What if your spiritual teacher says to you, ‘please unsubscribe and stop following me’? Well, congratulations, you probably found an authentic teacher! I’ll explain why in this post.
On my journey home, I’ve had quite a few ‘spiritual’ teachers and coaches. Some worked well for for me, others didn’t. How does all that work? How do you know who is an authentic teacher? I think this is a fascinating topic that I wanted to explore by writing about it.
If a certain spiritual teacher doesn’t resonate with me, what does this say about the authenticity of that teacher? Well, not much. It just means that people are unique, and that my conditioning and the personality and style of a teacher need to fit for it to work. It’s because the mind is like the gatekeeper of the heart. We need a teacher that is acceptable to our mind and its conditioning, so it let’s the messages ‘in’, into the heart. Timing is also important. Where we are in our process, determines what we are ready to hear.
Let’s look at some characteristic behavior of authentic teachers, from my point of view. This is of course not intended as some definitive list of ‘must-haves’, just a perspective.
Authentic teachers work towards making themselves redundant: their goal is for their students to stop needing them. An authentic teacher might say: “I look forward to having zero followers and being out of a job! I’m just here to remind you that you don’t need me. And then I want you to go and live your life.”
An authentic teacher is frequently undermining their authority as our teacher. They do this because it’s the best antidote to our projections. And it protects them too, from getting attached to their role. Everyone projects what they think they lack onto their teacher. By lowering ourselves, we are elevating the teacher. It’s the teachers job to continuously step off of the pedestal we created for them. And point us back to our own authority. This process can be painful, it certainly was for me! It feels destabilizing, like you lose your anchor. But as Rupert Spira says, the teacher is the last big disappointment, it’s part of the program!
The teacher should be the last big disappointment.
Rupert Spira
Authentic teachers make no effort to hide their humanity and their weaknesses. They do not pretend to be saints or to live up to some ideal. This relates back to the last point: it’s actually a good thing if our teacher is not flawless, because seeing their imperfections will make it harder for us to project onto them.
Authentic teachers don’t see themselves as teachers. For an authentic teacher, there are no teachers and no students. It’s a role they play. They never imply they have anything we don’t have. They have no special wisdom. They have nothing to give us. They’re just here to remind us of what we already know in our hearts.
Authentic teachers have no agenda. They don’t need us. They don’t want to achieve anything for themselves by being our teacher. No wealth, no fame, no power. They do it out of their love and joy. I don’t mean to imply that teachers shouldn’t be making money teaching. That’s no problem, everyone needs to make a living. But making money is never the motivation of an authentic teacher.
An authentic teacher is allergic to any kind of hierarchy and will do his or her best to avoid hierarchies forming in their communities. He or she does not have favorite students, no ‘inner circle’, and will avoid anything that could be interpreted as favoritism. Authentic teachers will quickly shut down any of our efforts to win their favor.
We spend no time worshiping the fountain, rather, we drink the water.
William Samuel
Authentic teachers never imply they are special, or that we are special. They will never imply that they have received something from their own teacher that makes them special or chosen. I found it very unhelpful if teachers lean heavily on their ‘lineage’, or their personal relationship with their own teacher. Because lineage implies that you have to find a ‘real’ teacher and establish a personal relationship to ‘get there’. I think this is a myth that we can let go off. After all, if a teacher is a hard requirement, who started this whole thing? In this context it’s worth mentioning William Samuel, who kept the fact that he was the first American student of Ramana Maharshi a secret all of his life.
An authentic ‘spiritual’ teacher is not spiritual. The truth isn’t spiritual, it’s just how things are. I just use the term ‘spiritual teacher’, because that happens to be the common term, but it’s not a very good one. I prefer ‘a friend that walks us home’.
And finally, an authentic teacher has a great sense of humor. The world doesn’t need any saving, and we don’t either. So an authentic teacher will encourage us to relax and smile, and not take things so seriously. Life isn’t serious business. It’s not about working hard. It’s not a long and hard struggle to go home, unless we make it so.
What qualities in a teacher do you look for? What do you avoid? Very curious to read your opinions on the topic, let me know below.