This world is full of temptations. It's like a huge shopping complex. When one enters that complex, he ends up buying something or the other, whether he actually needs that or not. Even if one does not purchase anything, one ends up spending time window-shopping. Sometimes we are busy running the race in this world for the temptation of coming first, and sometimes, the fear of losing the race. There is hardly ever time to reflect on and understand the real purpose of life. Temptations take over, and exploration gets relegated to the background to slowly disappear from our attention.
That's why the inner journey is lonely. Not many are interested in the journey, and whoever moves on the path has to be ready to walk alone. People have their own priorities. It is equally true that a person's continued need for external support or validation of their path suggests their inner connection with love and compassion has not yet grown strong enough to guide them alone. That's why people look for gurus who can guide them along the path. However, gurus, especially the popular ones, have generally chosen popularity over truth. They might have started with their mission of spreading true spirituality, but over a period of time, organizations grow big, and the survival of the organization becomes primary, and the path becomes secondary.
If we do not take shelter in these gurus, where can we get guidance from? It's like travelling in unknown territory, and we need some guidance. The first thing is whether we have really understood the temporariness of the sensations. If not, even if we join some organization or follow some guru, we will seek pleasure and avoid pain using that organization. That's what happens to most people who join these organizations. The disciples keep seeking sensual pleasure, and just their form changes. They will dance to the tune of some song played by the guru, listen to the good words spoken by the guru, feel as if they have done some pilgrimage by visiting the ashram, and after such pilgrimage go back to their place of work and will start their business of greed without guilt of being greedy.
This is "feel-good spirituality" and takes us nowhere. In fact, it does the opposite. Whatever progress we could have made on the spiritual path will not happen because we feel reassured of our old path of greed and fear, having washed off our guilt. Real progress requires observation of our lives. When we observe our lives, we get to notice the temporariness of pleasures and pains. We get to notice that the moment we satiate one desire, the other comes up. We get to see that the more we make ourselves comfortable and the more we resist discomfort. We could have travelled in a general compartment in our childhood, but now even AC 2-tier looks unbearable. What has changed? Our mind has become used to the comforts, and therefore, it resists more now. If we can notice that all our possessions and accumulations have made us weaker, we will naturally drop them. There will not be any need for a guru. We will explore life rather than wasting it on the accumulation of comforts. Devoid of that understanding, gurus become just a "feel-good" factor in our lives to wash off the long-accumulated guilt created by a suffocated inner voice.
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