeness of “is” and “isn´t”, and right and wrong.

Not only this... but when we honour our subjective experiencing, we naturally co-create “peace and love”... Then (to continue with the same example) the Earth can be Mother, Father and Neither. “When I walk through the forest I sense myself held within an embrace I feel as ´feminine´.” Beautiful! “How interesting – I was recently caught out in a storm, and felt myself surcharged by a wild energy I felt as ´masculine´.” Beautiful! “I remember emerging from a long meditation retreat and feeling the Earth was silent, still – empty like a blank canvas, awaiting my creativity.” Beautiful! Nobody need be right. Nobody need be wrong. There is no need for conflict.

Our only responsibility becomes to enter our own experiencing more and more intimately. “Let me get closer to that embrace. Who am I when I am in it? Who am I when I am not? Why do I consider it ´feminine´? What do I mean by ´feminine´? What, for me, would a ´masculine´ embrace feel like?” “Let me get closer to that wildness. What do I feel when I am in it – and it is in me? What do I feel when it´s not there? Why do I consider it ´masculine´? What do I mean by ´masculine´? What, for me, would it feel like to be surcharged by wild ´feminine´ power?” And so on...

And the more intimate we become with our own experience, the more the liars and cheats who live within us lose their hold.

I imagine you now see this essay is about Spiritual Teachers, but that it is also not. It is primarily about going beyond “this is the way it is” (All is One, the Earth is Mother, etc), towards “this is how it feels/seems to me” (I feel myself One with Everything, I feel myself within a Goddess-like embrace, etc) – as the foundational approach to co-creating communities and cultures that are not oppositional or conflictive, but unified and cooperative.

Time For Us To Step Up!

But back to gurus and priests... and in conclusion – in my opinion: however many followers a teacher might have, however venerable the tradition they might claim to represent, however scripturally learned they might be, or however many spiritual-bestsellers they might have written - we need to sober up from our intoxication with their versions of “the truth” - and return to ourselves - to “our own, unique, individual truths”.

And from there - rooted in our own, unique, individual sensibilities - we can receive them in their unique, individual truths - even if they remain convinced that they know!

I personally have little doubt that many spiritual teachers carry wisdom, kindness and dignity. But many, I believe, have fallen into “the dishonesty trap” - of believing they carry an objective vision that sees over and above all other visions – a vision that is somehow not subjective, like everyone else´s. I have already explained how I see “the dishonesty trap” perpetuating fixed beliefs, and therefore opposition and conflict. I feel it also creates the hierarchy of “the knower” (of the truth), those close to “the knower” who almost know the truth, the body of seekers of the truth, and then the newcomers, and the outsiders – who are still finding out what the truth is.

Yes, some spiritual leaders, gurus and teachers might be power hungry, deliberately manipulative, or even abusive – but my personal opinion is that the majority have just fallen into “the dishonesty trap”. It´s so easy to slip from “this is my experience” into “this is the way it is” - from “this is my path” to “this is the path” - and from “I feel a deep sense of knowing” to “I know”.

So yes, I feel it´s up to them to step down. But, of course, it´s also up to us to step up.

We need to go beyond seeking to “be in the one-and-only, present moment” - to being where we already are - “in our own present moment”. Where is the present moment, anyway?! Has anybody seen it? Ever? Or have we all known - and are we all, in fact, in this very moment, already in - our own present moments?

We need to go beyond the power imbalances established by accepting that some people have the truth, and others don´t. They might have great knowledge and wisdom. We might feel their experience is more expanded than our own. We might feel they have a lot to teach us. They are, however, at all times: alive within their own, limited, perhaps-beautiful, fallible, perhaps-magical, unique, individual, human experience. And if they claim more than that they are not only liars and cheats, they are disseminating inequality and conflict while preaching peace and love.

So when I say we need to step up, what do I mean? I don´t mean we need bring anyone down. I mean we need to value our unique experiencing – which is not more or less than it is. We don´t need to pretend to be spiritually advanced, or mature, or awake, or enlightened. We don´t need to conceive of “perfection”, and then try to be it. We just need to value our own, unique, limited, sometimes-confused, sometimes-clear experience - and speak it honestly - to each other. And walk “the path” together.

We walk together. There may be a destination. We do not know. Nor is it our concern. Our only concern is how we walk. It is to walk in Radical Honesty – as gentle witnesses of ourselves - and to speak in Radical Honesty – clearly, vulnerably, openly, intimately - with each other. It is to walk in Radical Honesty - together.

This is my opinion.

Am I right? Yes! Am I wrong? Yes! Am I neither? Yes! I am me.

*

Mark Josephs,

"Mark the Mystic Activist",

Aragon, Spain,

Summer 2025

Mark initiated and now helps guide The Conscious Tribes Project.

His articles, stories and poems attempt to convey not only the concept of Conscious Tribes,

but the feeling behind them.

www.tribusconscientes.com

THE CONSCIOUS TRIBES PROJECT

Reinventing The Extended Fam