Spiritual teachers are necessary up to a point, but their function is universally misunderstood by their pupils. The learner believes that if he gathers enough pearls of wisdom from the teacher that he will someday understand something that was previously unavailable to him. Really what is going on is the teacher is providing pointers to what the pupil already is, but has forgotten. While the learner believes there is knowledge to be gained, the teacher knows that too much knowledge confuses the issue. The teacher knows that nothing was ever missing and seeks to point that out. The teacher provides a map. Eventually the learner masters the territory and no longer needs the map. Or the teacher.
Beyond that point all information imparted through teaching seems synthetic, incomplete, approximate. It may be beautiful or inspiring, but it is like any other product of creation, as if by an artist. The adept traverses the territory, admiring all the beautiful and inspiring maps encountered along the way. But the adept is firmly within his own essential, irreplaceable, perfect experience. There is no longer anything to add. There is no longer any rush to find something that turned out to be right with him all along, even when he imagined it being so remote and indecipherable.
Learning becomes a process of stripping away. Mental models arise for the experience, as the mind scrambles to impose order. Rituals, patterns, practices provide an engaging outlet to keep this unavoidable ego-based material-mental reality from becoming a distraction. These practices will look like the actual Work to an outsider, but the adept knows them as outer forms that simply set the stage for it.
A good teacher will prepare the pupil for the day when this entire hidden dynamic is transparent. The teacher knows he will no longer be needed and gracefully exits the teaching role. He and the adept are now, in every sense, co-equal realized partners in creation.
A unfit teacher will require everlasting love, devotion and disciplehood, constantly feeding his pupils cravings for more "exclusive" knowledge, giving them teasers for the next pearl of wisdom if they'll just pay for the double CD set or webinar.
All the maps anyone could possibly want are in the local public library. Libraries full of keys, like the Peter Murphy song, Socrates the Python, one of my favorite maps says:
Beyond that point all information imparted through teaching seems synthetic, incomplete, approximate. It may be beautiful or inspiring, but it is like any other product of creation, as if by an artist. The adept traverses the territory, admiring all the beautiful and inspiring maps encountered along the way. But the adept is firmly within his own essential, irreplaceable, perfect experience. There is no longer anything to add. There is no longer any rush to find something that turned out to be right with him all along, even when he imagined it being so remote and indecipherable.
Learning becomes a process of stripping away. Mental models arise for the experience, as the mind scrambles to impose order. Rituals, patterns, practices provide an engaging outlet to keep this unavoidable ego-based material-mental reality from becoming a distraction. These practices will look like the actual Work to an outsider, but the adept knows them as outer forms that simply set the stage for it.
A good teacher will prepare the pupil for the day when this entire hidden dynamic is transparent. The teacher knows he will no longer be needed and gracefully exits the teaching role. He and the adept are now, in every sense, co-equal realized partners in creation.
A unfit teacher will require everlasting love, devotion and disciplehood, constantly feeding his pupils cravings for more "exclusive" knowledge, giving them teasers for the next pearl of wisdom if they'll just pay for the double CD set or webinar.
All the maps anyone could possibly want are in the local public library. Libraries full of keys, like the Peter Murphy song, Socrates the Python, one of my favorite maps says:
Today ...
Your problems are not
Of blind belief
That is or means
Belief ain't enough, belief ain't enough
The oracle of your age
Point towards the word
Psychological
You may freeze
You may fear
You may wince
And not hear
You can sick at the heart
When I say
"God is one"
Does God the word
Make you reel
And I mean, real
But it isn't God the father son or holy one,
But the key to your age
Get it together, and listen
With all the books
On the shelf
All the wisdom
With all the books
On the shelf
All the wisdom
Socrates Pythagorus
Yin and bloody Yang
Hatha Yoga, Omm
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Old Testament and New
Libraries full of keys
Libraries full of keys
Where's your lock?
Socrates Pythagorus
Yin and bloody Yang
Hatha Yoga, Omm
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Old Testament and New
Libraries full of keys
Libraries full of keys
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus
Bennett, Gurdjieff, Jesus ...
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