False Guru vs Real Guru: How We Handle Both (Part 2/2, EP32)

What are the qualities of a fake guru vs a real guru? How do people fall for a fake guru? How can you trust a real guru? What's the role of boundaries in all of this?

(This is part 2, see EP30 for part 1)

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1:09 - Part 2 Intro

2:27 - Comparing real guru vs false guru

12:12 - How we might fall for a false guru

15:16 - When in doubt do this

19:35 - Disliking even the word "guru"

21:37 - Qualities of a real guru

22:45 - Qualities we need to be ready for a real guru

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This podcast show explores meditation, mindfulness, consciousness, spiritual awakening, and spiritual growth, with a strong focus on personal healing, trauma healing, emotional healing, and somatic healing. We dive into nonduality, embodied spirituality, the true self, life purpose, and spiritual practice, while also addressing shadow and integration themes like spiritual bypass, ego-death, root causes, and holistic healing. Episodes draw from psychology and attachment theory, as well as ancient wisdom traditions, esoteric wisdom, energy healing, and indigenous wisdom, offering grounded insights for seekers on a path of inner healing, wholeness, and deeper realization.

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A deep bow to: Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi), Yogi Ramsuratkumar and Ma Devaki, Neem Karoli Baba, Ramana Maharshi, Papa Ram Dass, Sri Aurobindo, Shirdi Sai Baba, Satya Sai Baba, Anandamayi Ma, Hilda Charlton, Daskalos (Stylianos Atteshlis), Saint Francis, Saint Clare, Saint Teresa, Padre Pio, and more.

Keywords for the show: meditation, mindfulness, consciousness, spiritual awakening, spiritual growth, personal healing, trauma healing, emotional healing, somatic healing, inner healing, nonduality, embodied spirituality, wholeness, grounded spirituality, life purpose, spiritual practice, enlightenment, realization, the true self, ego-death, spiritual bypass, attachment theory, psychology, root causes, holistic healing, energy healing, ancient wisdom traditions, esoteric wisdom, esotericism, indigenous wisdom, bhakti, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, sangha, Divine Will, spiritual ascension, collective awakening, collective healing, global ascension, connecting with angels, and connecting with spiritual guides.

Keywords for this episode: False guru, fake guru, enlightened guru, real guru, enlightened avatar

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Transcript

False Guru vs Real Guru Part 2

0:00

I understand people being skeptical towards real gurus because they're skeptical towards fake gurus. Great. Okay, cool. And eventually there is something waiting for you. And that can be, a really beautiful path of surrender where we can drop our own sense of control, where we can drop our own need to be the ones protecting ourselves. Where we can allow ourselves to be soft and undefended and open hearted and allow ourselves to feel held Welcome to the Ground of Love. I'm your host, Olivia Frazao. This is a podcast for people who are deeply dedicated to the spiritual journey. You are here for self-growth care, for others, and being of service to the world. This podcast is in service to you to help you remember who you are and why you are here, you will receive inspiration, clarity, and no BS Love. We are walking each other home. Let's begin. Welcome to part two of this episode series, which is False Guru and Real Guru. Last time we talked a lot about the False guru, as well as a bit about the Real Guru. Today we're gonna continue that. In this episode, we're gonna continue the Real Guru more descriptions. Now, we're also gonna have, in this episode, some compare and contrast between the both. And then we're gonna talk about the psyche, our own psyche, right, of the student, the devotee, whatever you wanna call that. What makes us susceptible to the false guru and what happens in our psyche when we're hurt by that, when we're hurt by the false guru and how that might actually block us from opening to the real guru. And some advice about what might be helpful to make sure that we can stay safe and that we can continue our spiritual path in a way that's best for us. Okay, so let's pick up where we left off from the last episode. And by the way, if you haven't listened to the last episode, I would highly recommend you doing so. Some of these pairs, you know, where I do part one and part two of episodes is totally okay to listen to part two. Without part one. I would say in this case, to start with part one or it might be a little confusing to start it halfway. Okay, here we go. Now we need to talk about how the false guru pretends to do things saying that it's for your good, the false guru. We're gonna go through a list now. Okay. The fall school rule is gonna do really weird power dynamics with you. They are gonna be manipulative with their power. They're gonna try to suck your power. They're gonna be messed up with boundaries. They're gonna be abusing you while acting like it's for your own good or for your ego at growth. They're gonna be gaslighting you. They're gonna be making you feel like SHIT, and act like that's okay because they're somehow making you spiritually grow. The true guru doesn't do that. The true guru helps you feel safe with them and gives you trust and clarity. As I said, the false guru is gonna create some kind of a show, some kind of a charisma, some kind of a look at me and how special and magical and powerful I am, get you kind of hypnotized into their awesomeness. And the real Guru they're gonna open you across the universe and back, but in all of that, you're gonna feel held and safe, and you can be exactly who you are and be always loved, not judged, not feeling bad about yourself. I mean, maybe you'd feel those things because you know, you, you have a lot of that in you, no matter how you're being treated by people, right? Some people just have a propensity to think that, you know, just have a lot of self shame. But you should be always treated in a respectful way. So false guru messed up power dynamics. Real guru, true power. True power is simply beingness. Simply Shakti. Simply life force. Simply what some people would call the Holy Spirit. What is simply beingness emanating beingness, helping you feel your own emanation in a way that feels safe, in a way that helps you? Safely be in your own power, meaning they're also not building up your ego. They're also not trying to make you feel so special in a weird, manipulative way that some false guru do. Right? Okay. The false guru is avoiding their shadow side and wanting to look perfect. The real avatar, the true guru, has no shadow side. So I'm now realizing it's also important to talk about the healthy spiritual teacher who's not necessarily an enlightened guru, but who's just a healthy spiritual teacher. The healthy spiritual teacher, whether they are enlightened or not, in this case, not when I just say healthy spiritual teacher, is going to admit to you very openly with no weirdness. The fact that they are imperfect and the fact that they have their own blind spots, their own wounding, their et cetera. The healthy spiritual teacher is gonna be very honest, very down to earth, very relatable. They're going to always be accountable for the mistakes that they make. There's not gonna be gas lighting, there's not gonna be putting things under the rug. There's gonna be real authentic accountability, real authentic apology. What am I talking about here? I'm talking about maturity. I'm hoping that every mature adult has all of these things, but when you're a spiritual teacher, that's even more important to have. I would say it's an absolute requirement. I feel like if someone doesn't feel like they can, that they, that they have those skills, I don't think that they should even start teaching. Okay, let's see what else we're gonna talk about with the guru. Okay, so what is the student's experience, or what is the devotees experience? When you are with a real guru, or I'm even gonna include when you're with a healthy spiritual teacher, you are gonna feel safe. You are gonna feel autonomous. Like you have your own sovereignty, you have your own boundaries, you have your own choices. You don't feel pressured into anything. You're gonna feel free. You're gonna feel empowered. You're gonna feel better than when they're not in your life. You are gonna feel like you have more energy rather than your energy is like getting sucked out of you or something. You're gonna feel more confident rather than questioning yourself or ashamed, or worried that you're not good enough for your teacher, for your guru, or whatever. They, I mean, I don't know, maybe you randomly have those things, but it's not because it's coming from them. The real teacher and the real guru always wants, or at least welcomes you to be super skeptical and doubtful of them. They don't, they don't care if you believe them or not. They don't care if you believe in them or not. They don't care if you, if you think see or think that, that they are a, a guru or not, they don't care. It's like a tree. Does the tree care? You know, if you're paying attention to it or not, or if you think that it's pretty or not, I don't know. Maybe the trees do actually, but it's like they're just there, right? That's what I mean by the guru. They're just there emanating loving compassion. That's it. It's that simple. It's that simple. They're emanating loving compassion. They're gonna say, if they're a real guru, they're gonna say, go see any teacher or guru that you want. Go towards God in any lineage that you want, any religion that you want, you do you. They're not here to tell you. This is the only way. If you have a teacher, spiritual teacher, or a false guru in this case, who's saying to you, I am the only way. Follow me. Nobody else. I'm the only way. That's a huge, huge red flag. That's kind of reminding me of the Jesus thing right now. Let's just clear that up. Okay? Because I'm also super into Jesus. I'm into, he's for a hundred percent enlightened avatar in my eyes. So what's the deal there? It depends on what you think I is. Okay. That's the issue that I think a lot of people fall for. I simply means the guru that we all are enlightened nature, okay? It's not what people have made it out to be, which is that other enlightened beings or your own, you know, God, nature itself is not legitimate, right? If you think that then all of a sudden you're saying, my path is the only path. My guru is the only guru, right? My and my practices are the only right wands, or the way that we describe Bo God is the only right way. And then you're in a really honestly annoying and potentially really destructive, violently destructive, uh, mindset that's gonna pit religions against each other. I mean, that leads to genocides, wars, conquest, et cetera, and we're not going there. The real guru is free and wants you to be free. And the real guru knows that all paths lead to God. Every single human being, whether they're on a spiritual path or not, it's a path to God. Some of them are gonna have a lot of wonky, you know, curves and driving backwards sometimes, and God knows what else. Some take longer than others. Some are, you know, not exactly advisable, right? But everything is ultimately a path to returning to who we truly are. So the guru has no agenda for you around that. What else? You are going to feel over time, you are gonna feel healthier. You're gonna become more mature of a person. You're gonna become more stable, you're gonna become more compassionate. You are gonna become. More humble, and I don't just mean humble in the face of the guru. I mean humble in life, humble with other people. You're not gonna have this egoic self that you keep trying to defend because you're actually gonna feel so loved and so whole and so complete just in and of itself with you and divinity. Whatever divinity is to you that you experience when you're in the presence of the guru, that you're not gonna need all these weird manipulations to feel good about yourself that you used to do. So another important thing, another important distinction between false guru and real guru would be the false guru says, you need me. You're dependent on me. For your own spiritual growth, it's like, it's like the student's growth needs to, or, or God realization, needs to route through you as the false guru. That is messed up. The real guru knows that each person is their own portal of divinity is their, it's, it's you. With you. You don't actually need anybody else. There's no like, you need me in order for you to understand yourself. Right? I personally think it's really helpful. They're there to simply offer their presence. Hopefully it's helpful, but there's no, there's no stickiness. There's no dependency that they're trying to create for someone. The whole point of the guru is to help you be more, you to help you. The more the real you, right? To help you be more in your own inner authority, to be more in your own direct experience of the divine and the easiest marker, right?'cause people can do a lot of mind games. Let's keep it really, really simple. The easiest marker. This is the be all, end all is love. That's it. Simply love loving s when in doubt. That can be your marker. Is this being a constantly loving presence? Just keep it simple. Okay, so now we're gonna look at what qualities you might have slash a student or devotee might have in their psyche. What wounds that we might be carrying in our own egoic self. That could be basically a magnet for what we don't want for the false guru, right? Because then, then we're a puzzle piece. It's like there's something in us that's unhealed, that's a perfect puzzle piece for whatever in the false guru is unhealed. And then we're we're, and then we relate, right? And then we're in the dance. So we're in some kind of a weird codependent something. So what would it be in you, or what would it be? In the, in the student or in the devotee? You would have terrible boundaries. You would not have the capacity for discernment. You would not have the capacity to trust yourself. You would be putting. Your sense of self-trust in the gutter and overriding any intuitive hits that you get around this doesn't feel safe, or this doesn't feel right, or this isn't in alignment with what I believe or what feels right to me. You would be overriding that stuff by being like, oh, well, my authority figure knows best. Right? Think about it this way. The true guru is an absolutely no rush to awaken you. So when you're sitting there, let's say you're, you are with a true guru, okay? And you're having all these doubts. Let yourself have the doubts. Have the doubts. What's the problem? Why would you try to override your doubts? The guru loves you with your doubts. The guru is healing you with your doubts. The guru is awakening you with your doubts. They don't want you to be a lemming. They wanna, they want you to be you. They love you as you. They don't need to change you, right? And thus, you don't need to force yourself to change. You can. Have whatever feelings of discernment or skepticism that you have. Okay, let's see. Where are we? Why people get hooked. There can be a desire in you to be validated or feel special. So a false guru usually capitalizes on that. What they're gonna say is they're gonna say that your sangha or your spiritual community or whatever is the chosen people. They're gonna say that you're special and other people aren't. And then you're gonna be like, Ooh, you're gonna, you're gonna get this high. You're gonna feel so good about yourself. But what they just did is they just gave you a spiritual ego, or they just grew your spiritual ego, right? But you're gonna hover around them'cause they make you feel good. Spiritual bypass, that's another one. When you don't wanna deal with your shadows. A lot of stuff is. Just not gonna be dealt with. And there's gonna be a lot of denial and you're not gonna be able to integrate things that are, that are actually going to heal you into a stronger sense of self. It's very important to have a personality self before you can actually dissolve it. A lot of spiritual teachers say that. Where is your healthy, mature, psychological self before spiritual work? So the be all, end all that I would say with all this stuff, in terms of if I can just give someone advice, if this is confusing to you, if you don't know what to do, if you don't know who to follow, if you're feeling a little iffy or weird or you want help but you don't know where to get it, my answer would be psychological health, therapeutic work, psychological growth, personal growth, self-healing. Because honestly, spiritual awakening is the result of no longer. No longer having trauma and not only, you know, capital T, huge trauma. I don't just mean that. I mean all of the tiny little things that create who we think we are, which is a hundred percent of us have trauma until we're fully enlightened. That's, that's what I'm calling trauma. It's kind of a catchall And so spiritual awakening and personal healing or trauma, trauma healing, those are not separate things. Those are not two different categories. Those are two sides of the same coin. So the healthiest thing that you can do is work towards your own psychological health. Rather than doing a spiritual bypass thing, which is, wow, I have a lot of childhood trauma. I have a lot of trauma from adulthood. I feel pretty psychologically unstable. Now I'm gonna go to this guru who's gonna give me a ticket out of all of my pain. They're gonna promise me some quick enlightenment or whatever. They're gonna promise me that I'm gonna feel great when I'm around them. They're gonna give me whatever scintillating promises they've given me, and now I'm hooked.'cause I don't wanna deal with my pain. I don't, I don't know how to heal my past or whatever it is that I'm carrying. So now I'm gonna go for this scintillating quick fix. And that is a recipe for disaster because now I've given all of my authority, I've given all of my need to this person who God knows who they are and what they're doing with all of that. Okay? So that also means that we think that there is, you know, falling for this kind of stuff is because we want a quick fix and we think that it's outside of ourselves. It's neither of those things. It's a long road. Often a long road. Not always, but a long road, sometimes an arduous road. Why do I say arduous? Not because you're weird teacher who's actually a false guru is treating you like SHIT it. But, but because the true road is facing your own traumas, facing your own shadows, facing your own inner demons, facing what you don't wanna face, facing the shame and the pain and the regrets, and the guilt and the fears, right? Not because someone's doing weird power plays with you or driving you crazy, but simply because that's what's in there. If you truly look within yourself, right in your own self healing, in your own meditations or in your own therapeutic sessions that you're receiving from whatever healers you're working with, et cetera, that would be the priority. Okay. Um, let's see. I think that's good. In terms of the, the main vulnerabilities, why someone would get hooked with a false, false guru. It would basically be bad boundaries. I would, I would say also a, a lack of one's own center or one's sense of self. Interestingly, I think you, as I said, you need a sense of self before you dissolve it. And a lot of this is mommy, daddy issues, and so the guru becomes this surrogate mommy or daddy, and you get into a codependent relationship. You get, you're in an unhealthy attachment relationship with this being. Why is it an unhealthy attachment relationship? Because you're the false guru is an a egoic self. They also have attachment issues. They also have some kind of inde, independent, separate, solid self that's relating with you. So you are in some type of relationship. Whereas interestingly, your relationship with the guru, the real guru. It's the same as your relationship with God, because there's no difference. One of them just happens to be walking around in a body, so it's easier to relate with, which is why I personally be believe that the avatars come to earth, which is why I believe that enlightened beings keep returning because there's such an, there, there's, it's such a, an entry point for people, right? The, the form is, is always an easier, let's say, entry point or, or thing that you can relate with versus the formless. Okay, so next point. What happens once you have experienced the false guru? And this is important because even if you haven't, you might still have this anyway from a culture that's like American culture for example, is very, very allergic to the false guru because there's a lot of wounding that has occurred from the false guru. So a lot of people are like, they don't believe in real gurus because. Either them or someone they know or something they read in the media or something in the group field is pinging to them. Lack of safety. Lack of safety, because there have been so many false gurus. So let's look at that. What are the wounds that we have as a result of having related with false gurus or been in a culture that unfortunately is, is plagued with a lot of this stuff? There is going to be a huge sense of betrayal and a lack of trust. There's gonna be a lack of trust in authority figures in general, and there's gonna be a lack of trust in our own discernment capacity. There can also be a discernment that basically just becomes, for safety reasons, becomes extremely rigid, right? If I don't really know what the truth is, then I might as well veer towards full skepticism. I understand that's a pretty good stopgap measure, so that leads to a massive fear of surrender. Why would you surrender when you can't trust? Only trust allows for surrender. But now you can't trust because there's this history of all this bs, right? So it's just like a romantic relationship. Let's say, you know, your first three or four partners cheated on you and treated you like SHIT, and now you have this person who's actually this amazing partner and they're so loving and whatever. What are you gonna do? You're gonna test them. You're not gonna believe them. You're gonna be skeptical towards them, even though this time they're actually healthy, right? But you're still gonna do your whole defense patterning because of the fact that you were hurt in the past. So you're gonna be hypervigilant, you're gonna be assuming the worst, right? That's okay. That's okay. So what do we actually need in order to be ready for real guru? What do we actually need? We need personal boundaries. Number one, personal boundaries. We need to have a healthy psyche. We need to have done a lot of therapy. We need to have dealt with our shadow side so that we don't get thrown for a loop, right? So the real guru is unconditionally loving towards all beings with no preference. The real guru will help you feel safe, calm, self-confident, trusting, naturally open-hearted, held easeful. And sometimes they are so under the radar. They're so simple. They're so humble. They have no power play. They have no show, they have no performative anything that you might even miss them. You might be looking a real guru straight in the face and not think anything of them because they're not doing a whole shiny show for you.'cause I don't care about any of that. So what are our conclusions here? What I would say is, when in doubt, be careful. What I would say is know that what you are truly going for is God and not another person. The summary is real gurus exist. Real enlightened beings exist. Real saints exist. Real avatars exist. What we need and, and get to have. Is the true spiritual presence and emanation and healing and spiritual guidance from the presence of beings who can truly help us heal and awaken, it is a requirement for us to be ready for that and make sure that we can actually surrender to these beings. It is a requirement for us to have grounding personal boundaries, skepticism the capacity to question and our own sense of self-worth, self-sufficiency, self-love, so that we are healthy enough to be able to surrender ironically, so that we are boundaried enough in order to open so that we are centered enough in order to open. So that we are discerning and skeptical enough in order to open. It's like you need to ground before you open your head centers. You need to have good, healthy boundaries and human relationships before you can have a really intimate relationship with another human being. Just in terms of, let's say a romantic relationship, right? Boundary is first, then comes opening. Ironically, when we try to open without boundary, that's when we're gonna get, we can get played. We can get duped. We can get manipulated. And so I understand people being skeptical towards real gurus because they're skeptical towards fake gurus. Great. Okay, cool. And eventually there is something waiting for you. There is healing and trust and healthy relationship with the divine waiting for you through those who are in form, either incarnated or not. And that can be, when it's the right timing, a really beautiful path of surrender where we can drop our own sense of control, where we can drop our own need to be the ones protecting ourselves. Where we can drop our own defense walls and our own shield and sword where we can allow ourselves to be soft and undefended and open hearted and allow ourselves to feel held, permission ourselves to receive healing, to allow ourselves to be changed by others, to allow ourselves to be guided simply via transmission. Forget even words or particular teachings simply via transmission, simply via the open heart, via energy and connection and consciousness to allow ourselves to be guided beyond what we understand reality and self to be for ourselves to be guided into that space of the unknown. That is what the beauty of the true guru allows for us. That's what the beauty of a healthy relationship where not only is the true guru, a real guru, but we are actually ready to know, discern, accept, and feel safe in that and with them. It's just like in a romantic relationship when you're with someone who, yes, you've had boundaries, you've been careful, you're taking a look, you're kind of testing them, but wow, they have actually revealed themselves over many years to prove to be a really great partner to you. Right. What's gonna happen in your relationship with that person is you're gonna love them. You're just gonna fall in love with them more and more. You're gonna become more and more undefended with them. You're gonna become more and more open-hearted with them, and you can have a really beautiful experience of loving union with that person because you're getting so undefended, in so many ways. So, where was I? I was talking about union safety. Yeah. All the positives of what actually becomes possible in the alchemy when a psychologically healthy person comes into contact with a real enlightened master. It's a gift. It's an absolute divine gift. So hopefully being able to understand, analyze, discern the other stuff, we can get clear, veer, clear of all of that, and learn how to recognize what's real and what's not real. And as I said, most importantly is listen to your intuition. Listen to your heart. Be honest with yourself. Do not override yourself or your intuition and feel, does this feel like love? If it gets too complicated, if you have to give yourself all these disclaimers to answer that question, I would really think twice, three times, four times, okay. Blessings on your path. Please stay safe. Remember that God is always within you. Ultimately, everything you need is within you. Sometimes that can be the easiest path for people who might have this trauma or who might be afraid of this all this stuff. That it's totally cool to have a direct path to God or with God or as God or however you call this, simply within the self. Or you can have a guru like Ramina Maharshi, who basically just teaches you to have self inquiry of asking, who am I? Who am I over and over again in your meditation. He's a very, um, I would say he's the guru for people who don't like gurus. Okay. Blessings on your path. Wherever it takes you, may you always be protected by both discernment and the protection of the true guru who is always with you, which is God itself. thank you for being with me in The Ground of Love. You can follow this podcast to receive the next episodes, and who is it that comes to mind to share this episode with? Who Could Benefit? Is it a family member? A friend, a client, who would be inspired, reminded of what matters to them by being in our energy that we've shared here today. So please go ahead and pass this along to them and go ahead and leave a review or a rating if you wish. I thank you for that. For other offerings that I provide, you can go to the ground of love.com I also provide one-on-one healing sessions and I will also be offering a group membership. All of that is on the website, the ground of love.com. Blessings to you. May you be protected, held, regenerated centered. And taken forward with all light, love, truth and highest and best health and wellbeing on all levels and taken forward to make the greatest, most beautiful impact doing exactly what you're here to do. God bless you. Protection, grace, protection, grace. So it is.