Insecurity and Lack of Self-Confidence makes People search for a Guru

Last week I told you about an Irish lady whom I met in 2005. She was very insecure and had been on a spiritual search, trying different masters to find the right one for herself. I started noticing after a few meetings that this was what she was looking for: a guru, someone to carry her responsibility for her.

She had really very little confidence in herself. It is not very unusual to meet people like this, especially in the west where people have generally difficulties in feeling what they really want. This is why they cannot decide and have to ask others what will be good. This woman, too, had no clear idea of what she wanted and no self-confidence.

What she did have, which is also common to people who are insecure about themselves, was the trust in others. When she had found a person whom she wanted to follow, she trusted him or her without further questions. She trusted me, too, and she had a belief that I could somehow magically give her a hint for her future or bless her so that she could do the right thing. I would call that superstition now and in that time I just recognized that she was looking for the guru in me – whom I had left behind after my time in the cave.

I thus took the next chance that I got and told her very clearly that I was absolutely not a guru and that I had no intention of making her a follower. I very seriously talked about this with her, making her aware of her own responsibilities. I told her that I would always be there for her if she needed my opinion as a person, if she wanted me just to listen to what she felt and if I could maybe help her think in another direction. I would not however tell her what she should do. She would need to think on her own and, most importantly, feel on her own!

We had some serious and very honest talk with each other. After this, I believe she contacted me a bit less frequently. She was in touch, though, and she told me when she had finally, after years, found a man whom she loved, with whom she wanted to get old.

She came to meet me in Germany together with him. They were in a cute way alike and everybody who met them agreed that with their jolly nature they just fit very well to each other. They joined a meditation and we all knew that they were meant for each other when they both fell asleep while I was still speaking and snored on the couch in the back of the room for the rest of the meditation. It was a cute picture to see them next to each other. In the end, both of them came to me, hugged me and said ‘That was a wonderful meditation!’