The whole history of the ideas and methods of forms of meditation or self-awareness came from and are based on there being the very hierarchy you condemn.

I agree that there is a very human impulse to create such a hierarchy, and to pass the important decisions about how we should live our lives up the ladder on to a 'master' we place on a pedestal who does our thinking for us.

But just because that is the common response, does not mean it the best or most skillful response.

The 'history of ideas' is usually written by pegging the big 'ideas' on to individuals, but that does not mean it really was so. And even if you do have a well-known person who really did create an original idea or philosophy, it does not mean that I have to worship them.

I respect many orginal thinkers, am grateful to them in fact, and I may go to teachers to learn a particular subject that the teacher is skilled in, but that does not mean that I have to surrender my life to them, or take on all their thoughts.

Even the idealised, "primitive" Hinayana Buddhism relies on the figure of one and one only "realised, enlightened" person of his time who was unable to pass on his "experience" to anyone else. Or one other person depending upon the "history" you are prepared to accept.

I don't accept your version of early Buddhism. The Buddha was not held to be the one and only 'enlightened', but many were. He was, however, the main teacher. And the fact that he was 'unable to pass on his experience to anyone else' is my whole point. To even talk about 'passing on an experience' is spiritual master talk.

He could not 'pass on his experience' since that is impossible, and was in fact the main plank of his teaching - that you have to find it for yourself, with a little help from others, of course.