Andrew Harvey and the Direct Path
It is from the place of pain and disappointment experienced with the guru whom he had adored as an incarnation of the Divine Mother, and whom he felt betrayed the love and trust he put in her, that Andrew Harvey came to his chosen spiritual path. This path, which is the path that he passionately expounds as the only healthy one to take, is the inner or direct path sans guru. He equates gurus with narcissism, manipulation, dogma and self- serving shenanigans.
Harvey sees the guru/student relationship as a crutch that stops the student from discovering his own truth. For Harvey, the whole guru system is an outdated patriarchal one that he derides as “ dazzlingly, baroquely hypocritical.” In rebuttal to the argument that gurus have an objectivity that allows them a clear perspective from which to point out a student’s ego defenses, he contends that life, in its profound wisdom, will bring ego lessons anyway. As to the idea of having a tried and true spiritual path to follow, Harvey says that the spiritual journey “ is a pathless land, and therefore there is no path one can take to get there. “
Harvey does however acknowledge that there are wonderful teachers that can illuminate the way, without taking upon themselves the grandiose role of savior. One of the people that Harvey sees as a genuine teacher was Father Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine monk, who warned him about the flaws he saw in the guru system. Griffiths warned of gurus who take credit for the projection placed upon them by the souls in longing, and he warned of the manipulations by black magicians and occultists who abuse the siddhis that are a natural part of the process of spiritual awakening, for the purpose their own ego gain. Harvey contends that it is all too common for gurus to get tempted by the telepathic powers and manipulative capacities that arise as one awakens to a wider, deeper consciousness.
The beauty of the direct path, as Harvey defines it, is that if one takes it in the spirit of awe and humility, seeing divinity in every shape and form, practicing daily an awareness of one’s projections and one’s shadow side, knowing that enlightenment is an ongoing never-ending process in an infinite universe, then one can bring in the glory of an unmediated experience of God.
Harvey sees the guru/student relationship as a crutch that stops the student from discovering his own truth. For Harvey, the whole guru system is an outdated patriarchal one that he derides as “ dazzlingly, baroquely hypocritical.” In rebuttal to the argument that gurus have an objectivity that allows them a clear perspective from which to point out a student’s ego defenses, he contends that life, in its profound wisdom, will bring ego lessons anyway. As to the idea of having a tried and true spiritual path to follow, Harvey says that the spiritual journey “ is a pathless land, and therefore there is no path one can take to get there. “
Harvey does however acknowledge that there are wonderful teachers that can illuminate the way, without taking upon themselves the grandiose role of savior. One of the people that Harvey sees as a genuine teacher was Father Bede Griffiths, the Benedictine monk, who warned him about the flaws he saw in the guru system. Griffiths warned of gurus who take credit for the projection placed upon them by the souls in longing, and he warned of the manipulations by black magicians and occultists who abuse the siddhis that are a natural part of the process of spiritual awakening, for the purpose their own ego gain. Harvey contends that it is all too common for gurus to get tempted by the telepathic powers and manipulative capacities that arise as one awakens to a wider, deeper consciousness.
The beauty of the direct path, as Harvey defines it, is that if one takes it in the spirit of awe and humility, seeing divinity in every shape and form, practicing daily an awareness of one’s projections and one’s shadow side, knowing that enlightenment is an ongoing never-ending process in an infinite universe, then one can bring in the glory of an unmediated experience of God.
