Many people enquire about having a teacher on one’s spiritual path. Well, what is a spiritual teacher? What would this relationship seem like? Would it not be the best choice for you?
Many people have asked me my opinion on having a teacher on a spiritual path. Like anything else in life, you will find only points of view regarding whether this choice is the greatest one for you. All I can perform is reflect our experience regarding having a teacher and what I’m the huge benefits and problems are of doing this kind of relationship.
First and foremost, a teacher is anyone who has been down the same road that you’re traveling – albeit at the very least a couple of miles in front of you course in miracles books. They understand the pitfalls and the roadblocks, and can assist you to make your path easier and less painful. They could comfort you with the knowledge that numerous people have walked this road before and survived, no matter how difficult the road may appear for your requirements in the moment.
Second, a teacher can reflect items to you that you would never see in yourself – at the very least not without a lot of self-honesty, which can be difficult to get when we are first on our spiritual path. Denial is usually our companion and we avoid what we fear is painful, even when we are doing it subconsciously. The idea is a teacher has more awareness and can look out of the mental and egoic strategies that people eagerly justify and defend.
Third, a teacher creates a safe and supportive environment allowing us to open our hearts and minds in, giving us the ability to explore facets of ourselves we’d normally avoid. An excellent teacher will not use anything we’ve shared against us or to hurt us, and especially will not manipulate us with that information. This is simply not unlike the relationship we’ve with our doctor – what is discussed in the therapy room stays in the therapy room.
The dangers of this kind of relationship are located each time a teacher hasn’t totally cleaned their ego-mind and really has the tendency to want to utilize people and situations for his or her personal benefit. The flip side of this problem is that numerous times the student doesn’t understand the teacher’s perspective because they can only see from their limited point of view. They then judge the teacher, not totally understanding their intent or the larger picture. In these moments it helps you to talk to other students who’ve been in the future before for clarity – one of the ways or another. The goal of your spiritual path is to improve your personal power, self-love and self-worth, not to provide it away to others.
Other dangers involve becoming attached with a teacher feeling that if they certainly were to give you that you would never achieve enlightenment. This is just another appearance of “I’m negative enough” manifesting itself in another guise. There is an old Chinese proverb that says: Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself. A teacher can be quite a mirror for you, they can reveal many hidden facets of the mind, and they can point out many of your habit behaviors which are causing you pain in your life. But ultimately they cannot do anything for you. You need to take action for yourself. Anybody who promises otherwise is a danger to you.
For me, having a teacher has been an unbelievable blessing in my own life. He taught me what unconditional love was through action – not through words. He reflected if you ask me the love and blessing that I’m, revealing the lies that I’m not. He gave me words of support when the road was dark and encouraged me when I believed I could not make it. He was brutally honest with me, since there was benefit or investment in lying to me. He lent me his eyes to see the planet through to ensure that I could experience that life could be heaven on earth. And most importantly, he loved me just the way I was, with all my bad habits until I finally could express the light that I am.