Many say the time of the guru is past. This is true, but it is not something to celebrate, because the guru function is necessary—it must be fulfilled for any society to be sustainable. Because the guru function can no longer be fulfilled in the society at large, the culture is falling into its final death throes. The loss of the guru function is part of the inevitable decline of values and power of the human spirit, a decline that has been prophesied by the same gurus who are now derided as being obstacles, rather than portals, to spiritual renewal.

The fall of the guru as a living presence in high culture is part of the general movement of consciousness into materialism and away from spirituality—indeed it is a part of the loss of high culture as a whole. Religious organizations and lineages have lost credibility not only because the culture has marginalized them, but more importantly because they have failed to live up to their own teachings. Corruption has destroyed the religions of the world.

The most important opposition to be understood by spiritual aspirants is that between what is realistic and what is Real. The realistic is determined by the culture. It is what conforms to reason, reason that is adapted to social reality, a constructed reality, a reality constructed specifically to maintain a given, though hidden, under-structure of power.

The Real is thus always unrealistic. The Real is what is beyond both imaginary concerns and symbolic concepts. The Real cannot be captured by symbolism. The Real is what is repressed from mundane, realistic discourse. To be on a spiritual path is to be on a path toward the Real. To be on a spiritual path is thus inherently to be unrealistic.