[Terminology note: "stream entry", "stream entrant", "insight", "awakening" and "awakened" are technical jargon defined in Cyberbuddhist Jargon 1.0.]

If you want to experience stream entry, the best thing you can do is find a good human teacher. Unfortunately, not all teachers are good. Even more problematically, it can be difficult for normal people to identify good teachers.

There are many things that make for a good teacher, but if you're aiming for stream entry then your teacher must be a stream entrant him/herself. This is the absolute minimum requirement. Anyone who isn't a stream entrant is obviously unqualified to teach how to get to stream entry.

Except, it's difficult for unawakened people to tell who is and isn't a stream entrant, because unawakened people have difficulty understanding what stream entry even is. On the other hand, awakened people can very easily tell who is and isn't awakened. To explain how awakened people can identify each other, I'm going to use a parable.

Deep in the Brazilian rainforest is a magical city called El Dorado. It is said that the streets are paved with gold, and that in the center of the city is an ancient stepped pyramid. Wakandan-style technology hides the city from aerial and satellite photos, but occasionally an explorer will stumble upon El Dorado. Guards prevent explorers from taking physical evidence with them when they leave, but they retain their memories of the place.

Many people tell stories of El Dorado. Some say that it contains the Fountain of Youth. Others say that only the purest of heart can enter. Most people can't tell which stories are real, which are embellishments, and which are false. Most people cannot even tell who has and hasn't been to El Dorado. Many people lie and say they've been to El Dorado when they haven't. Other people who have been to El Dorado keep quiet about it.

If you've never been to El Dorado, then it can be difficult to sort the truth from the metaphors from the untruths. It's hard to tell who really has been to El Dorado, who is faking it, and who got conned into visiting the tourist trap resort built for gringos where everything is painted yellow. Maybe El Dorado isn't even real. How would you know?

But if you have been to El Dorado then you know what is true, what is metaphorical and what is false. The streets aren't paved with literal gold, but the walls really are plated with it. You know this, because you've walked the streets and touched the walls. You know that the giant flying snake, sometimes incorrectly described as a "dragon", is 100% real, but that the "great eagle" is just a stone statue.

The same dynamic applies to awakening. People who have been to El Dorado for real can easily identify each other. People who haven't been to El Dorado argue about what stream entry is and how it works because most of them are working from imperfect maps. (El Dorado is unplottable, after all.) In addition, many people are employed in advertising for the gringo tourist trap El Dorado™.

When scholars from different religious traditions meet, they argue endlessly about their different beliefs. When contemplatives from different religious traditions meet, they celebrate their common understandings. Because of their direct personal understanding, they were able to comprehend experiences which in words are described in many different ways.

―Saints and Psychopaths by William Hamilton

After you hit stream entry, identifying real teachers is a solved problem. But if you want to experience stream entry, then that means you haven't experienced it, which can make finding competent teachers a difficult problem.

When I first started getting into Buddhism, I visited a local meditation center that will go unnamed. Inside, they had three photos high on the wall. The leader of the group explained that these three people were awakened, and that their photos were on the wall to inspire us that we could be awakened too.

This is, of course, insane. And not just because it's culty. The reason it's insane is because it implied that nobody in the room with me was awakened. If there was an awakened being there in the room then they wouldn't need the photos. Sure enough, the meditation they taught was completely ineffectual at achieving awakening.

At another meditation center, the Q&A happened after meditating. The teacher answered lots of questions about general morality, and then someone asked what stream entry was. The teacher answered "according to the sutras", stream entry has blah-blah-blah effect, implying a significant uncertainty. The fact the teacher couldn't answer this basic question implied that the teacher wasn't awakened, because if he was then he could have answered the question from personal experience with 100% certainty. This is particularly egregious for a meditation center with "insight" in the name, because insight meditation, done properly and in sufficient volume, causes stream entry.

At the other extreme are rando Sanskritposters on Twitter who are obviously awakened because they get the facts right while ignoring all the religion-based shibboleths.

Telling me you got abducted by mantids- very believable, yeah yeah we've all seen the time knife ✅

Telling me you unlocked the ability to levitate via meditation- yep, thats how its done, good work ✅

Telling me you fucked Shiva- ugh he's such a slut, nice I love that for you ✅

Telling me you genuinely have ill will towards any sentient being- bullshit, thats not possible and if it were true, youre an extremely deeply disturbed individual 🚫🚫🚫

―ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ on Twitter

If you've been to El Dorado, then it's obvious to you which parts of ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ's tweet are true, which are metaphorical, and to what sense even the concept of truth is left deliberately ambiguous. But if you haven't had sex with Shiva, then it may not even be clear to you why ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ is probably an awakened being.

Even though I understand why it is the case, it still always amazes me how 99% of the actual yogis who know literally anything about dharma have <1,000 followers and its always the large accounts selling absolute gibberish nonsense and selling books/courses about it

―ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ on Twitter

The rest of the Shiva thread reads like if the avatars of Hindu gods were on AOL.

@xrishnav: bro what. I feel like I got the lamest enlightenment I just saw (became) god for a bit (time doesn't really exist there) and now I cant think.

@space_punk: Oh shit no wonder you can understand me if you've been to the place where time doesn't exist 🙏

@xrishnav: its just awareness without form . kind of hard to explain

@space_punk: The place where space and time dont exist will of course be hard to describe to anyone whos only ever experienced states of consciousness where they do exist

@xrishnav: well yes. but you've seen some shit so I expect that we know the other persons language. like I was saying before, mine was just like boom here's true reality now back to planet earth you go dont tell anyone or tell everyone it really doesn't matter either ways. im a bit lost

@space_punk: Ugh envious tbh. I completely forgot how planet Earth worked, in fact it feels like the being who went there died (or stayed there? Same thing?) and I was sent back down here in her place but idk shit about this planet

@space_punk: I guess its very novel again so thats fun

@xrishnav: well yes my relationship to myself has completely changed. I kind of dont "do" anything anymore. but I cant even say that cause that means that I have a choice. everything is empty. I am simply here watching shit. I somehow feel more at peace but also more powerless. its weird

@space_punk: Wow! Was that a typo or are you saying you DO ^[[1]] have a choice? I found I lost free will afterwards because I could only ever do the right thing

1. This comment is surprised and confused because ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ misread what krishnav malhotra wrote, not because there is a disagreement. The fact that the misreading caught ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ's attention is evidence that ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ ᴘᴜɴᴋ is working from real, predictive beliefs. ↩︎