Someone asked me "does it feed the ego to express an idea to someone before they've had a chance to realize it if they will react with resistance to it? ... is re-expressing it in a way that they will understand feeding them a big turkey dinner?"
This is a pretty good real-life koan. It is a thought about a thought. There is a direct answer, but an INDIRECT answer would be that it all depends upon the context. Usually, people who have had a realization (of any kind) are using words in an attempt to trigger a similar realization in someone else. As discussed in the past, some Tibetan traditions consider it a sin to prosyletize or "talk down" to people. It can be a kind of one-ups-manship. The New Testament points to the same sort of thing in the reverse sense in the phrase, "Don't cast pearls before swine." IOW, don;t waste your time with people who aren't open to what you consider important.
All of us have met people who live in their heads and are convinced that their ideas are the only correct ideas. Most of us have had proslytizers knock on our doors, hand us pamphlets, and try to get us to come to their church and get "saved." We have also had people smugly tell us, "We'll pray for you" (one of the most arrogant phrases in the English language).
In non-duality circles we have the same sort of thing, but it often occurs at such a subtle level that the proslytizers aren't even aware of what's going on, or how attached they are to their ideas. Such people often think that they are enlightened and everyone else is deluded. We've had some classic examples of this in the past. The dialogues are like foodfights and take the form of "I'm right and you're wrong." More subtle foodfights take the form of "You're wrong," and ignore the other half of the equation.
As far as whether expressing one's understanding "feeds the ego," it helps to ask, "Is there a 'me' involved in the expression, and, if so, does the 'me' get anything as a result of the expression?"
I used to know a teacher in charge of an honors program at a university, and he would refer to students that were new or students with fundamentalist-type understanding as "minnows." He was very attached to the Perry Scale and other similar models of intellectual or moral development, and he thought of his students in terms of their ranking on those scales. He would laugh at what he considered their naive levels of understanding, and never recognized the arrogance he so often exhibited.
In short, the deepest teachers are generally the most humble, but not humble in the sense that most people use the word. They are humble in the sense that there is no one there to feel humility, (or shame, pride, etc.). Their actions may be powerful, but at the same time the actions are empty of selfhood.
It often happens that we are talking to someone who we think is interested in non-duality only to find out that they have very rigid ideas and are not open at all to such a discussion. When this happens, the best response is to wish them well and walk away. You can only teach a person who wants to learn and is relatively open. Why waste time with someone who is strongly opinionated?
One of the first Zen Masters I met was always throwing out bait (statements designed to attract peoples' curiosity). He was "mad to teach." He was always dying to find someone sincerely interested in non-duality because for him it was the highest form of play and the greatest fun in his life. When he met people who had no interest, it didn't bother him at all. He would simply turn his attention elsewhere and keep throwing out bait to other people, or pointing sincere students in the right direction.
I could write a lot more on this subject, but I'll stop here.
This is a pretty good real-life koan. It is a thought about a thought. There is a direct answer, but an INDIRECT answer would be that it all depends upon the context. Usually, people who have had a realization (of any kind) are using words in an attempt to trigger a similar realization in someone else. As discussed in the past, some Tibetan traditions consider it a sin to prosyletize or "talk down" to people. It can be a kind of one-ups-manship. The New Testament points to the same sort of thing in the reverse sense in the phrase, "Don't cast pearls before swine." IOW, don;t waste your time with people who aren't open to what you consider important.
All of us have met people who live in their heads and are convinced that their ideas are the only correct ideas. Most of us have had proslytizers knock on our doors, hand us pamphlets, and try to get us to come to their church and get "saved." We have also had people smugly tell us, "We'll pray for you" (one of the most arrogant phrases in the English language).
In non-duality circles we have the same sort of thing, but it often occurs at such a subtle level that the proslytizers aren't even aware of what's going on, or how attached they are to their ideas. Such people often think that they are enlightened and everyone else is deluded. We've had some classic examples of this in the past. The dialogues are like foodfights and take the form of "I'm right and you're wrong." More subtle foodfights take the form of "You're wrong," and ignore the other half of the equation.
As far as whether expressing one's understanding "feeds the ego," it helps to ask, "Is there a 'me' involved in the expression, and, if so, does the 'me' get anything as a result of the expression?"
I used to know a teacher in charge of an honors program at a university, and he would refer to students that were new or students with fundamentalist-type understanding as "minnows." He was very attached to the Perry Scale and other similar models of intellectual or moral development, and he thought of his students in terms of their ranking on those scales. He would laugh at what he considered their naive levels of understanding, and never recognized the arrogance he so often exhibited.
In short, the deepest teachers are generally the most humble, but not humble in the sense that most people use the word. They are humble in the sense that there is no one there to feel humility, (or shame, pride, etc.). Their actions may be powerful, but at the same time the actions are empty of selfhood.
It often happens that we are talking to someone who we think is interested in non-duality only to find out that they have very rigid ideas and are not open at all to such a discussion. When this happens, the best response is to wish them well and walk away. You can only teach a person who wants to learn and is relatively open. Why waste time with someone who is strongly opinionated?
One of the first Zen Masters I met was always throwing out bait (statements designed to attract peoples' curiosity). He was "mad to teach." He was always dying to find someone sincerely interested in non-duality because for him it was the highest form of play and the greatest fun in his life. When he met people who had no interest, it didn't bother him at all. He would simply turn his attention elsewhere and keep throwing out bait to other people, or pointing sincere students in the right direction.
I could write a lot more on this subject, but I'll stop here.
