GURU or PETTY TYRANT? Who’s Your Most Powerful Teacher?

Transcript generated by AI:

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:19

Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher, davidji.

davidji: 0:25

And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:35

Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into Hi davidji. Oh, hello there, elizabeth. The shadow and the light. We are the Shadow in the Light podcast. Guru is the dispeller of darkness. Is that your definition? Absolutely Okay. So guru really is an internal thing within you. I say every activation of energy is an invitation for you to be free, just to dive just a little deeper into that gu.

davidji: 1:43

G-u means darkness of ignorance.

Elizabeth Winkler: 1:54

Right, that is so important because it’s dispelling the ignorance. So if I am the sky and all the clouds are moving by, it’s the dispelling of the dark clouds to realize who I truly am. So great, okay, ru.

davidji: 2:07

Ru means the divine light of knowledge, exactly. And so, guru, they need to be together. If there’s no darkness of ignorance, then you don’t need light. That’s why what we always stress on the shadow and the light gotta have them both, gotta have the whole picture. If we only have light, we would never know darkness.

Elizabeth Winkler: 2:27

There’s nothing then to learn, and gurus can be. People might not necessarily want this, but the guru can be the person that pisses you off the most, because every activation is an invitation for you to be more free. So that can be a master teacher in your life. Also could be davidjiee. He’s a wonderful teacher for all of us, right, and activates very ancient teachings for us and allows us to weave that into our lives. But it’s not just that. It’s the light and the darkness that helps us learn and grow, and so there are parts of ourselves that we don’t want to own our shadow. There are parts of ourselves that we would like to run away from, and people that discussed you are a good indicator of that and so that can activate. That activation is an invitation for you to expand your light, so I just want to take it in both directions.

davidji: 3:25

I think I mentioned it in Sacred Powers as well as Secrets of Meditation. I went on a journey to India in search of the guru because I thought there was this person, this being out there, who is going to explain it all to me or fix it all for me, or just provide the guidance that I so desperately needed. And after traveling through India for six months, that’s when I had my epiphany that the guru rests inside, just like all the pain and suffering does not exist outside of me. I am suffering perhaps because of things outside of me that I see or translate or interpret or then have an opinion about, but the answers always rest inside and the guru rests inside and the shadow and the light rests inside. Bottom line, it’s an inside job. We have to embrace that and know that.

Elizabeth Winkler: 4:25

Yes, and so I have my own story around that because you’re making me think of it right now. When I went to Tibet in 2001, which is that origin story, part of that origin story for me I remember when I was holding the hands with the monk in the cave and I got all those downloads and the total union that I experienced and information was given. I remember in that experience again, we were not speaking, this was happening on another level, and I remember part of that exchange was I wanted to stay with him. There was so much love that I was feeling for him and he, in that exchange again not speaking he said I’m within you, I live within you. He was just a representation of an energy that is internal, and I remember. So that was in 2001. And then I think it was 20 years later.

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:23

I had been through many things and this is when I started to realize the power of Sanskrit, Because a lot of seeds were planted in that cave, A lot of information was given. I don’t know that I could fully inhabit all that, yet I was like a new. What is a horse? A?

davidji: 5:42

cult.

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:43

A cult. I was like a cult, couldn’t quite really walk, like I was stumbling a horse. A cult, a cult. I was like a cult, couldn’t quite really walk, like I was stumbling A wobbly cult. I was a wobbly cult, cut to I don’t know 20 years later or something.

Elizabeth Winkler: 5:55

I remember when I started working with more Sanskrit and it was like the Sanskrit was activating these seeds within my heart that had been planted back in Tibet, and then I started thinking about that llama, that monk in the cave he kept. It was like he was in my house. I’ve just kept thinking about him. I was like what is going on here? And then I went back to my journal. That was a breadcrumb. So I went back to the journal and I read about that experience and I had forgotten pieces of it. And that’s when I came back and I’m like, oh, the golden thread. The golden thread which was something I had been working with in a different way, remind us of it or activate. But it’s not about becoming attached to some teacher or teaching and allowing whatever happens in life, listening to those calls, allowing it to deepen, and sometimes it’s a 20-year process and I’m still in the process of embodying that and galloping as the horse in a new way.

davidji: 7:03

You could see anyone as your great teacher. We often refer to the petty tyrants in our life as powerful great teachers.

Elizabeth Winkler: 7:13

You need to talk about the petty tyrant for those that don’t know.

davidji: 7:16

This is what I learned by searching. I went into the Himalayas to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. He wasn’t there that day. There’s a lot of heading out there to find the thing, searching, searching, searching. And it’s like one of those moments where you suddenly realize oh, oh, yeah. That concept Now I truly understand. Even Jesus was like shall I teach you to fish or shall I give you a fish? This concept of the true guru isn’t giving you the answer. The true guru is shining the light on the darkness, where you then get your aha moment. So we have to see these in the same light as well. It’s one of those core elements where it doesn’t matter it could be someone who’s begging on the street, it could be someone who’s standing on a world stage with thousands and thousands of adoring fans. It could be some musician that you see on stage who suddenly plays the song you’ve heard a thousand times, and when they play it live, those three words suddenly go like into you and give you that deeper and deeper understanding.

Elizabeth Winkler: 8:29

We could also look at nature as a guru, I think. Like the trees, you know, the opening of the flower, all of that, Nature is such a powerful teaching for how to be one with what is.

davidji: 8:44

Right, you asked about the petty tyrant, first brought to us in the 70s by the author Carlos Castaneda, who wrote the Teachings of Don Juan, journey to Islan, many books. He talks about this concept of the warrior, and when we’re talking about the warrior we’re talking about overcoming all the obstacles in our life, all the blockages, all the resistance, all the fears, all the shame, all the guilt, everything from our past. And he would say that old seers and new seers are divided into two categories those that are willing to exercise self-restraint and channel all their activities towards pragmatic goals that would serve others in the process, and this other group who don’t care about goals or self-restraint. And when we talk about the concept of self-restraint, we’re simply talking about mastering who you are emotionally and we know, as meditators and as people who can connect to the present moment, this is a very, very key and core aspect. So he lists these five components of crystallizing the world around us so we can keep moving towards the light. And those five categories are control, discipline, forbearance, which we would call do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? He refers to it as restraint, but we’re sort of saying can you remain unmoving till the right action. There’s a quote by Lao Tzu in the Tao Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? That takes a lot. That takes a lot. It’s like Mel Gibson in Braveheart Hold, hold, hold and then at the right moment. The fourth category is timing. We know how critical timing is. And lastly, will. Those are the five components Control, discipline, forbearance, timing and will.

davidji: 11:07

Then he says if you are lucky enough in your life to also have a petty tyrant, that’s where the transformation unfolds. So you and I, probably at some point in our life, we’re like uh, I can’t stand this person. They’re mean, they’re always calling me out, they drive me crazy. It’s my shadow, it’s my relative, it is a shadow of this process. A petty tyrant is a tormentor. Big or little parts of you could also be self-tormenting as well. It could be someone who holds, as Carlos Castaneda says, holds the power of life and death over you, or someone who just simply annoys you to distraction anything in between. But these are our greatest teachers, if you’re lucky enough to have one. And he even says if you don’t have one, if you’re lucky enough to have one, and he even says if you don’t have one. I’m so sorry for you. Hopefully one day you will have a tormentor so you can learn.

davidji: 11:51

What do petty tyrants teach us? Detachment. There’s like a guy on Instagram that I follow. He finds all these stones and makes these gorgeous balancing towers of rocks 25 rocks and stones and then he’ll just take like a little handful of water and throw it at the stones and then watch them collapse and I could never figure out like what’s he doing? And he said you know, all the practices that I do ultimately teach me to let go. I create these beautiful things and we’ve seen these with priests Buddhist priests where they make these gorgeous mandalas out of sand or rice on the floor and then they just sweep them away. You know, just wipe them away. So a petty tyrant. Write this down everyone, because this is a core teaching. The petty tyrant teaches you to let go of your self-importance.

Music: 12:46

Humble.

davidji: 12:47

And David Simon always said to me self-importance and self-pity opposite sides of the same coin. And whenever we’re taking something personally, whenever we’re making the proclamation, whenever we have such a strong opinion, this really feeds into our Jedi teaching. Whatever that moment is, we do this out of self-importance. Here’s the way things are and here’s how I feel about that. We can apply that to anything. This is the critical component. We will always, if we’re lucky, bump into a petty tyrant. It will be our greatest teacher. They could be horrid. Could be someone who berates you and smacks you down verbally in a meeting and embarrasses you. This could be someone that you live with, who just keeps reminding you of your flaws or issues or challenges. So the guru can take so many different forms. It’s not necessarily some monk sitting on top of a mountain with the sunlight pouring into them. It can be your annoying cousin and hopefully you learn from that. And Don Juan just talks about this concept that the idea of using the petty tyrant will perfect the warrior spirit. And again, we are all warriors warriors over ignorance, warriors over greed, warriors over envy, warriors over gluttony, warriors over lack of compassion, knee warriors over lack of compassion. But also the petty tyrant is meant to level us up and really bring us enjoyment and happiness. So even the worst tyrants not the petty tyrants master tyrants could absolutely bring us happiness, provided that you are a warrior and practicing these other skills that I mentioned before control, discipline, forbearance, timing. And will you get those? And a petty tyrant you are, hooked up for life to take you to the next level.

davidji: 14:53

On the path to knowledge, there are four steps. The first step is the decision that we all have to become an apprentice and that’s like hey, I think I’ll listen to the Shadow and the Light podcast. Hey, I think I’ll start meditating. Hey, I think I’ll read this book. Hey, I think I’ll you know, explore the meditation, teacher training or something like that. After the apprentice in that process changes some views about themselves and the world, suddenly they realize oh, here’s actually what life is about. They become warriors. That’s sort of like the second phase of the four, which is to say that they become capable of the utmost self-control and mastery of self. The third step is when they can acquire this patience forbearance is what he calls it and timing, you know, just because I think it doesn’t mean I have to say it, just because something’s happening doesn’t mean I blurt out my conditional response. Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear, and can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself, which is a timing thing? It’s all about timing. In that process, you become what Don Juan refers to as a man or a woman of knowledge.

davidji: 16:08

When a man or a woman of knowledge learns to see, moving from seeker to seer, that’s the fourth step, being a seer, and that’s what we always try to share with you. We don’t know what step on that path you’re on, and maybe it’s different in different situations, but ultimately we’re all moving, as long as we continue to learn and grow. We’re all moving from seeker to seer. Learn and grow. We’re all moving from seeker to seer. I think everyone needs to have a guru, even though you are the guru. But I think it’s really helpful to have external information commenting on your choices and decisions, even if you resist it, even if you deflect it, even if you ignore it. We need to have that so that we can just have additional perspectives. Otherwise we’re trapped in, as Elizabeth likes to say, the bubble of Elizabeth, the bubble of davidji. And then how could we learn. And are we here not to learn? Have we come into this life only to be massaged?

Elizabeth Winkler: 17:17

Right.

davidji: 17:17

Or to learn a little bit as well and grow and evolve and serve others in that process.

Elizabeth Winkler: 17:24

I would love to offer a Zen parable that works so beautifully with this. I have mentioned it once before. I don’t remember which episode that was, but it’s about the little monk and the samurai, so just take this in. So a big, tough samurai went to see a monk Monk. He barked in a voice accustomed to instant obedience Teach me about heaven and hell. The monk looked up at the mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain Teach you about heaven and hell. I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dumb, You’re dirty, You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight, I can’t stand you. The samurai got furious. He shook red in the face. Speechless with rage, he pulled out his sword and prepared to slay the monk. Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the monk said softly that’s hell. The samurai froze, realizing the compassion of the monk who had risked his life to show him hell. He put down his sword, fell to his knees filled with gratitude. The monk said softly and that’s heaven?

davidji: 18:49

So great.

Elizabeth Winkler: 18:50

So there’s the teaching of both sides.

davidji: 18:53

Yes, this is what the whole teaching of the petty tyrant is, because petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness, while the monk warriors warriors do not take themselves seriously. What usually exhausts us is that wear and tear on our self-importance of these people.

davidji: 19:16

How dare they don’t, they understand and we can do this on a teeny little basis or on a very, very grand stage, and we might refer to this as pride. If we just have a minuscule eyedropper of pride, we’re going to feel challenged, we’re going to feel threatened. It’s like what You’re talking about me. You’re telling me how to do. You know, whenever we like start putting our hands up, either metaphorically or physically, to block, wait, wait, wait, wait, don’t, don’t, don’t. We are the ones we’re taking ourselves too seriously. Self-importance is rising. We’ve moved from warriors and allowed the petty tyrant to have a much greater stature in our lives.

Elizabeth Winkler: 19:58

It’s controlling your life Right and you’re personalizing as well. It’s controlling your life Right and you’re personalizing as well, which is what we do Right. Listen, this is what the mind does. This is why meditation and mindfulness are so helpful and grounding, because you can have more awareness rather than getting lost in your thoughts about what somebody’s doing and how they shouldn’t do that or all that sort of stuff. Whatever someone else is doing is their thing right and you don’t have to take it on. You don’t have to allow that to rule your life. You can have space.

Elizabeth Winkler: 20:32

So I invite everyone here to think of a petty tyrant in your life and what they activate in you, and maybe you could pick a small one, or it could be a little thing in your life that bugs you. Let that low hanging fruit be your teacher. Let it expand and deepen and widen your capacity to handle it. I can handle. This is a mantra you could use or this, too, shall pass, or I will be the calm amidst the chaos. These are all things that we can remember, that we have the ability to choose, but it takes time to connect to that intention and remember that and to stay connected to your inner being.

davidji: 21:16

And this is also another component. I know we’ve gone from guru to petty tyrant, but it’s really important to see even in the guru and in the petty tyrant there is that shadow and light components. So one of the things is that what’s the petty tyrant do? The petty tyrant says things in a way you would never say things. The petty tyrant acts in ways that you would never do. The petty tyrant attacks you verbally or energetically in ways that you’re not necessarily prepared for because you would find them uncivil.

davidji: 21:50

What You’re talking to me like that in public and saying such mean things to me, or dressing me down, or you know Castaneda always says, or Don Juan always says, to be defeated by a petty tyrant, it’s not deadly, but it’s devastating because it creates this cycle where you feel a sense of failure and you feel unworthy. So you can’t act the way that someone is acting towards you, or else they’ve won. The petty tyrant has won. So someone acts rude. Can you be the silent witness? Someone acts with harshness. Can you be tender and gentle and compassionate? Someone acts with vitriol. Can you take a breath and appreciate that perhaps they’re struggling or angry or suffering? A petty tyrant is someone acting without control or discipline, and that’s one of the core strengths of the warrior control and discipline. And again, I think it’s a really important thing when we think about this concept of what’s the whole thing about the warrior, do we really want to be warriors? Yes, we’re warriors who are on a mission to slay the ignorance that you named at the beginning, right right, exactly Right.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:11

So that was the goo right, the goo Right, guru, right, right Right.

davidji: 23:16

You know we can’t dismiss the goo in guru, or else you just met left with light. And if this was just the light podcast.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:25

How do you learn without the darkness? This is how we expand the light.

davidji: 23:31

Right, right, love, that I didn’t know that I would be talking about the teachings of Don Juan or the writings of Carlos Castaneda, but I would really encourage you to check it out. He says so much more than petty tyrants. But we have to realize that there are people in our front row. When I talk about the front row, those people who are rooting for you, it’s just on the flip side. They don’t have to be actively rooting against you, but it’s someone who suddenly, in a given moment, just crushes you or just irritates you, challenges you, yeah, challenges you. I mean, this could be someone who says I’m looking for a place to stay and I’ll only stay a couple of nights while I look for my new place to stay, and like three weeks later you’re tearing your hair out and you’re like I don’t want this person living in my house. They’re messy, they’re sloppy, they’re eating things that I find disgusting, they’re blasting their music, they’re just irritating. So the teachings tell us okay, don’t devolve to them. Can you be strategic? Can you not allow the petty tyrant to take you down? And that would be like, hey, you know what? I’m glad I could take care of you. Tomorrow’s your last day, or I’ll give you a few more days and you were going to stay here overnight or two days. It’s been three weeks. I need to move on with my life. I’m putting just way too much attention on my tenant right here, whatever it is. There are so many different ways and we might call these people energy vampires in some way, but they don’t have to be leeching off you. They could just be irritants.

davidji: 25:01

One of my students in the teacher training reached out to me and said she had worked on this project for the board and she presented it to the board. She thought it was great. One of the board members just got up and cursed at her and said it was garbage, and said it was crap, and after that she spent two seconds. I mean, he just took her down and no one in the room spoke up. No one in the room spoke, and then the meeting ended and then a couple of people said, wow, that was really great, the way you just allowed that to just roll right off of you. And she was like, well, no, I wanted the board to agree with me, I wanted to be more compelling. I’m just surprised she was devastated. She reached out to me right after this and we just talked about it and I said how fortunate for you, how fortunate Not everyone could have a petty tyrant right on the board while you’re making the presentation.

davidji: 25:52

But it’s what happens next. It’s always what happens next. What next, next steps? And I believe that through these teachings and through understanding, there’s darkness and there’s light. Let me put the light on the darkness, explore it. Why didn’t I stand up? Why wasn’t I more compelling? Why wasn’t I more strategic? But again, one of those keys to warrior ship warrior hood is having the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:20

And timing. So it makes me think of how an oyster turns a grain of sand into a pearl, which the grain of sand is an irritant. So what’s irritating you has the ability to become a pearl of wisdom for you. So, being reflective of what is this irritant in my life, this activation in my life, what is it teaching me? Where is it guiding me to grow, to transform? Every activation is an invitation. So what irritates us guides us into the light, so allowing everything to be that teaching. There’s a book I have called the Master Game. It’s like. This is the mastery of the self. Rather than allowing other people to rule your life, you become the master of your own life by allowing whatever is given to you to be the teacher. Life, by allowing whatever is given to you to be the teacher, and then you’re left with a more compassionate and patient person. That’s what it creates.

davidji: 27:25

Absolutely. The petty tyrant is a euphemism, is a symbol of the outside element, the one we cannot control. Whether that’s a raging fire, whether that’s words that are going to come out of somebody else’s mouth or anything else, we can’t control it. How can you flow with it? This is a teacher to teach you about facing the uncertainty of life. You couldn’t search and find that person. That’s why, when they appear, ooh.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:58

Well, you tend to run from them.

davidji: 27:59

Right, we’re always running from them.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:01

What if you start to just lean in like the warrior and allow that irritant, that activation, that petty tyrant to be? What you have to detach from is your mind that’s telling you this shouldn’t be happening, or why you know, whatever all the things that it’s going to say, telling you this shouldn’t be happening or why you know, whatever all the things that it’s going to say. And just to align with this experience, say yes to, okay, this is apparently what’s happening, and then allow that to create something new. Yeah, the pearl of wisdom.

davidji: 28:31

Yeah, and now it’s time for today’s takeaway, what we refer to lovingly as living the light.

Elizabeth Winkler: 28:40

Allow yourself to expand your understanding of Guru and look at every frustration, every thing that bothers you, that irritant, as an opportunity, in disguise, as a space for you to be able to create more light in your life, to let go of what your mind has to say about it, to allow yourself to lean in and see what you can create and how you can transform, that you hold the power by being in that moment, not resisting, saying yes and learning, growing, transforming. We transform the world by transforming ourselves.

davidji: 29:30

Love that. Thank you so much, elizabeth. Thank you for coming up with this amazing topic of guru. Elizabeth, thank you for coming up with this amazing topic of Gu Ru and then moving it into the teachings of Don Juan. How amazing. My name is davidji. I’m here with Elizabeth Winkler. I know we could just keep lining up all the adjectives about how amazing she is. Thank you for listening to the Shadow and the Light podcast. We are the Shadow and the Light podcast, we are the Gu and the Ru, and we hope to see you on the next episode. Jamar, please journey us into the land of the heart and that secret place that is where I find my start.

Music: 30:27

The light is here to remove.

Music: 30:29

Then we’ll go to the deep To take me to you. The light, the shadow and the light. There’s no fog and rock. I know you hold it as you’re holding me, but don’t rush past this moment. The darkness can become a friend. Love will come by your side and you’ll shine brighter than a million suns A million suns. You went through hell, but now you’re in the light. It is here to remove all your fears and to bring new sight. The light it is not able to hold you deep.

Music: 31:17

The light, the light. It is now that we’ll go to the deep to take you to new heights, to the light, the shadow. And the light has come because it loves us. The light has come because it loves us. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes because it loves us. The shadow comes to set us free. The light is here to remove all our fears and to bring new life. The light is here. The light, the light. It’s a light that will go on to the deep to take us to new heights. The shadow and the light.