Pure Brutality

[Belacqua]

I have no doubt that many people who consider themselves spiritual are foolish. It is an extremely easy way to fool oneself. 

And I'm very sorry that one of them caused you harm.

We live in a time when any kind of spiritual effort is extremely difficult. 

Traditionally it has required extreme discipline, trust in a master or some kind of well-worn tradition, and the hard work of giving up many things that get in the way. I don't see how these great traditions could possibly work as weekly therapy-for-pay. They're incompatible.

That's what he was trying to do, be my master/mentor something like that. Maybe he even meant well. But all self-delusion aside, he was just trying to make money, same as anyone else. That situation drove it home for me that everyone is basically the same, and that there are no "special" people.

Moral of the story: Don't be a money grubbing little bitch if you can't back up your world view with some extremely good justification.

Sad to say, it's not that unusual for some traditional practice that works in different circumstances to get deracinated and applied in a shallow way. These serious but difficult traditions aren't meant to be tools in a quick-fix toolkit that people can pay for. 

I still think there are good people out there, but they're not the ones advertising.