Luan Hassett

In this essay I am assuming some prior familiarity with Kapil Gupta’s arguments about prescriptions, which he defines as shoulds, how-to’s, 5 step plans and emphasis on method and technique. He’s worried about disempowerment of the student, saying that once you ask a teacher how something is done, you are placing your capabilities in the hands of your teacher, and will be forever returning after practice to ask “did I do that correctly? how should I do it differently?”

But there is a form of prescription which is suggestive and experimental and which does not claim to hold some final truth worthy of the student suspending their intuition. For example, a meditation instructor could say “for one week, spend 5 minutes twice a day observing the energy movements in your body.” The student could follow this instruction slavishly, and when they don’t notice anything they could conclude that something is wrong with them and return to the coach for help. Or, they could think, “that’s an interesting experiment, I’m excited to see whether I notice any energetic blockages when I find myself in a recurring negative situation this week.” If the student doesn’t notice anything interesting, they can simply move on to whatever is the next experiment that piques their curiosity.

What is important to understand in this example is that it’s not inevitable that the student becomes dependent on the teacher. If after a succession of experiments the student doesn’t find anything interesting, if he doesn’t develop any new capabilities, he will naturally lose interest in what the teacher has to say. Certainly the teacher could try to manipulate the situation so that the student doesn’t realise that his instructions are useless. The teacher could say “keep trying, one day it will come” (a phrase that Gupta often uses as an example of how teachers can keep students on the hook). But many teachers don’t. Gupta promises to speak in absolute truths; he is not doing so here. In reality many students are highly skeptical, and teachers are constantly having to renew their proof of benefit.

I bought into Gupta’s message because it does have sociological accuracy. People do throw ‘Shoulds’ at each other. People indeed rarely stop to consider why the person hasn’t already done what they are advising them to do. Many coaches do exploit their clients. But these dynamics are not intrinsic to prescriptions, which are simply the introduction of a possible course of action that hasn’t already been taken. Mark Manson’s article ‘The Point Is To Stop‘ is one of many examples of how mainstream writers acknowledge and guide against the very risk that Gupta thinks he is unique in warning against.

With some effort I am avoiding the devaluation of Gupta that so often comes after one has idealised a teacher in the way that I did. He is a genuinely unique voice and speaks profoundly about existence. But he too is human. As Adyashanti put it when talking about Osho’s terrorist behaviour, one can be profoundly well-developed along certain dimensions of personal growth while being stunted along others. He says:

“Enlightenment… that’s part, that’s part of the game. That doesn’t guarantee you’re going to know how to be in good intimate relationships, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be able to delude yourself, doesn’t mean you’re not going to be seduced by power or desire necessarily. It doesn’t guarantee that.”

I wonder how Gupta’s lack of sociability has affected the trajectory of his significant and impressive personal development. He describes himself as a hermit. He does not like people. I wonder whether he is projecting the disempowerment he feels in relationship onto others who are more thoroughly socialised and who have learned to work through dynamics of dependency rather than make them a pretext for distancing themselves. But then, that might be my own projection. To Gupta’s credit, he always points out that everything that a person counsels arises out of their own specific circumstances, and that the most important thing in hearing his words is never to take them on faith.

As a closing message, I would also like to acknowledge that for all that I have said defending prescriptions, the teacher-student relationship is indeed fraught with the risk of dependency even when the teacher is actively working to mitigate the risk. I have hopefully demonstrated that the reliance on the teacher can be time-limited, but the element of reliance does indeed assume a life and momentum of its own, and the overall direction of our culture is to add to it. As the Buddha apparently said, one of the core tenets of seeking enlightenment is to not buy into society’s prevailing belief systems.