No satsangs yet

Tonight I got into it with Paul Hedderman at St. John's Church. After an hour or so of his steamy monologue, I had my chance to repeat to him that I was finished
with the illusion, and share what is coming soon: the time where I will be free to do nothing, have nothing to do, and allow my mind to spin down into stillness. I thought it was a pretty good share, but he didn't go anywhere with it. He stormed back with the same assertions that he gave a woman before me, who had shared an emotional boyfriend drama.
"It is not you who is doing, your mind is making something up, you need to be concise, but if you think you need to do something to prepare, go ahead and do it. Why not? It's just a story." A guy with short hair and glasses sitting on a table in the back of the room, jumped in to help Paul, ranting something about how the Buddha was conscious of the present moment, full of conviction but sounding like a textbook. I fired back at both of them. "I speak Enlightenese, I can learn your words and talk your language. This is a wordgame." I accused Paul of needing preparation of some sort to know himself as God, and that he was not Susan Segal awakening at a bus stop. I demanded that the guy on the table consider the years of seeking the Buddha had before he could "realize the infinite potential of the present moment," as I put it. Paul repeatedly interrupted me, so I would cut back in to reply. We were going overtime, people were getting restless. Then it was over, and Paul gave me a big hug in front of the group. Perhaps he was relieved. There was a lot more I could have said.
By the time I arrived back at the apartment, I had the encounter figured out. Unassailable doesn't mean a deeply realized or effective teacher. Here was a lesser teacher. More than some others, but not enough. He had not succeeded in building the bridge for us to cross from the place of the attached self, to that of awakened non-self. The chasm separating the two had appeared, ugly and gaping, and like other lesser teachers all he could do was command us to jump across. No preparation, no process, no investigation or exploration. Just jump!  No meeting of minds or consideration of subtleties.
A dopey Lama in San Jose comes to mind, whose devoted students perform lengthy rituals and call him Rinpoche. That was the first Bay Area group Akemi and I went to, months ago. Now we've seen four teachers, been to over a dozen meetings, none of them qualifying as satsang, only gatherings. They can fool me once, but never twice. I'm still looking for the teacher with the real truth - and heart.  Thanks for that reminder, Janakji.
Afterthought, 7 am the next morning: I'm in my head, chasing around inquiries about why teachers can't build bridges to help seekers realize their true nature. Perhaps in Paul's case the drug-addict-alcoholic who once white knuckled sobriety, is now white knuckling enlightenment. They say in recovery programs: "give a handup, not a handout" - his monologue was the handout.  He says he knows himself as God and not as a self. I know myself as a self, but not as God! So, whose role is it to cross that great divide? "There is no one to play a role," so the lesser teachers will assert," because there is no one to cross and nothing to cross to. It is already here, and you are already that, you just don't realize it." Such words are a mindless and thoughtless mantra. Better to keep moving, and become mindless and thoughtless without a mantra:)