In ancient times, humanity worshiped old gods and spirits that were the source of all good and evil. In the spiritual model we have received from the past, which is still followed today, the teacher, the guru, has taken the place of these old gods and spirits. In this old model, we — the students, the devotees, the supplicants — sit at the feet of the master and yearn for the transmission of some energy or state that will shock them out of the trance of ignorance and propel them into a state that transcends normal consciousness, a state that clears — destroys, really — the mind; a transmission that ends ego and ego-thought, and creates within us an empty and pure new reality in which all things are seen clearly and peace and freedom and love reign unhindered and unobscured.
