Now, before anybody else does, I'm going to accuse myself of hypocrisy. I've been writing messages like this one to clarify various spiritual concepts and you could label me as a spiritual teacher if you felt like it. Where's the hypocrisy? Well, in this piece I'm going to explain why you don't need spiritual teachers at all.
The Truth that Is Everything Is Within You. It's already Here and no amount of beliefs or teachings are going to reveal this Truth. It Is Who You Are, and beliefs only get in the way. Why would you need to believe you are something when you already Are? You want a Guru? Gee (G), You (U) Are (R) You (U). When you listen to a spiritual teacher you feed into a subtle illusion. You put Truth on the outside like it's something to be discovered. Your own Awakening then depends on outside things and it becomes something to be achieved. You don't achieve Awakening, You Are Awake. Or you are not, your choice.
There's no magical phrase I could say to enlighten a person. You Are Love. Did it work? Are You Love? If you felt anything it's only because it resonated with the Truth Already Alive Within You. A true teacher only assists one in finding what's Already Here. A true Master doesn't create followers, but fellow Masters. Many have come to this Planet and told you we're All Equal. Did Humanity hear them? Did you? Are You Equal?
Humanity has been told they're unworthy, that they're less than what they should be and there's something they have to do to become Who They Really Are. In the West it's called salvation, in the East it's called enlightenment. The process for achieving either is slightly different, but the illusion they reinforce is the same. Both put the Truth outside of you and tell you what you have to do to Be Who You Already Are. It's a good scam they've got going, and there's a million spiritual teachers willing to perpetuate this lie. Pay taxes, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Give to Love what is Love and then you're Free.
Spiritual teachers can be quite dangerous, as are many supposed “healers”. Any industry so dependent upon people being sick is ripe with corruption. If you do too good a job, you're out of business. I'll draw a parallel with the medical industry. If they truly prevented disease, they wouldn't have much business. It's far more profitable to treat diseases than to prevent them, so they focus upon medicating the effect instead of eliminating the cause. This is the exact same way most “spiritual” teachers work. They say some stuff to make people feel better about their lives, but they don't address what made people feel bad in the first place. This keeps them coming back every week or forking over another $300 for the next spiritual retreat. Would you like your therapist now? In related news, it's recently been discovered that while acetaminophen takes away the pain, it destroys your liver in the process.
A real spiritual teacher assists you in finding Yourself. They help you find, not their truth, but your own Truth Within. Teacher is a mediocre word for someone who does this, spiritual sponsor would be a more accurate description. Or reciprociter. Personally, I'd call them Friends and Family, that's Who We Are. In Equality, who has greater Equality? The one who knows more than somebody else, or the one who shares what they understand?
So why do I write this stuff if I'm not trying to teach people anything? Well, why tell someone “Hello”? Why say to another “I Love You”? Why not share the Truth you find with Everybody? It's through sharing Freely, not trying to teach or convince others, that our own sense of Truth flowers. It's when we give of ourselves that we truly give.
Love,
Will, Mother & Father God, and Your Family Of Light
http://gflcentral.ning.com
I said much the same thing on one of my blogs yesterday:
http://almarose.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/life-101/
The gift of any true teacher to his or her student is (1) to impart a love of learning and (2) to supply, or point to, resources... then to sit back and watch the student devour the resources and look for more.
The teacher walks a fine line, as does the writer. At what point does INFORMATION become DOGMA? I believe that the insistence with which some "teachers" impose their views on others has to do with a belief in mortality. "Gotta hurry and get my perpetually angry 35-year-old son into meditation and on a spiritual path. His anger is ruining his life."
But everything snaps into place when you understand that EVERYONE IS ALREADY ON A SPIRITUAL PATH. It will undoubtedly be different from MY path, and I can accept that, even be joyful about it, because I know that the spiritual journey spans uncounted lifetimes, and that all paths converge in the end.
Many pray for my son and their prayers are powerful. Occasionally I am sad to see my son struggle, every day, just to BE. His brother and his sister both seem to have slipped, with varying degrees of ease, into their "place in creation." But I also see spiritual progress in my son, and it has been many years since I have DESPAIRED of him.
When he was a little boy -- who did not know the meaning of serenity -- I tried to impose my remedies (my truth) upon him, because his chronic anger and unhappiness broke my heart. This is what mothers do, a lot -- try to FIX people, especially their children. But, making a virtue of necessity, I surrendered him to God, I practiced not worrying until it became a habit, and in return I came I understand that we are in different places on our journey to bliss, and that there are no wrong paths, merely detours.
People ask me how I learned to stop worrying, how I ceased feeling guilt and having regrets. Well, as someone said, "I have been to the abyss." I have died and been reborn -- quite a number of times, actually. Or, as Anne Lamott has put it, "Grace means you're in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had no way to get there on your own."
Amen...
The Rev. Mary Campbell
