One Million Awake TEACHERS

A couple months ago, I wrote a post on One Million Awake  -  a mini movement I started years ago, hoping to create or record or assist in the awakening of 1,000,000 people on the planet.  It  seemed like a good idea, for both the original idea and the post about it.  BUT, since writing that, I started researching Awakening Teachers - you know, teachers who are out there to assist others in their spiritual awakening.  What I found floored me!  

Even though I'm not exactly your typical follower of Advaita Vedanta or Non-dual teachings, I know that non-duality is probably the most popular 'spiritual' teaching out there, outside of very mainstream religions, like Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism, and even Hinduism.  (Forgive me if I'm forgetting something.)  So I started by searching Non-dual teachings on YouTube.  OMG!!  The list just went on and on.  Anyway, I started thinking instead of One Million Awake, we might want to consider a One Million Awake TEACHERS  Movement instead!  

Now, first, I want to make it clear that I am not, nor can I, vouch for the validity or "Awakeness" of any of the teachers on YouTube, or anywhere else.  Plus, as far as Non-Dual teachings go, they run the gamet from the original and traditional Advaita Vedanta teachings, which tends to follow specific lineages, paramparas, gurus, Acharyas and whose adherents will normally also follow certain principles and regulative lifestyles.....to more commonly, teachers of Neo-Vedanta (a more universalist view from the 19th and early 20th century), Neo-Advaita (a more recent aspect which focuses more on instantaneous enlightenment), and probably the most common is sort of a Neo-Advaita Adjacent, which encompasses everyone else who will teach you how to be Enlightened, mostly through understanding a few key ideologies, and through constantly attending (via classes, videos, one-on-one consultations, etc) until you "get it".  

For fun, I JUST now tried two topics in the search on YouTube:  The first was 'traditional non-dual teachings' which gave me some of the popular Neo-Advaita teachers, such as Rupert Spira, who is one of the most popular; and then "traditional Advaita Vedanta Teachings", which brought up channels ike The Vedanta Channel, Vedanta Society of New York, ArshaBodha - all channels which follow the more traditional Advaita schools, quoting Advaitic scriptures, presenting various Swamis, etc.  In both cases above, I searched for "Channels".

I also just put in a search for "Spiritual Enlightenment" a bunch of channels aptly named, "Spiritual Enlightenment" or "Spiritual Awakening",  Spiritual Enlightenment and Guidance, Spiritual Enlightenment English, Enlightenment Community, Center for Spiritual Enlightenment , Temple of Enlightenment, and on and on and on and on......

And, this doesn't even begin to include the many channels on all other aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, or any of the other schools or specific teachers of various schools, of which I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands.

The point of all of this is.....IF you could add up ALL the individuals and/or channels offering teachings on Spiritual Realization (I didn't even TRY that term), and Enlightenment, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't come up with a Million Awake Teachers!   Anyway, there's a BUNCH of them out there.  

So what does all this mean?  

First, let's go back a few thousand years (or more).   In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krsna tells Arjuna that "Among thousands of men, ONE may endeavor for perfection, and out of thousands who have ACHIEVED perfection, hardly one knows me in Truth." (7.3)  In any given community, whether in India or elsewhere, there was one, or perhaps a very few, spiritually endeavoring individuals. Out of those, who knows how many (if any) were actually Enlightened.  Great spiritual teachers were few and far between and absolutely dedicated seekers would literally travel thousands of miles to find them and surrender to them.  

One of the primary techniques and exports of India was meditation - known as Dhyana.  As Dhyana Buddhism (Buddhist Meditation) was brought from India, it became known as Chan Buddhism, and later in Japan, as Zen Buddhism.  

Many small communities often had a spiritual or religious leader of some type - Medicine person, healer, or shaman, who helped or guided their community members in spiritual and other ways.  But, in general, most spirituality was focused on whatever the religious belief systems of the overarching population of that area.  

Then, all of that began to change radically in the 1800 and 1900s.  In 1893, Swami Vivekananda made his historic trip to the United States and spoke at the Parliament of Religions.  Paramahansa Yogananda came shortly after that and started his Self Realization Fellowship.  In the year of the Summer of Love, 1967, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Maharishi Mahesh Yoga, Swami Saccidananda, and Jiddu Krishnamurti each appeared on national television in the United States.   (Yogananda passed away in 1952 just at the advent of television, on which he warned against its "Satanic influence" and encouraged instead that people focus on inner spiritual visions, rather than external distractions.  What would he think about TODAY??)   Alan Watts actually preceded most of them by having a spiritual wisdom TV show starting in 1959.  

When I started teaching Sanskrit and Self Inquiry in the 1990's, the internet was barely a thing!  It would be nearly 20 years or more before people really started carrying phones.  Most of the communications on computers over the internet were BBS - bulletin board services, and it wasn't until some glorious day in 2005 that YouTube came alive!  

So, in less than 70 years, we've gone from barely knowing anything beyond our community church, temple, or synagogue, to having thousands (maybe millions) of "Enlightened" teachers quite literally at our fingertips!   Perhaps it's an incredible blessing. Or perhaps, as Yogananda suggested, it's 'Satanic influence'.  But in any case, Krsna's words still hold true - Out of thousands of men, ONE may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows God in Truth!

Perhaps the best advice in all this is as the old knight tells Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, "Choose Wisely!"  

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हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे 

हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे