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Over the years I've seen quite a few people rise up as masters, grandmasters, gurus and the like. I have basically been presented with two views on this matter. 1. A master is a person with a certain degree of learning and skill, be it in martial arts, NLP, Academia, Chi Gong, etcetera. 2. A master is a person who is one with the Dao and is immortal. (See also living buddha, or saint) In many cases, particularly in the case of Asian martial and cultural arts, somebody achieved mastery by the first definition and then proceeds to believe, act and be accepted as a master by the second definition. I have spent many years of my life studying eastern philosophy, culture, and martial arts and have found an explanation for this that I tend to find acts as a functional guide to such matters. In Chinese history there was an ancient attitude that China is the sole civilized world and everything beyond its borders is barbarian wilderness. This attitude elevates Chinese culture to a divine status within the context of said definition. Because of this anyone who wished to have any influence and rank in ancient Chinese society must be well versed in the traditional rituals, arts and knowledges of their ancestors. These arts, by the very fact that they are Chinese are divine knowledge. Anyone who masters martial arts skills, caligraphy, or has masterful knowledge of the Chinese classics is essentially the divine in human format. This divinity is revealed in the form of artful documents, breaking bricks, healing the sick and governing according to precedent. This attitude is very Confucian. It is also an attitude that has many parallels with Socialism in the context of western academic and scientific communities, as well as fundamentalist Abrahamic religions. According to academic institutions, the only people qualified to guide a person into the framework of their own soul (Psychology) or to heal the sick (allopathic medicine) are people who have completed extensive socialization rituals in the framework of an academic context. The foundations of western scientific and social knowledge are based upon our civilization being the most civilized civilization ever to have existed in millions of years of human evolution. In fact, according to the Marxist ideal that has formed the bases of social sciences, civilization did not even begin until Mesopotamia, and after many failed attempts finally reached a pinnacle in the modern west. On the other hand, I have heard many followers of fundamentalist Abrahamic religions consider their own form of cultural knowledge to be the only valid viewpoint and that all others that disagree with them are incorrect. From this framework I have to question the validity of claims made by masters of Asian cultural and martial arts that their knowledge somehow qualifies them to spiritually guide others. I even question the validity of Qigong and yoga masters as to the validity of any claims to spirituality, as the modern incarnations of these arts are more oriented towards health, or martial arts, and less oriented towards spirituality. Even if someone were a master of a spiritual tradition, I would still question their validity as a living buddha, immortal wayfarer or saint. Tradition in my experience is not the same as reality. Many people who quest after spiritual knowledge in the context of a traditional framework often find that people may possess an authentic degree of magical or energetic skill while still being a pitiful excuse of a human being. Horror stories of encounters with life-force stealing vampires, dark sorcerers, cult leaders, and sex maniacs abound in modern and ancient literature surrounding this subject. In fiction, which is drawn directly from collective dream consciousness, and often reveals the archetypal nature of situations, sorcerers, wizards, witches, shamans, priests, and magicians are just as often evil as they are good. In the Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan (a Yaqui Shaman) defines the four enemies of a Man of Knowledge. 1. Fear 2. Clarity 3. Power 4. Old Age Clarity and Power are the domains associated with spiritual teachers and sorcerers. Don Juan makes the point that upon achieving clarity, the act of seeing clearly must be treated as almost a lie or it will just blind a person and they will fall into an egotistical path enhanced by their own clarity. Power the second enemy, must be recognized as an enemy as well or the power will just control the person and bolster their egos. An egotistical person who believes in absoluteness of their own vision, and the greatness of their own power, is unable to achieve oneness with the Dao/universe/God/Goddess, and is very likely to fall into the trap of becoming a dark sorcerer by their tendency to use their clarity and power for their own personal gain. When a person fundamentally believes that they are better than everyone else and had a legitimate level of skill in esoteric, energetic, magical or spiritual arts they inevitably become the archetypal dark sorcerer, cult leader, or televangelist. In order to achieve oneness with the divine and become an authentic Master of Dao a person must forget the small mind and merge with the true knowledge of the shining mind. Some simple criteria for identifying this are laid out in the Dao-De-Ching, the Wen-Tzu, and The Chuang-Tzu these probably include humbleness, knowing that they know nothing, simplicity,love, kindness, compassion, detachment, balance and mysterious power. On the other hand cult leaders, dark sorcerers and televangelists are much easier to identify. Their qualities commonly include a belief in their superiority, a belief in the superiority of their knowledge, tradition, or power, a belief in their unbending commitment to the greater good even in acts of selfishness or hatred, and a tendency to dis-empower the people around them who are perceived to have lesser degrees of knowledge or divinity. They are additionally easy to offend, loud, brag a lot, and like to set themselves up as the center of attention. They may in fact posses authentic power. What are some criteria you use to judge mastery?

They always take out clips from the American movies. I never saw this.