Amber was a nickname for a person who posted on awakening over at the now defunct sentient.org. What Amber says is a very clear outlook on teaching, teachers and awakening. Anyone seeking would do well to pay attention. This is a little of what Amber had to say:
We think we know what the result of awakening will be – namely a lessening of pain. So, we make up stories – a story that we must say ‘yes’ to everything, that acceptance will help us awaken. A story that things will be easier if we awaken, that we will love unconditionally if we awaken; that our lives will be smoother, happier. If we awaken. We make up a story that we are drawn to truth. We make up a story that our yearning is opening our hearts. Ha! All this thinking is just a mind crying out for a good therapist. If you are unhappy or unfulfilled or not at peace, then I would suggest you see such a person – they will probably be of far more help than some self-proclaimed teacher touring around giving ’satsang’ and helping you dream nicer dreams.
Awakened state, unawakened state … such things are the storybooks of children. Look around – do the animals spend time wondering about an imagined God, a Nirvana, a state of happiness, a oneness with all? Have a little humility my dear friend – notice that you are not as clever as the gentle little field mouse who lives quietly in the grasses and never for a moment wonders about becoming one with the universe. She just lives and is. She does not need or think of the pretensions of evolving, of gain, of being something, or of attaining. For her this moment is it – everything and everyone appears and recedes into and out of her own quiet awareness. She just lives. Really – isn’t all this talk and more talk of awakening just a small death you are giving yourself? Isn’t this imagined answer to all your problems blinding you to what is here, now? If you are unhappy or lack peace, see a therapist. Or perhaps quiet and free, with pain or without it, just be.
~ Amber
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I never quite get this point of comparing humans with animals. They don’t worry about oneness or peace because they lack the faculty to do so. Humans, for better or worse, have self-consciousness with its attendant problems. Hence, the uniquely human experience of neurosis.
Regarding therapy, I am sure it relives acute psychological stress – psychiatric drugs probably do that even better.
What is not well known is that most psychiatric drugs do not work very well. Some drugs do benefit some segments of the population, but generally speaking they have less of an effect than therapy.