Reliance of channeling and other trance sources

[Diana]

The thing that matters, in my opinion, is what you take from it—anything beyond that is wasted energy on judgments that may or may not be true.

I think it matters who is the source and what is the information. It is a waste of energy if you blindly trust someone who wants to harm you or is not speaking from experience. Or if you can't verify information is not just imagination …

I am not an advocate of blindly trusting either, or for that matter, blindly following. The source of learning, to me, is irrelevant as long as you are thinking for yourself. If you are, no one can harm you or "snow" you. The only problem with hearing information that was made up is if you do "follow" rather than think for yourself. Learning is not always a linear process. Perhaps you see a homeless person on the street with a sign asking for money. Many people would judge this person, clinging to their ideas about why the person is on the street, or what the person does with the money people give (such as buying alcohol). And this judging informs them as to whether they will interact with this person or offer them assistance. This is what I mean by wasting energy on judging. There is no need to judge, and no way to know what path the person took to end up there. What can be learned by seeing this person is endless, starting with opening your heart to compassion, or recognizing the limiting nature of judging.

The best way is to have a living experienced human teacher with whom you can spend time, have a close relationship and build strong trust. A guru or starets.

Many people agree with you here. I prefer finding my own way, learning from all existence. It's less cozy, and perhaps more difficult. I have spent time with a couple of living masters, and that was an interesting experience. The thing is we are all individual expressions, so spending time with a guru hopefully would teach not just to follow a particular path, but to find and express one's own unique potential.