--- In [email protected], "Patrick Gillam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This entire thread has pointed up for me the > damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't nature > of spiritual teaching.
Exactly. And the whole problem is that some in this thread are suggesting that there is a "right" way to be a spiritual teacher. IMO that's a lot like every other theory that proposes a "one size fits all" approach...it's unrealiistic and ineffective. Teachers are different. They have different approaches, based on their individual paths, their individual predilections, and their individual personalities. Students are different. They, too have individual predilections and personalities. Some students feel more comfortable with a teacher who teaches a certain way; others feel more comfortable with a teacher who teaches a completely opposite way. Where is the problem in this? > A teacher who won't accept the overshadowing of > a person in ignorance will be accused of insensitivity. > The teacher who shows too much compassion -- or > perhaps compassion of the wrong type -- is accused > of enabling the student's ignorance. > > A related thought: a friend studying with Course in > Miracles teacher Robert Perry sent me a lesson recently > in which Perry discussed the ways that empathy, normally > an admirable trait, can be used to reinforce the ego and > attack a person. So there's healthy empathy, which > contributes to the Course's "holy instant," and there's > dysfunctional empathy, which reinforces suffering. Exactly. Another way of looking at the issue is "Who is the teacher speaking *to* when he speaks to the student?" That is, drop for a moment the notion that we only have *one* self. Assume for that moment that we have thousands of them, most of them apparent to the enlightened teacher. That teacher has a choice as to *which* self to speak to. So. Does the teacher choose to speak to the self that clings to the intellect, and uses that intellect to prolong suffering and ignorance, or does the teacher choose to talk to the self that *already* realizes its own enlightenment, and merely needs to be reminded of that realization? On the whole, Maharishi speaks to the intellect. I can rem- ember very few talks in 14 years in which he directed his comments to the "already enlightened self within." Almost *everything* he said was directed at the intellect of his students. But I've also been fortunate enough to work with a few folks who *don't* speak to the intellect, and who try to have a conversation with the student as if they are already enlightened. I prefer the latter approach. Other people''s mileage may -- and obviously does -- vary. > So it's another caveat for the student of spiritual growth: > is this teacher's seeming insensitivity really just tough > love? Or is that teacher's compassion reinforcing the story > I use to hide from my true nature as a liberated being? A good question to add to the ones one ponders periodically. > My post sheds no light; I write this merely to give voice to > what the thread has elicited in me, and to acknowledge the > contributions of other thread participants. Thanks, all. Ditto. This isn't a subject that can *be* resolved. It has to do with predilection, and with comfort levels, and with what one identifies with most in life. For some people, the empathy approach feels better; for others, the tough love approach feels better. But neither is "better." Unc To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
