The teacher should treat you like a friend. That's key. A true teacher knows that any student is 100% the Self, just as he or she is. There can be no superiority in that. The friend simply has knowledge the other doesn't have. That knowledge correctly shared does not come with superiority or requests for servitude. The teacher only has the authority of knowledge and understanding. He or she is due respect for that, but nothing else.
5 comments:
Hi Maury,
Do you think there's a place for sternness in a teacher's relationship with his or her students?
I'd like to explain; one thing I've found fairly consistently from the teachers I've read about (and met on a couple of occasions) was their refusal to entertain comments from their students which they saw as distractions from the inner work they should be doing at that time, and sometimes that did mean pulling people up short at times.
What I'm saying is; if you know of a teacher who's effective without doing that, I'd certainly like to know about it (a lot less bruising!); but I suspect that some level or conflict is inevitable when the teacher is living and operating from a plane of awareness that the students still have a lot of resistance to occupying for themselves. Nisargadatta for example certainly didn't play the "nice guy" with his students, from what I've read about him.
I used to think my elementary school teachers were stern. I disliked them. It didn't help my ability to learn. Perhaps my sensitivity was thin. A teacher should be able to address the sensitivity level of the student. If the teacher can't, how aware is that teacher? Sternness can be respectful. A student can tell if the relationship is respectful.
A teacher's refusal to entertain comments from students may be problematic, but it may also be that the student needs to learn to listen. A sincere student and a sincere teacher shouldn't have a problem.
When I participated in a Gestalt group, the leader would often push people into very painful places. There was much crying, yelling, and even regression where people dropped into their six year old self. But, the clients were there to risk knowing themselves more deeply, they had selected this teacher, and they had chosen to sit on the hot seat and do the work.
Nisargadatta was tough on many of his visitors. He had to be in order to get through to stubborn students. He also threw out people who were there only to challenge him. They were not there to learn. He had good reason to throw them out.
The bottom line, I think, is that students need to be responsible for who they select as teachers. If a teacher seems abusive, keep looking. If a teacher is stern, but is felt to be effective, stick with that teacher. If there is disrespect on the teacher's part, I would certainly go elsewhere.
If the student is listening, and the teacher is respectful, there can be no conflict. Both have the same goal.
Hi Maury, thanks for replying.
Both the spiritual teachers I've known, Vernon Howard and Barry Long, by default dealt with largish numbers of people (though they also answered questions from individual students) so it was difficult for them to tune what they said, or the demands they made on their students, to the individual's sensitivity level (or level of awareness). A consequence of this was that on occasion, individual students felt they couldn't take what the teacher was saying and either walked out mid-session (as I saw happen in Barry's case) or left during the break. Was this inevitable? I don't know but given the numbers of students involved in their meetings, it probably was.
IMO, a good teacher functions as a "stop". They act like a log in a stream to halt the onrushing flow of the conditioned mind of the student, so that the student can take advantage of the pausing of their mind and turn inwards; until the student learns to be able to do this for themselves.
I like Gael Blanchemain's guide here to choosing a spiritual teacher;
https://www.gr0wing.com/how-to-choose-a-spiritual-master/
Vernon Howard and Barry Long were great teachers. Even so, I disagreed with some of their teachings. Often, even great teachers mistake the result of enlightenment as the prescription. This is a mistake. For example, if they found their mind quiet, they would then instruct students to quiet their mind. But that doesn't work. The quiet mind is a byproduct, not the prescription for enlightenment.
Of course, teachers who have a large following can't see each person individually. And some teachers only want to teach at a deep level. If the student isn't ready, they may be overwhelmed and need to go to a lesser teacher. Many people could not handle the intensity of the Gestalt group I participated in for many years. Even the teacher told me to slow down when he thought I was too intense.
You can't just stop an unrushing flow of conditioned thought. It doesn't work like that. If the conditioning causes enough pain, the seeker will look for relief and may be willing to do the work necessary to stop the conditioned thinking. Conditioned thinking stops on its own accord when it is seen through, or felt through. Stopping can't be forced.
In my case repressed pain caused a tremendous amount of thinking. All those thoughts were trying to outwit the pain so I didn't have to feel it. In the end, the only way out was through the pain.
Thanks for replying Maury, and Happy New Year to you. Barry disapproved of what he called "discursive" thinking; thinking done to no real purpose, and just to entertain yourself - which he thought we could and ought to give up (he once had a cassette tape called "How To Stop Thinking") - and I think he was probably right about that. Vernon's view was similar; he once started a talk by saying that most people think their lives away.
Otherwise, I agree with what you say about thinking. There are Taoist techniques which will quiet the mind temporarily, but in my experience the mind reasserts itself again because the main cause of the mind's restlessness (repressed pain in your and probably most other people's cases) remains unhandled. I think there is value though in deliberately slowing yourself down so you have time to notice how your mind works, your habit patterns et¢.; this is the basis of Vipassana (insight) meditation.
Post a Comment