<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure what celibacy has to do with being a teacher;
> is this a Catholic thing? or something?
Theoretically, it should not matter. What might matter
is 1) whether the teacher says one thing in public and
does another in private, indicating a tendency to lie,
or 2) whether the relationships with students are "clean,"
meaning that they Do No Harm.
The latter is rather difficult to assess, as are all
actions. We kinda have to use our common sense. The True
Believer can claim all day that the teacher "really"
knew what he was doing and that his actions were "correct"
on some cosmic level until he's blue in the face, but if
on a common sense level the female student who was
seduced by the teacher wound up having to go through
years of intensive psychiatric care to get over it, I
think we can safely question the "cosmic wisdom" of
screwing around. (This is not an empty analogy; I have
known several women for whom it was literally true.)
The former is more clearcut. If the teacher claims one
thing in public and does something very different in
private, or allows that 'something different' to be
widely believed when he knows it isn't true, then you've
definitely got a trust issue going on. The teacher
feels it's Ok to lie to his students. Again, True
Believers may find a way to live with this, but on
the level of common sense, I think it raises a pretty
big red flag.
Just to clarify, *theoretically* I have no problem with
teachers sleeping with their students. There are long
and valuable traditions in the East in which this is
done. *Practically* and *pragmatically* (that is, from
the level of common sense) I think it's one of the
dumbest damned things any teacher could possibly do,
especially in the West with Western students, who are
simply not psychically prepared for such an interaction.
Westerners tend to bring too many assumptions to the
sexual experience to be truly open to a Tantric relationship.
> Eckart Tolle, is a teacher, who has a girl-friend.
And has always been open about it, as far as I know.
> Why are people so obsessed with this.
Often because they're uneasy with sex, but also in
some cases because of the two situations I discuss
above.
> Is it an _expression_ of sexual frustration on the part
> of the accuser?
Not always. That's one way that True Believers try
to write off concern over this issue. In my case,
I screw around a *lot*, so I don't think that's the
issue. However, I reserve the right to use my common
sense when a teacher clearly lies about his behavior,
or when common sense tells me that behavior has been
detrimental to the woman or women involved.
> You know sex is not some kind of evil thing, is it?
> Isn't that how we all got into this physical world?
> Did your parents ever have sex?
> Where they bad people for having sex, and mixing thier
> egg and sperm?
> Ah, by the way, the news now, is Jesus had sex, with
> Mary Magdalene...
> Does that make his teachings less true.
> Or just undermine the patriarchical power structure created by the
> Romans and propagated through the centuries, to shame and guilt
> people onto submission.
> Might as well get used to it.
> Sex is here to stay, and has little to do with anything besides
> being pleasurable, a way to express affection, and maintain the
> species.
But all this stuff ALSO has no relationship whatsoever
to the ethical and practical issues involved. They are
still relevant, *whatever* one thinks of sex.
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