Take the example of people who are being most unrealistic - people who are beating monks to death and torturing them. Why shouldn't you be angry or hate that person? Well, the person who is doing that is very unhappy. They are being ordered by a higher-up.

Whether or not enlightenment is a plausible goal for us is a vital question for our lives. If it is possible for us to attain such perfect enlightenment ourselves, our whole sense of meaning and our place in the universe immediately changes. To be open to the possibility is to be a spiritual seeker, no matter what our religion. Enlightenment is not meant to be an object of religious faith. It is an evolutionary goal.

Actually there's a very bad trend in some cults about how Guru's are supposed to be mean to their students, and there are some who revel in this and are abusive.

What makes me fully alive is anything. Really just being alive is enough.

You can't relate to an absolute or it wouldn't be absolute, it would be relative. On an intellectual level, that's easy. However, you hear theologians in the theistic traditions talk about absolute God, and I saw God, or God spoke; speaking, being seen, these are all relational things. So what is absolute about such a being, wouldn't actually be absolute.

You have to be responsible for yourself, refer to yourself, develop yourself, help others, whatever it may be. So we shouldn't have an idea that the whole thing is to shatter ones ego.

The better teachers recognize that by freeing yourself of the rigid ego identity habit, you actually strengthen the resilient, flexible, creative ego, and you then can be more effective in helping others, and creative in whatever work you do.