The soul that is alone and without a master and has virtue is like the burning coal that is alone, it will grow colder rather than hotter. He that falls alone remains on the ground alone and holds his soul of small account, since he trusts it to himself alone. ~ St. John of the Cross
If you’ve ever traveled to a new and unknown country or city, you’ve most likely felt the excitement of wanting to experience as much as you can but not knowing where to start. You ask locals, seek information boxes and read maps.
In essence, you’re looking for guidance; someone who has already traveled the paths, knows the byroads, and is able to point out the dangers and problems along the way.
The journey of reconnecting with your Soul is much the same. Without any map, we need a guide who can give us the right directions, the necessary encouragement, and someone who can help us avoid the clutches of the ego.
The inner journey is the most difficult and challenging undertaking that we can ever make. When most people start the spiritual journey, they make the mistake of using the ego’s voice and limitations to guide themselves. But using the ego to seek transcendence is like asking a fish to describe what water is: it can’t possibly know what it’s really looking for.
Without mature spiritual guidance, we easily get lost, deluded, confused and discouraged.
Why We Need Spiritual Teachers
One thing that stood out in my period of intense learning was how my own teacher never used the word “teach.” He would always call it “learning” instead. Now, reflecting back, I realize that he saw his role more as an “opener of doors”: he never told me what to do or how to think. The learning I did was always through my own efforts.
In the realm of spirituality, true teachers never really teach you anything in the conventional way. They don’t want to provide new beliefs, rules or information for you to cling to. Instead, they help you to remove that which is in the way, that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being.
In other words, a true teacher’s job is to serve as a mirror, until we’re able to realize that the light within them is also the light within us.
True spiritual teachers are like empty vessels that are filled with nothing. Through them, we experience the limitless, untouched ocean of love that can be found in all things. Through them, we also become conscious of whatever is blocking our ability to experience light. Whether it be past wounds, mental attachments or egotistical desires, these blocks become the next part of your Soulwork.
I can say from personal experience that many spiritual seekers begin with the craving to find stimulating ideas, theories, beliefs, and intellectual discussions. But under a true spiritual teacher, they eventually end up becoming disappointed.
Why?
Seekers who are looking for novel or glittery ideas become disillusioned because such ideas are only signposts towards the Truth – they are not the Truth itself. And in many cases, these novel ideas actually become distractions that mislead us into the labyrinths of the mind again.
In the end, it’s true that the best Teacher is within us, that our ultimate guide is our own Souls. But how can those of us who have no idea what the Soul looks or feels like possibly guide ourselves when we are stumbling through the dark?
For the vast majority of people, a teacher, guru, guide, mentor, spiritually knowledgeable therapist, or even a wise soul friend, is invaluable on the path toward a more awakened state.
How Do You Find a True Spiritual Guide?
In ancient Shamanic wisdom, we don’t find a teacher; the teacher finds us.
Spirit Animals are one example of this truth: we don’t find our spirit animals, our spirit animals find us.
Once our thirst for answers awakens and we begin our spiritual quest, the light within us becomes stronger, and the stronger it becomes, the more we attract guides and people that support our growth. For example, it is common for spiritual seekers to receive guidance from omens, prophetic dreams, and even serendipitous teachings or messages.
Sometimes it takes years for spiritual teachers to find us. But when they come, how do we know whether they’re the right teacher for us?
Understandably, most people feel some level of fear when considering becoming involved with a teacher. Deep down we fear being used, exploited, or entrapped.
The truth is that we are only ever trapped by our own desires and attachments (and what we’re expecting from our teachers). If we truly seek liberation, then all teachers are vehicles of learning in one way or another.
In my experience, you can tell that you’ve found your teacher when you feel an immediate strong and intense link of love for their teachings. Your heart will feel open and elevated when reading this person’s words or sitting in their presence. I’ve seen a man’s eyes fill with tears out of nowhere for no reason other than the sight of a book’s cover.
But how do we know if these feelings are sincere? How do we know that we’re not just being charmed or given a false sense of security?
Here I find that the Sufi tradition has a wonderful approach where the disciples are allowed to test their Sheikhs (teachers).
Abū-Sa’īd Abul-Khayr was a poet and Sufi mystic who was one of the first to describe the qualities to look for as proof in a true teacher. There’s at least ten characteristics:
- He/she must have embodied the spiritual message to be able to have disciples.
- He/she must have traveled the mystic path himself to be able to show the way.
- He/she must have become refined and educated in order to be an educator.
- He/she must be generous and devoid of self-importance so that he/she can sacrifice wealth on behalf of the disciple.
- He/she must have no hand in the disciple’s wealth so that he/she is not tempted to use it for himself/herself.
- Whenever he/she can give advice through a sign, he/she will not use direct expression.
- Whenever he/she can educate through kindness, he/she will not use violence and harshness.
- Whatever he/she orders, he/she has first accomplished.
- Whatever he/she forbids the disciple, he/she has abstained from himself/herself.
- He/she will not abandon the students for the sake of the world.
These characteristics are a starting point to help us distinguish between power/greed/status hungry “teachers” and genuine vehicles of Spirit that contribute toward our collective evolution.
Unlike other teachers, spiritual guides are faced with the most difficult teaching of all: to teach others the way of ego surrender into divine truth. Ultimately, the teacher is a ferryman who takes you from the shores of your ego to the shores of Divine Union.
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Anandamayi Ma, described as “the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced,” once explained that a disciple’s attitude is more important than the guru.
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Ultimately, no one can give us self-realization. We must find it ourselves. An outer teacher can only reveal the real teacher hidden within us.
Even the false teachers we come across on the way help us to learn the value of developing our own sense of discrimination and judgment.
Finding a true teacher, deep down, is about discovering how sincere we are on our spiritual quest, for honest seekers understand that the outer world is only a catalyst for bringing us closer to the truth that is already hidden within us.
It’s true, the guide will find you. During my spiritual emergency back in 2012, I was drawn to my guide even though I had never heard of him. Whenever I see him, I am lost in him and can’t focus on his words. When I try to speak, it is as if I’ve lost my tongue. He has “cleaned” me up (spiritually) so many times and in so many ways since then.
There is not two. There is one. One consciousness and every one is a manifestation of same consciousness. Teacher and student both are same. Who is the teacher, is the student too. The power of believe originates from the consciousness. Suppose ABC is a student and XYZ is a teacher. Both are derived from the same consciousness. ABC is ready to believe on someone and he needs someone to on whom he can develop the full faith and believe. The criteria, ABC kept here who can fill the divine love in his heart. Who can take him close to love. Who can make him to realize taste of silence, peace and self. Then ABC keep his believe on him. If XYZ dose these for ABC then XYZ can be a trustworthy. Now XYZ doesn’t do anything to prove himself and also he finds those ABCs, who are in the genuine search of truth. A genuine search originates from the mind who are more closer to consciousness. No teacher exists without any student. Student who make someone a teacher. A full hearten believe can evaporate all possible egos and make a student to surrender for his master. Due to complete surrender to someone ego will go and the hurdle for truth will also go. Now you are ready to meet your self. All of the activities are performed by one consciousness, and God can not be other than the consciousness. It’s God who listen the knowledge being student ABC and telling the knowledge being a teacher XYZ. Who is guru…He is student too..He is The one..GOD..
After many, many years following Teacher/Guru Prem Rawat aka Maharaji, many of these followers are now suffering from Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome. A Psycholigist also recently told a friend “you’d be surprised how many followers are now clients suffering from Narcissistic abuse”. Prem Rawat said for years “Dedicate your life to me and I will bring you peace”. I haven’t met one devotee that demonstrates this. One needs to be very careful when looking/trusting/searching/ for spiritual teachers that you’re not providing a Malignant Narcissist Teacher with “Narcissistic supply” by being their devotee/student. Some Teachers/Gurus are so good at enslaving and brainwashing the student/interested aspirant, that the students end up many years later realizing they’ve been conned/hoodwinked & taken advantage of by Predatory Narcissistic followers & the Teacher. Clue: Common sense & critical thinking is crucial in searching/evaluating a Teacher/guru, despite it being frowned upon by a Predatory Narcissistic spiritual Teacher. Please, choose/search wisely !!!
Maharaji is another one of those teachers that fails to pass the signs of true guidance provided by Khayr. It’s also a great example of the type of students that he attracted, when a student feels their own inner peace can come from another person’s actions; it’s a recipe for disaster.
Entering such a teacher student relation dynamic always should come with the preface that you must be wise enough to choose your teacher to begin with. It’s a cycle that the poorly developed student will attract a poorly developed teacher full of gimmicks and need for power, a well developed student will be aware of this dynamic, so will attract a teacher that isn’t interested in such trifle games. As mentioned, the teachers we choose are a reflection of ourselves and what we need to learn at that time in our maturation.
Well said, Don Mateo Sol. It’s such a shame that vulnerable people have been and are still being exploited by him. He is now targeting Prisoners in Gaols around the world to attend his “Peace Education Program”. They, like many “hippies” of the ’70’s who follow him are vulnerable. Most men who started following him in the ’70’s have lost their homes, inheritances etc & now have no money (after giving all to him) to support themselves. Prem Rawat is now also targeting high profile government officials in Italy, Asia, Africa & people with a lot of money. I heard he’s working on targeting children next. There should be a law against this predatory behaviour (& pysicophants who help him). It’s all very well to think seekers of the truth attract a Teacher who is at the same evolved level, but it dismisses those who are vulnerable and trusting. Sad !!
Sol, dear one, i would also like to ask: I think of myself as a developing soul, one that is ready to learn and i most definatly go through hard things in my day to day life, also i have made it a habbit to learn something from almost everything (if not everything) i go through. I know that I am a person who is willing to learn, and i have the most amazing emotional- mental- spiritual teacher (her name is Sara) but i keep finding out through my practice that i am not as spiritual as i think i am (maybe its just my soul revealing my ego to me. Actually, yeah , that makes scense). Everytime i discover i have a huge amount of ego i feel so disappointed, and than i ask myself “Maybe im not as developed as i think of myself?”… It makes me feel like i have not really developed in my spiritual path and that im only SAYING to myself I have (developed). But actually now that i think of this, it makes me think that in those moments i discover that, there are two voices that cant work together which are the Ego and the Soul, and at these moments i hear two stories at once: one – the ego that is telling me there is something i need to achieve (when maybe there really isnt), and the soul that is telling me- Look, Harel, loved one… see that ??? Thats the ego which is telling you false stories, and im here to reveal its lie…
I think i have just answered my own question but will love to get your opinion or shall i say prespective on this issue!
Thank you dear one, i love you very much!
Harel
You have answered your own question dear friend, you’ve listened to your Souls lesson.’
What you describe is the ”spiritual ego”, anything we approach in life, we do so through the ego and the ego love’s making up bigger and wider identities.
There’s nothing wrong with that, the ego is necessary for practical function and daily life. The problem arises when we are centered in the ego, we are ego-centric rather than Soul-centric.
That second voice you hear is the awareness of the Soul of what is ego is trying to do. The Soul’s mission is to create a space, a space silent enough for your awareness and understanding of the ego’s intentions. When that happens, it’s like the Wizard of Oz unveiling of the curtain; we see through the lie, we can then choose to act from a centered place instead of reacting from the ego’s need for importance.
Dear Sol, you are such a magnificant soul and i love you so much!
I agree with what you wrote and it needs a little time to be digested lol.
I love what you write.
Sol, my love, you reveal a most precious soul on your writings… Youve helped me alot , thank you! Harel
I’m joyful to hear that dear friend!
Last night I said to myself that I’m beyond help, that I will never be at peace with myself, that this spiritual journey that I think I’m walking is just a fairytale made by my broken mind. I even think it would be better if I lived in a mental hospital, so I could be free to be me and everyone else would simply see me as a crazy person.
It’s really bitter, bitter thought, I know. And I am that bitter right now.
I don’t know, I just gave up. I took back my trust from everyone, including my teacher. Then this morning I read this article.
I really don’t know what to say.
accepting how you feel without shame or blame is paramount to one day moving past where you are now. I was in and out of psych hospitals for two years, feeling very much the same way. i had no idea what was wrong with me, and what a ‘dark night of the soul’ was, but i found out, and i survived, and I can tell you that my trust is NOT in human beings, because we are ALL perfectly imperfect but in UNIVERSE/source/god/dess, that whatever happens to me as I set LOVE as my northstar, is meant to happen and to teach me. I trust in THAT and THAT alone. Hugging you, you are NOT alone.
Thank you, Shanti.
you are so welcome Ika. there are people who care. just so you know. love = action.
You’re are doing well in your Path Ika.
Your experience through this ordeal is of utter frustration and distraught, but to me all those are the ingredients necessary to get out through the other side.
The intensity in which you enter the journey will be the intensity in which you leave it, if it doesn’t shake up all your world, everything up until your very roots, it won’t be as effective. It’s a rebirth, and those are the birthing pains!
Our natural tendency will be to escape, to a mental hospital or the mountains or a convent somewhere; so we give up our responsibility to try and help ourselves. We seek surrendering, but it’s the wrong kind.
We should not surrender our responsibility in this journey, we must surrender ourselves, thoughts, our desires, our avoidance of pain. Only then will we be free of it all.
Thank you, Sol.