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With
so many different offerings in the religious supermarket, how do you
know what is right for you, how do you know what to trust, how do
you avoid being taken advantage of? And how do you find the right
teacher or teaching? The key is to realize that the real teacher is
inside of you.
By Kim Michaels
I have been walking the spiritual path for 30 years, and I have studied
a wide variety of spiritual teachings. I have also been involved with
several organizations and spiritual teachers. I have friends who have
been involved with many more teachers, and I have observed hundreds
of people struggle with the spiritual path. Based on my experiences
and observations, I have come to one very clear conclusion. The difference
between those who are successful on the spiritual path and those who
continue to struggle with frustration is how they look at the concept
of a teacher.
The push-button mentality
If you take a step back and look at the big picture, the essence of
the spiritual path (or life, really) is to move out of ignorance and
into understanding, out of the darkness and into the light—in
the mind, that is. There is an old saying which states, “If
people knew better, they would do better.” I believe any normal
person would never knowingly hurt him/herself. That is why Jesus said
about those who crucified him:
Father, forgive
them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34)
So when we experience any
kind of pain, limitation or suffering, it is because we are ignorant
about something—we don’t know better. How many times in
your life have you felt, “If only I’d known that at the
time!” Why do we live longer today than people did 500 years
ago? It is because we know more about hygiene, nutrition and how to
fight disease.
I think all people have some sense that knowing more is important,
but this is especially true about people who are spiritual seekers.
We just know there is more to life than what we were told in school
or Sunday school. We know there is something to find, and we simply
can’t stop looking for it. And while this drive for knowledge
and understanding is the driving force on the path – the motor
that powers our progress – where would a car get us without
a steering wheel? It would simply keep running in the same direction
until it hit a wall or ended up in the ditch. My point is that we
need to find a way to direct our quest for knowledge in the right
direction. Where do you need to look in order to find the knowledge
that will empower you to change your life?
I have grown up in the West and most of the people I have met were
likewise Westerners, so things might be different in other cultures.
However, when we Westerners first become aware of the spiritual path,
we tend to approach it like we approach any other aspect of life,
namely as consumers. We think the way we have been programmed to think,
namely that if we have a need, we must find some person, service or
product from outside ourselves to fill that need. We also tend to
think that this is a mechanical process, meaning that when we find
the right person or product, our need will automatically be filled
and our lives will inevitably improve.
Most of us were not brought up with a conscious awareness of the spiritual
path. At some point in our lives, we become aware that we are spiritual
seekers, and we naturally think, “Oh, I need spiritual knowledge
and understanding, so I just need to find the right teacher or teaching
and then my life will automatically improve.” This is what I
call the “Push-button mentality.” We have grown up around
technology, and when we go into a dark room and push a button, we
expect the light to come on. If it doesn’t, we think there is
something wrong.
So what happens when we become aware that our minds are dark rooms
and that we need to turn on the light? We think it is simply a matter
of finding the light switch. So we venture into the religious supermarket
and look for a teacher, a teaching or a technique that we expect will
automatically turn on the light in our minds and turn us into enlightened
spiritual masters. And we are immediately bombarded with numerous
teachers and organizations who claim that they can do just that.
Why people get frustrated
As the well-programmed consumers we are, we pick out a product that
looks appealing to us and eagerly start consuming it. Yet after a
while – usually a short while – we start feeling like
a person who has flipped the switch, but the light hasn’t come
on. So we keep flipping the switch on and off, and while we can hear
the click, the light still doesn’t come on. This is usually
when we start feeling frustrated, and we might even take it out on
the teacher or teaching that seemingly isn’t working.
I have personally felt this frustration and I have seen it in many
others. It is very understandable, especially when we consider that
so many teachers or organizations do make promises on which they can’t
deliver. They too have been caught up in the consumer approach to
spiritual growth, and they have – either unknowingly or deliberately
– decided to tell people what they want to hear.
So what do we do? Well, some people give up right there and never
try again. Yet most of us don’t give up that easily. We take
the politically correct consumer approach and reason that we simply
hadn’t found the right product. So we start looking for another
one, and when we find one that looks appealing – and makes the
promises we want to hear – we think, “Ah, this is the
right one.” Yet, once again, we flick the switch and the light
doesn’t come on. I have seen people who have taken this approach
for decades, and the frustration keeps building:
- Some people blame it
on the teacher and they go into a mode of feeling that it is the
outer teacher that prevents their progress—they can't make
it until they find the right teacher.
- Some spend their time
fighting a teacher or organization that they feel took advantage
of them.
- Some refuse to acknowledge
that their chosen teacher or organization made empty promises. And
they refuse to reexamine their approach to spiritual growth. So
they remain fiercely loyal to an organization, often believing they
are making progress while refusing to see that they are stuck in
the consumer approach.
- Some play the game that
their teacher is better than anyone else’s so they have to
convert the whole world.
- Some give up the dream
of instant gratification and instead believe in gratification in
the tomorrow that somehow never seems to arrive. They have reasoned
that if only they keep doing doing the same thing, their lives will
one day change. Incidentally, Einstein’s definition of insanity
is that you keep doing the same thing while expecting different
results.
Common for all these people
is that they keep looking for the solution – for the teacher
– outside themselves. Fortunately, I have also seen many people
who, often after a few failed attempts, realize that the consumer
approach to spiritual growth simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t
work because it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what
the spiritual path is all about.
The real purpose of the spiritual path
In our consumer culture we are programmed to believe that we can change
our circumstances in life without truly changing ourselves. Take for
example the issue of obesity. There are numerous products on the market
that promise you that by taking a pill, you can lose weight without
changing your diet. Eat whatever you want, and our pill will make
you lose weight. Other companies are selling a diet, and they say
you can use their diet to lose weight without exercising. Still other
companies sell exercise equipment, and they say you can lose weight
without changing your diet. Others say you can lose weight without
changing your lifestyle or your attitude toward life.
Do you see the common denominator? They are all saying that you can
take a piecemeal approach to life. You have a problem with obesity?
The cause is this or that mechanical component, and by treating that
one component in a mechanical way, you will solve the problem. This
entire approach is based on the Western tradition of breaking reality
into separate pieces, to compartmentalize it, so it seemingly becomes
easier to analyze and manage. This approach has led us to create an
entire culture that is based on the idea of shortcuts.
The basic approach to life in our consumer culture is that you can
isolate a particular problem and link it to a particular mechanical
cause. So by treating just that one cause, you fix the problem, That
approach works great in a car. If your tire is flat, you just need
to patch the tire; you don’t need to change the oil filter.
Yet despite what our Western scientists claim, human beings are not
machines. So as spiritual seekers, we have to make the effort to free
ourselves from the programming of our scientific, mechanical consumer
culture.
We might also say that spiritual growth is not about one particular
aspect of our lives—it is about the totality of our lives. If
you want real spiritual growth, you have to change your entire consciousness,
not just a part of it. Again, even Western religion is based on a
piecemeal approach, making many people believe religion is something
we do on Sunday and then forget about the rest of the week. Yet spiritual
growth is not the same as religion; it is about the totality of our
consciousness. Therefore, to attain growth, you have to be willing
to change your entire consciousness. As Jesus said:
The kingdom of
heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three
measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. (Matthew
13:33)
You need to be willing
to raise the whole of your consciousness. Many spiritual seekers have
realized the fallacy of a piecemeal approach to life, and they are
looking into a more wholesome approach, such as holistic medicine.
Yet in my experience many people have not realized that we also need
to take a holistic approach to spiritual growth. For example, obesity
is not just a physical problem. Everything is consciousness, so your
physical body is a product of your state of consciousness. If you
really want to solve a physical problems, you have to uncover the
psychological mechanism that caused the problem. That mechanism might
go back many lifetimes, and it takes time and work to overcome it.
Of course, that reality is very unpleasant for people who have grown
up in a consumer culture that programs us to believe in mechanical
solutions and shortcuts. And that is precisely why so many people
become frustrated with the spiritual path and why many give up before
they see results.
A reality-based approach to spiritual growth
What is the way out? It is to realize that life is a holistic process.
Every aspect of your life is a product of something that takes place
in your consciousness. Every aspect of life on this planet is a product
of something that takes place in the collective consciousness. So
the only way to really change our lives is to change our consciousness.
The only way to change the world is to begin by changing ourselves.
This leads to the foundational principle for spiritual growth,
You can’t
change your outer situation without changing your inner situation.
You can’t change your world without changing yourself.
The conclusion is that
the real goal of the spiritual path is to change your consciousness
and this is not a mechanical process. It is tempting to think that
changing your consciousness means finding a teacher or teaching that
will give you some secret formula that will do the work for you. So
many people are seeking for the holy grail or the philosopher’s
stone. Yet the stark reality is that no teacher or teaching from outside
yourself can do the work for you. You are the only one who can change
yourself, and the reason is that God gave you the gift of free will.
If you are to change, you can change in only one way, namely by you
making the choice to change yourself. An outer teacher might inspire
you to make that choice and might give you information that makes
it easier for you to choose. Yet the outer teacher can never make
the choice for you. This becomes clear when you consider exactly what
it is that has to change. Who is the you that has to change? It is
the conscious self, and the core of this self is your sense of identity.
There is an old Indian proverb which states, “The knowledge
that is in the books, stays in the books.” The idea is that
you can study spiritual teachings forever, but if you don’t
internalize the teaching, it will do nothing for you. Believe me,
I have seen dozens of people who faithfully studied spiritual teachings
and practiced various techniques, yet their lives never changed. The
reason is that such people are not internalizing the teaching.
They are taking it in on an intellectual level, and some of them have
a very impressive intellectual knowledge of any spiritual topic under
the sun. They can go on talking about it for hours, and they often
sound incredibly impressive to an inexperienced seeker. I have met
people who seemed to live for the chance to impress others with their
intellectual knowledge of spirituality, yet these people never seemed
to change. And I have met others who couldn’t have explained
a spiritual principle if their lives depended on it, but they lived
that principle every day. Jesus explained this when he made the statement:
For I say unto
you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)
The scribes and Pharisees
had a very sophisticated intellectual understanding of the outer scriptures,
but they had not internalized the teaching. They had not been willing
to let the teaching change themselves. They thought intellectual understanding
could get them to Heaven, but in reality only a change of consciousness,
a change in our sense of identity, can get us to Heaven.
What I am pointing out here is that the real key to spiritual progress
is to realize that you cannot approach a spiritual teaching like a
consumer. It is not a matter of simply reading a teaching and understanding
it intellectually. It is not a matter of simply joining a church or
spiritual organization and then expecting that you will automatically
become enlightened. You need to internalize the teaching, so that
it becomes part of your being. Thereby, the teaching will permanently
change your sense of identity, and because all of your thoughts, feelings
and actions spring from your sense of identity, your life will naturally
change. So what is the key to internalizing a spiritual teaching?
It is to use an outer teaching only as a tool for stimulating the
process of getting insights from a source inside yourself.
The inner teacher
While there is more than one way to do this, I have found that the
most efficient way is to adopt the approach that the real teacher
is inside of you. That teacher is constantly trying to teach you and
he/she does so through your intuition. Therefore, an outer teacher
or teaching is not truly meant to give you the information that will
change your life. AN OUTER TEACHER IS ONLY MEANT TO STIMULATE THE
PROCESS WHEREBY YOU GET THE REAL ANSWERS FROM INSIDE YOURSELF!
The key to internalizing a spiritual teaching is to never let an outer
teaching be confined to intellectual understanding. Instead, you use
it to reach for an intuitive insight from beyond the intellect, from
the teacher inside of you. One might say that you always look at an
outer teaching as a tool for opening up the communication with your
inner teacher. You study an outer teaching until you find a concept
that appeals to you. You then send that concept to your internal teacher
and wait for it to be mirrored back. This mirroring back will happen
in the form of an intuitive insight that gives you a highly personal
understanding of the outer teaching. It is this inner understanding
that empowers you to internalize the outer teaching. And only then
will the teaching change your life! That is precisely why the scribes
and the Pharisees could not recognize Jesus as a spiritual teacher—they
were stuck in intellectual analysis of the outer teaching.
Who is the inner teacher? It can be your Christ self, which is a spiritual
being assigned to you from the spiritual realm. Your Christ self is
the mediator between your outer mind and the spiritual realm. It knows
you intimately and follows your soul on a very personal level. For
more on the Christ self, see Jesus’
discourse and the following teaching.
Your teacher can also be an ascended being, such as Jesus, Mother
Mary or another member of the Ascended Host. Yet even such teachers
communicate with you through the mediator of your Christ self. In
other words, even the Ascended Host don’t want you to approach
them as external teachers that are elevated far above you. Where do
ascended beings reside—where are they found? They reside in
the spiritual realm, what Jesus called the kingdom of Heaven. And
where did Jesus say the kingdom of Heaven is located?
Neither shall
they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God
is within you. (Luke 17:21)
The message is clear. The
real teacher is inside of you, and as long as you are looking for
a teacher outside yourself, you are not likely to find the real teacher.
Instead, you are likely to find a false teacher.
Beware the false teachers
Over the years, I have noticed an unfortunate polarization that divides
spiritual seekers into two extremes:
- I know many sincere
spiritual people who cling to an orthodox religion, such as some
form of orthodox or even fundamentalist Christianity. I know others
who have the same loyalty to a New Age teacher or organization.
This represents one extreme, namely the belief that one particular
outer teacher or teaching is better than all others, and therefore
the solution to the world’s problems is that the world becomes
converted to the true teaching. I fell for this approach when I
was young, and I have met people who have been stuck in it for a
lifetime.
- The other extreme is
what I see in many New Age people. They have rejected the previous
approach, often because they grew up in a hellfire and brimstone
Christian culture and they rejected the fear-based, judgmental attitude
that dominates such a community. Yet they often jumped into the
opposite extreme and reasoned that there is no “right or wrong,”
there is no “ultimate truth,” meaning that any teaching
can be as good or true as any other teaching. Therefore, these people
often reject the concept of evil and consequently they reject the
idea that there could be false teachers who are deliberately and
aggressively trying to deceive them and prevent them from making
real spiritual progress.
In my observation, people
in the first extreme often become rigid and make very little progress,
even though they often take great pride in belonging to the elite
that is saving the world. People in the second extreme often have
very confused, scattered and inconsistent beliefs, even though they
often take great pride in belonging to the elite that is saving the
world. What is the way out? It is to be a mature consumer in the religious
supermarket. You don’t have to go to the store with the idea
that one brand of soap is the only right one and that all others are
of the devil. On the other hand, it would be naive to expect that
any product in the pharmacy is safe and has no side effects.
The key to being an informed consumer is discernment, the ability
to tell what is true in a higher sense and what springs from the dualistic
mind. I have met many people who attempt to build this discernment
based on some outer criteria. People in the first extreme judge everything
by comparing it to an outer teaching, such as the Bible, which they
see as unquestionably true. People in the second extreme refuse to
judge, and they accept whatever sounds good, often based on what they
want to hear.
The only way to have true discernment is to rise above the outer mind,
the dualistic mind of intellect and emotions, and reach for the inner
teacher. It is only through the mind of Christ that you can know the
difference between what is true, meaning that it is one with God’s
reality, and what is not true, meaning that it sprang from the mind
of separation from God. As Jesus said:
All things are
delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but
the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. (Matthew 11:27)
The trick here is to realize
that the Son is not exclusively the outer person of Jesus but the
universal Christ mind, which you can access through your individualized
Christ self. In other words, the key to discernment is the mind of
Christ, or as Paul put it:
Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Philippians
2:5).
The true meaning is that
you make conscious contact with your inner teacher. As you start the
spiritual path, this might seem difficult, yet if you had no contact
with the inner teacher, you would not have been open to discovering
the spiritual path. So you simply need to multiply the talents you
already have by expanding your intuitive connection. To do this, it
can be extremely helpful to follow an outer teacher or teaching, and
this gives you an excellent measure of discerning between a true and
a false teacher:
- A true teacher knows
that the key to your growth (even your salvation or ascension) is
that you become a spiritually self-sufficient being, that you find
the truth inside yourself instead of relying on anything outside
your spiritual self or I AM Presence. So the true teacher is always
working on bringing you closer to this self-sufficiency. One might
say that a true outer teacher is always trying to connect you to
your inner teacher so that you are empowered to the point where
you no longer need the outer teacher. The true teacher sees that
the true measure of success is that you no longer need the teacher.
- In contrast, the false
teacher also knows the key to your salvation, and therefore he is
constantly trying to prevent you from connecting to your inner teacher.
You can see obvious examples of this in the so-called cults that
seek to isolate their members and make them feel they can be saved
only by their particular outer teacher who is the mediator between
God and them. Incidentally, some mainstream religions fit into this
category—I intentionally mention no names.
Unfortunately, there are
many far more subtle examples of false teachers that give you a lot
of truth but mix in enough error to prevent you from becoming fully
self-sufficient. Yet the ultimate false teacher is your own ego, who
can survive only by preventing you from making contact with the inner
teacher. The ego will attempt to keep you stuck in one of the two
extremes described above. The key to escaping this is to take a balanced
approach to the path. Instead of reasoning that there is only one
true teacher or that all teachers are equally good, you reason that
there are false teachers and true teachers. You can learn from both,
but only if you are willing to discern between them and only if you
are willing to learn from your mistakes—which means that you
have to admit it when you make a mistake.
Overcoming pride
When I discovered the spiritual path, I was 18 and thought –
as most teenagers do – that I had it all figured out. I found
an organization that taught a form of Eastern meditation and gave
some teachings that were a mix of Hinduism and science. At the time,
I thought I had found the only true teaching and that converting everyone
would solve all of the world’s problems. Yet after a couple
of years, I intuitively felt something was wrong, but I could not
consciously understand what it was. I left the organization in great
disappointment, and for a couple of years I was in a spiritual vacuum.
I felt I had been fooled and I was suspicious of any other spiritual
teaching, and the result was that I didn’t find any other teaching
even though I had a longing for it.
There is a law, which can be described in the following saying, “When
the student is ready, the teacher appears.” So if I had a couple
of years where I had not found a teacher, the only realistic conclusion
is that I wasn’t ready. Why wasn’t I ready? Because I
had not been willing to admit that I made a mistake. I was still blaming
my experience on the outer organization and its leader instead of
admitting that the real problem was that I was taking an immature
approach to the spiritual path. I was too proud to admit my mistake,
and I have seen many other spiritual seekers fall into the same trap,
thereby keeping themselves either in a vacuum or keeping themselves
in a particular organization even though they should long ago have
moved on.
My problem was simple. I intuitively knew that I had been in a false
teaching. Yet in order to admit that with my outer mind, I had to
admit that I had been wrong in wholeheartedly embracing this organization
as the true savior of humankind. I had to be willing to admit that
I had been fooled because my discernment wasn’t good enough.
For a couple of years I wasn’t willing to admit that, and the
result was that I kept myself in a vacuum that prevented the next
teacher from appearing in my life.
A better approach to finding your teacher
Is there a better approach? I believe there is, and hopefully it won’t
take you as long to adopt it as it took me. The approach is to realize
that the real teacher is always your inner teacher. This teacher is
constantly seeking to guide you to make the maximum progress on your
spiritual path. In order to do so, your inner teacher will often guide
you to find a particular outer teacher or organization. The trick
is to realize that your inner teacher is NEVER trying to guide you
to the ultimate teacher or organization. Your inner teacher is above
and beyond the outer approach, the consumer approach, to spiritual
growth. Your inner teacher knows that no teacher or organization is
the only true one or the ultimate key to salvation. The only key to
salvation is that you raise your consciousness.
So your inner teacher is not trying to guide you to the ultimate outer
teacher. Your inner teacher is guiding you to the outer teacher who
is best suited for teaching you the lesson that you need to learn
in order to take the next step on your personal path. And in some
cases, the lesson you need to learn might be that you cannot put ultimate
trust in any outer teacher or organization. You need to rise above
outer teachers and make contact with your inner teacher. And who better
to teach you that lesson than a false teacher, even though –
or perhaps because – he might fool you for a time?
My point it that I intuitively felt that my inner teacher had guided
me to my first spiritual organization. When I started feeling that
this was a false teacher, my ego managed to convince me that I had
been misled by my intuition and that I should never trust it again.
While I maintained that mistrust, I was in a vacuum and my life felt
empty—I was literally depressed.
The way to neutralize this ego-plot is to recognize that your inner
teacher is always guiding you to the place where you can learn the
next lesson. When you give up the dream of finding an outer teacher
who will automatically turn you into an enlightened being, you can
stop pursuing an impossible dream. Instead, you can see every situation
as a stepping stone to further progress, and you can actively look
for the lesson you are there to learn instead of believing that you
have to remain in that organization forever.
You see, your ego is constantly trying to use every situation to stop
your progress. So if the ego can't prevent you from starting the spiritual
path, the ego will try to use any mistake you make to get you to stop
taking the next step. On the other hand, your inner teacher will guide
you on how to use every mistake as a driving force for taking the
next step. The problem is that pride will cause us to listen to the
ego instead of the inner teacher. The only way out is to make a conscious
effort to reach beyond the ego and find the inner teacher.
I realize today that I was truly guided by my inner teacher to find
my first spiritual organization. Yet I was guided there to learn some
very specific lessons that would help me develop a more mature and
discerning approach to the path. After I learned some of those lessons,
I was ready to find the next outer teaching, and this was a true teaching
sponsored by the Ascended Host.
In the beginning, I thought I had now found the ultimate teaching
and that I would remain there for the rest of my life. Yet gradually
I came to realize that even a true teaching can become a trap if it
prevents you from becoming one with the inner teacher. And today I
know that no outer teacher can ever do all the work for you. The outer
teacher can help you rise to the point, where you stand before the
door that leads to eternal life, or whatever you want to call it.
Yet in the end, you must walk through that door on your own power,
and you can do that only when you no longer rely on anything outside
your Self.
Incidentally, everything said in this article also applies to this
website. This website is obviously an outer teacher. If you will read
between the lines, you will see that Jesus is constantly talking about
the need to find the inner teacher and to take a balanced approach
to spiritual growth. Thus, you should never allow this website, or
the teachings and tools on it, to prevent you from going within. This
website has only one purpose, namely to connect you to your inner
teacher, so you no longer need this website. As Jesus has said, “If
no one follows in my footsteps, I have failed as a teacher.”
Please don’t let Jesus and his teachings fail. Find the kingdom
of God within you!
Copyright
© 2009 by Kim Michaels |
