I am 42 years old. I have been a spiritual seeker my entire life, and have trained with many wonderful spiritual masters of many traditions. At different moments, my teacher told me to teach.
And I still need a teacher.
Beloveds, wherever you are on the spiritual path, whatever you are seeking, the revelation is not the end, and there is no enlightenment. But there is always the need for a teacher.
Friends, teachers come in many guises, do not be fooled: lover, friend, enemy, child, beggar—not always the hierophant sitting on the throne or standing at the pulpit.
Of all the skills necessary to cultivate on the spiritual path, the ability to recognize and work with an authentic spiritual guide is essential. This is the advice that I would give myself 20 years ago, if only I had the humility to heed:
How to recognize a spiritual guide?
Spiritual guides come and go, even if you wish to study and train and follow in their footsteps for the rest of your life, you will surely be parted. Don’t be a puppy dog, and don’t be a wet noodle. Don’t be fooled by the outer display of the individual. Cut through the “glamour” to the bone: what is the meaning? and how can you apply that in your own life?
If you hold this pure vision, everything will become your teacher: the rocks, the trees, all circumstances, and even your worst enemies. Especially your worst enemies. But that doesn’t mean you have to go and sleep with them.
Discernment is the penultimate quality for a spiritual seeker who wishes to avoid the many pitfalls of the path.
Unfortunately, I am too “thick-headed” to learn from rocks and trees, most days. So I seek out human guides that speak a human language, to point out where I’m lying to myself, or how I am betraying my true aspirations. If a so-called teacher does not point out your faults, what good is the relationship? Maintain deference to the one who points out your faults, and who also insists that you are here for a purpose, that you have work to do, that you are the medicine.
Then a true spiritual guide will show you how to get in touch with your medicine, and how to walk with it in integrity, in a way that honors the ancestors of the three worlds and the medicine you were born to be.
How to work with a spiritual guide?
At all costs cling for dear life to three-fold compassion: compassion for yourself, for your circumstances, and impartial compassion for all beings. Never give up on the promise to act skillfully and with loving kindness toward all relations.
These three topics are the bleeding heart of every spiritual tradition:
- Accept that you chose this life, and you chose your circumstances. What you do with them is up to you. This means taking full responsibility for your choices, and your circumstances. This one is not easy. In fact, it might well be the biggest hurdle to starting on an authentic path of spiritual growth. Can you say to yourself, “I chose this trauma, so that I could learn this lesson, so that I could carry this medicine for others who have survived similar trauma.” All of my teachers have said this to me, and it took me well over 20 years to appreciate its depth and its truth.
- Give up all hope and fear: hope that you will “arrive” at some spiritual destination, and fear that you won’t. There is no destination, no finish line. Only the journey.
- A real spiritual friend will push you beyond your comfort zone, beyond your limited belief systems. They will attack your hidden faults, and reveal your secret pride. They will kick you out when you’re “not ready”. Your job, as a seeker, is to bring all of those experiences, good and bad, high and low, comfortable and uncomfortable, onto the path. That way you will constantly be questioning, checking, doubting, and clarifying. And the more you tumble in the waves of uncertainty, the more you burn in the cauldron of your own desires, longings, and passions, and the more you are blown around against your will by the relentless winds of karma…the more rarified, and polished you will become.
This wisdom that comes spilling out of my heart and onto this page is the distilled draught of 23 years of devoted spiritual practice—when I found my Teacher (with a capital “T”) I stopped searching for a while, and paused long enough to drink deeply from the well. (Ten year’s pause, with a five or six-year hiatus of flitting about, tasting other waters, and finally circling back to this well, to land and rest and drink continually from the headwaters of my spiritual path.)
This pause is so precious, beloveds.
Are you weary from long years of searching?
Have you drunk your fill and still you thirst?
Do you long to drink deeply from the wellspring of your own inner wisdom?
Here is your permission to land, to rest, and to quench your thirst.
Cheers to a fruitful and ever unfolding bottomless well of delightful self-discovery, Arwen