RedTailHawk on Nostr: Oxford defines a guru as a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts ...

Oxford defines a guru as a spiritual teacher, especially one who imparts "initiation".

I might rearticulate that as follows:

A guru is a person who has, due to the sum of their past choices, achieved full enlightenment or, at the very least, gnosis, and serves the community as an "effective" spiritual teacher.

The word "effective" is used here to encapsulate the ability to "impart 'initiation'" from Oxford's definition. If a spiritual teacher truly "gets it", that is, understands what is necessary to fulfill the spiritual prerequisite accomplishments for achieving full enlightenment, they should be able to guide genuine students to become enlightened. If the guru, in his/her whole tenure as a guru, leads a single student to enlightenment, it counts. The successes of the student validate the teacher. We're to judge tree by the fruits they bear. Anything short of that is definitional prejudice.

The heart chakra is assumed to be active in any "guru" as people who are of a "service to self orientation" do not activate the heart chakra and do not tend to engage in "service to others" types of activities, especially teaching. Teaching others empowers them and a service to self oriented person would regard the act of informing others as an intentional forfeiture of a competitive advantage.

Gnosis, aka Da'ath, aka Vishuddha, the wisdom chakra in the throat, corresponds with truth telling. A guru does know what s/he knows and has no problem saying "I don't know" when s/he doesn't know. A guru has no problem caveating opinion as opinion and would generally not be willing to masquerade opinion as fact. A guru would be very hesitant to mislead anyone with certain exceptions, i.e. use of the morosophic (the wiseman masquerading as foolish) playbook, so to speak.

For one thing, that level of spiritual achievement (gnosis, da'ath, vishuddha) corresponds with the dark night of the soul during which time the person is stripped of that which they never truly were. This is where the concept of "born again" comes from: da'ath/death & rebirth, Phoenix rising, salvation, etc.

For another, that is the first level of spiritual development in which the person opens up a "tap" into "Intelligent Infinity", if you will. Where did prophets get their visions from? Some, maybe psychedelics. Others, possibly near death experiences. Some were likely spiritual gurus who had a "Divine router" to tap into that cosmic network of Divine/Infinite Intelligence. Such a connection would naturally entrain the prophet/guru/etc. into acting in Divine manners which, in turn, would entrain others into acting in Divine manners.

It would make sense that someone who is entrained to the Divine by an open connection with Divine Intelligence would be more effective than any charlatan at guiding students to "initiation" i.e. gnosis or gnosis & full enlightenment. It's a lot easier to teach others how to walk the path when you understand the path and have already walked it yourself.