Are you needing Some sort of Spiritual Teacher?
Many individuals enquire about having a teacher on one’s spiritual path. Well, what’s a spiritual teacher? What would this relationship look like? Will it be your best option for you personally?
Many individuals have asked me my estimation on having a teacher on a spiritual path. Like the rest in life, there are only points of view concerning whether this choice is the better one for you. All I may do is reflect my own experience regarding having a teacher and what I’m the advantages and issues are of participating in this type of relationship.
First and foremost, a teacher is somebody who has been down the exact same road that you are traveling – albeit at least several miles in front of you. They understand the pitfalls and the roadblocks a course in miracles, and can assist you in making your path easier and less painful. They could comfort you with the knowledge that many individuals have walked this road before and survived, regardless of how difficult the road may appear for your requirements in the moment.
Second, a teacher can reflect items to you that you’d never see in yourself – at least not without plenty of self-honesty, which will be hard to find once we are first on our spiritual path. Denial is frequently our companion and we avoid what we fear is painful, even if we’re doing it subconsciously. The purpose is that the teacher has more awareness and can look out of the mental and egoic strategies that individuals eagerly justify and defend.
Third, a teacher creates a secure and supportive environment to allow us to open our hearts and minds in, giving us the chance to explore facets of ourselves we would normally avoid. A great teacher won’t use anything we have shared against us or even to hurt us, and especially won’t manipulate us with this information. This is not unlike the partnership we have with this doctor – what’s discussed in the therapy room stays in the therapy room.
The dangers of such a relationship are observed each time a teacher has not totally cleaned their ego-mind and still has the tendency to want to make use of people and situations for his or her personal benefit. The flip side of this dilemma is that many times the student doesn’t understand the teacher’s standpoint because they could only see from their limited point of view. Then they judge the teacher, not totally understanding their intent or the bigger picture. In these moments it really helps to talk to other students who have been down the road before for clarity – one of the ways or another. The objective of your spiritual path is to increase your individual power, self-love and self-worth, not to provide it away to others.
Other dangers involve becoming mounted on a teacher feeling when they were to make you that you’d never achieve enlightenment. This really is merely another appearance of “I am bad enough” manifesting itself in another guise. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says: Teachers open the doorway, but you must enter by yourself. A teacher can be a mirror for you personally, they could reveal many hidden facets of your mind, and they could explain many of one’s habit behaviors that are causing you pain in your life. But ultimately they can not do anything for you. You must do it for yourself. Anybody who promises otherwise is a danger to you.
For me personally, having a teacher has been an amazing blessing in my life. He taught me what unconditional love was through action – not through words. He reflected to me the love and blessing that I am, revealing the lies that I am not. He gave me words of support when the road was dark and encouraged me when I thought I could not make it. He was brutally honest with me, since there is benefit or investment in lying to me. He lent me his eyes to see the planet through to ensure that I possibly could experience that life may be heaven on earth. And most of all, he loved me just just how I was, with all my bad habits until I finally could express the light that I am.