How To Find and Work With A Spiritual Teacher

Our Questions

Recently, a friend asked how to find a spiritual teacher and I also spoke with another person about working with a spiritual teacher. These questions are deeply relevant for all of us as we take a spiritual path. In a way, we are all each other's teachers. Next time we'll speak to that, but this entry is devoted to those souls among us who have taken the journey and come back to be the servants of all our Truth here.

The Blessing of Spiritual Teachers

We call spiritual teachers awakened masters, awakened mystics or sometimes gurus. They have taken the path that leads not only up to enlightenment (personal fulfillment of the spiritual journey), but back to Earth to serve as masters, examples and instruments of Truth. They teach that despite what seems to be a world overwhelmed with suffering that there is transcendence and Love. Spiritual teachers have found this Oneness or Love and show us how to do the same.

Teachers can be witnesses who hand us the Truth, that we might read the book and learn to write it ourselves. They can be scholars of Love or Wholeness who sat at the feet of God, become masters, then turned, never leaving the feet of God, to teach us to do the same. A teacher may shine with a very bright energy of Love that is contagious, similar to the way a person's positive attitude can be contagious. Being in the presence of that kind of spiritual teacher can give us the opportunity to feel enlightened even before we have had an awakening. We can live within that support as we take our steps along the path.

Spiritual teachers arise from many religious faiths - Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi, Jewish, Muslim, Taoist, etc... Some spiritual teachers have studied, benefited from or bow to more than one tradition or may even be a transcendent amalgam of All. One thing spiritual teachers have in common is that they see who we really are. They see our potential and they see our Light - the Soul, Spirit, High Self or Holiness that we really are. Spiritual teachers are more interested in our Holy Light and Love than our thoughts and emotions. They see the potential for us to live out our High Self or Soul's purpose on Earth and that is what they beckon forth. They see the potential in us for mastery.

How to Work With A Spiritual Teacher

Open Your Heart To Love

Love. We can start by loving, not the person, not the image, not an icon that we see in a teacher, but the energy, the light, the devotion and the presence of the teacher. We can accept the grace of her presence and his devotion to God/Love/Truth and each of us. Each teacher is steadfastly devoted to the end of suffering, to awakening, mastery and entrance into Love or Unity, not just for their own students, but for All who seek this Return.

We can admire and esteem this goodness, we can bow to it in our hearts and be grateful, in any way we can, that God, that Grace, has come to us in all these ways, through all these teachers. We can be glad in our hearts and rejoice that Love/God/Flow/Oneness has come to teach any and all of us. We can Love that Love has not forsaken Its creations and is still willing to teach us today.

If we can feel just an inkling of this, we can open our hearts, even just a breath, and we will have allowed Love to teach us. We will have taken a step toward the teaching simply by seeing Love embodied in another. When we recognize Great Love in a spiritual teacher, we can see the potential for revealing that Great Love in ourselves. We have taken a step closer to our teacher, to the teaching, and to Love, Itself. We have opened to Love.

Accept The Teacher's Love and That You Can be A Student

Sometimes these great radiating forces we behold in teachers can make us feel shy because they are so huge and so full of presence and Love. We can have a tendency to pull back and think, "Well, that teacher can do it, he must be special. It's because he's a prophet blessed by God. He must have some special calling, a God-gene or something, but I'm just a regular human, I could never do that. I could never match That."

Instead, we can try thinking of what we can do, today. We can love, as we are, right now. We can open our hearts and be willing to be in first grade and just start, knowing that our teacher, likely started in first grade too. We can recognize that he or she once started a spiritual path and took many years to get where they are standing today and that each day he or she keeps a steady practice of Love to keep standing there radiating Love back to us.

Know that could make it easier for us to begin our practice now, simply by being present as we are. Recognizing that the more we accept our teacher, the more we accept our Self. And the more we accept our Self, the more we relax and accept All.

Once You Pass Start, Be Prepared to Be a Serious Student

Once we pass first grade, by simply beginning, we can skip directly to college. We can put on our walking shoes and go directly to the library of God. We can consider spiritual work, serious work, the work of a lifetime, that needs a life's devotion. We can know that our teacher will be there giving us the lessons we need to take the steps on the path. He or she will give us key after key, even maps when we are are ready, much advice and tests, especially if we are apt students. But, we need to know ourselves to be sincere students, capable, happy and willing to do the work of being students. Then, we can know the spiritual path as our life work of Love, our masterpiece.

Know the Path is Long and Paved with Gems and Dragons

We can recognize that a reason for a teacher is that there are many awakenings, yes awakenings, along the path. Knowing this will help us not feel alone as we move through event after event, even cosmic events of learning. Spiritual awakening can often feel like martial arts training. It can knock us out and go right down to our bones because sometimes we will feel like we are wrestling a dragon.

This is one of the main reasons it's good to have a teacher. He or she is likely to have been through similar events or will have the riddle's answer for what you are going through. There are stages to the spiritual process, many stages. If we try to go through them "alone," it can feel like a shipwreck at times and nirvana at others or like perhaps like you've shipwrecked in nirvana.

Having a spiritual teacher can be like having a special "in case of emergency call" number that works even from the far shores of forever. If we have a teacher, we can keep asking questions and being open. Our openness will pave the way to success and our questions will end our isolation. Everyone's spiritual opening is both dramatically different and striking similar. It is really good to be on this path together and with a guide.

Know Your Teacher to be a Student of the Soul

A spiritual teacher is a person who is here to guide the mind to awaken and hold space for the soul to come to earth. This means that a spiritual teacher is not here to be a mental therapist. She or he may assist us in how to live a spiritual, soul-guided life on Earth by giving us advice on how to live our daily life, but really the work of a spiritual teacher is about transcendence, Unity Consciousness, God, Love, the Whole, enlightenment, embodied soul's purpose, Zen, etc...

Very often, our teachers will remind us how to leave the past and come to the present, which is very much the opposite of psychotherapy. If you have the opportunity to have an individual session with your teacher, know it is not a counseling session, but a session to help you advance along your soul's purpose line or be of greater service to the whole.

All Time With Your Teacher Is Sacred Time

We can use all our time with our teachers as sacred time. Honestly, each second is a gem, a marriage of Heaven and Earth, and it is up to us how we use this time. Whether we are in a group teaching, a personal teaching or enjoying a meal, all time with our teacher is sacred time. As best we can, we can try to use this time to learn. Even if we are in a group setting and feel like our teacher is not talking directly to us, we can try to learn from him anyway. We can learn, over and over again, happily, that every teaching is for every student and everyone is a student, even your teacher.

Let Your Ego Go on Hiatus, Permanently, if Possible

A teacher may not always seem kind to our minds. His methods may seem harsh, but we can try to look past the exterior. We can ask is he really trying to demean us or is he really trying to get to the diamond that is in the center of the coal? We can ask ourselves to be honest, to look and look again. We can remember that our teacher is after what is best for our soul coming to Earth, not our mind being pandered to. We can remember that in the end, we too are after the same thing.

Work and Play with Your Teacher

Even after our first awakenings, there many steps in the path. A teacher can move from being someone up on a pedestal to being a friend and a crusader for a common cause - the cause of Oneness together. We need allies on this path and who better to have as an ally than one who has been there for years already, someone who is already doing this work and play of Love, everyday. Then, if we have a question or a triumph, we always have someone to turn to and share it with. We can use teachers and let them use us, for we are each other's fuel, we are each other's bread and life.

Ways To Find A Spiritual Teacher

Ask a Friend

Most people I know found teachers through the recommendation of a friend. Eight years ago, a friend introduced me to Elle Collier Re. I now live and study at HeartGate Sanctuary, the home of the teachings of awakened teacher and mystic, Elle Collier Re.

Try the Internet

Many spiritual teachers have websites. These sites are valuable resources for any student or seeker. You could spend a very enlightening time, going from website to website, reading the writings of our great teachers. These sites are full of articles, transcriptions from teaching, excerpts from their books, audio lessons, radio broadcasts and video podcasts. You can purchase their CDs, books and DVDs, see schedules of their classes, both in person and by tele-conference.

Here are the websites of three spiritual teachers who have been true inspirations in my life. There are many more, just search. Have fun, explore, be inspired:

HeartGate Sanctuary, home to the teachings of Elle Collier Re:
http://www.HeartGateSanctuary.org

White Conch Dharma Center, home to the teachings of Domo Geshe Rinpoche:
http://www.white-conch.org/Rinpoche.html

Awakened Heart, home to the teachings of Chris Celine:
http://www.chrisceline.com/

Retreat Finder and Find the Divine/Seek a Retreat are websites that list spiritual retreat centers by state. They also list conferences and spiritual events at these centers. Many teachers have their own retreat centers and/or travel to these centers to offer workshops:

http://retreatfinder.com/

http://www.findthedivine.com/

The Tat Society's Spiritual Gathering page lists national and international listing of satsangs (a satsang is a discourse or teaching with an awakened teacher) and workshops from an number of spiritual disciplines:

http://tatfoundation.org/spiritual_gatherings.htm

Perhaps surprisingly, your local Craigslist and Backpage list spiritual events in the community and classes sections. Check them out:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

http://www.backpage.com/classifieds/index

Look Around Town

Your local newspaper's events section will often list spiritual talks at bookstores, spiritual centers, churches and other community locations held by spiritual teachers. Local coffee shops, grocery stores, spiritual bookstores, yoga studios and other community bulletin boards often have posting for satsangs, classes and workshops with spiritual teachers.

If you know of other resources to find a spiritual teacher, please list them in the Comments section. Or, if you have inspirations for how to work with a spiritual teacher, please share your insights. Thank you.

Amen, Atala

The Economics of Love

Welcome

This week our questions are ones that sit in all our minds, like an object we may have tried to put in an attic and ignore, but it was so heavy that our ceiling started to sag. It's there if we turn on the television, open a newspaper, look closely at our neighbors, go to work and, definitely, when we try to find a job. We are in a time when economic stress weighs heavily on the minds and hearts of those we know. These stresses and changes can play through our emotions and compassion and, in a good way, test us to use our ingenuity to find new ways to open our hearts and minds.

Each of us have gifts and talents. During times of stress, we can find that there is a vat of undiluted Love in each of us waiting to be discovered. We each have untapped God gifts. A time of stress is an unequaled time to surprise ourselves, not to mention our allies and loved ones, with our ability to look toward our strengths, when many others choose not to.

Our Questions & Quest:

How do we maintain our equilibrium when we are in a sea of lack in the economy?

When we are in an emotional pull from the material underpinnings being threatened, how do we still live in Gratitude?

Start by Knowing You Have Something to Bring

Part of solving any puzzle is a willingness to be here to bring together the solution, a willingness not to run. When faced with a puzzle, there are fight or flight reflexes that nestle deep in our human senses, the lower part of who we are, our gut reaction to fly the coop. It's those "get me out of here," or "at least get me to a movie so I can relax and relate to something other than this situation," or "just let me pretend I'm not here" feelings.

In these cases, remember we also have a will. Not the head-strong will, but the part of us that is motivated to move toward Good, with such a fury and fire, that we want to do nothing else, but get there. We have within us that strong-tender will. A will, not of steel, but a will that is like a beckoning, that says simply, gently, "come," like opening our hands for a child to walk to, a will that invites us to come to the moment, to be who we Are.

We can use this will to know that we all hold a key, an answer.  It can help us take the steps into being part of the solution, not just for ourselves, but for the Whole.  This is vital when we want to solve a global crisis.

When there are many problems, it can be attractive to try to just solve what we see as our own problems first before we help others. At this time of stress, it is important that we do the opposite of what may seem, at first, attractive.

Part of my answer is to stay involved and be an inspiration for others. Fostering the spirit is the key to our understanding of any problem, for if we have spiritual health then we can walk into the very fires of hell and know we are not of it.  Part of my answer, is to open to bring that Truth here and not give up.  

Look deeply into your own heart.  What gifts do you bring to this table?  What is there right now, at this moment, that you are holding, that would help you to be a better solution in this world?

Take time to journal, to write your gifts and ways they could be solutions or help us find solutions. Journaling is a good key, as long as you put your heart forward and your mind on the shelf. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, says that we have a censor in our mind and to tell him or her that he's not invited when writing in our journals. If that voice shows up, we can veto it.

Even if you have been journaling or searching out your talents and gifts for years, that doesn't mean there are not more. Love is infinite. If you dive in, you may go right into unchartered waters and find a new gift. "I never thought I had that trait or talent and here it is ready for me. Now, I can face my day with greater courage... ambition... whatever is needed, now... "

Please voice your inspirations in the Comments section of Resound. Let us all know some of the many ways you are part of our greater answer and inspire us all to be an answer as well.

Gratitude In A Time Of Lack: Opening To Generosity of The Spirit

A huge way we can return to and stay in gratitude is to become more and more and more generous, more Heartfully generous, in a way that doesn't take spending a dime. If we become more lovingly generous, it can be a tremendous cure for others and for ourselves. Generosity has been one of my great teachers. It teaches us to meet people in equality, not judgement, in Love, not out of contrition or a sense of obligation, as a student as well as a teacher and as part of the Whole instead of as a separate person coming to meet another person.

In this time of financial loss, it is a great song of the Heart to feel how we can still be generous. Through generosity we can find that generosity is part of who we really are, something that can lead us back to feeling like the authentic beings we really are. When we give our time to a cause or to a person we care about or give love to someone without reservation, it opens something in us and we can be reborn through our simple acts of generosity.

In our world, in our community, there are all types of volunteer work. If you are inspired to share one of your gifts or talents, community work can be spiritual work and spiritual learning whenever it is done in Love. In an era when we have moved apart economically, we can come together as a community. We can see God in each others' eyes and show each other that God/Love is Here. We can put on boots and go to work. We can dig a trench and teach a child to read and it can all be prayer. We can be the ones who start a community program, a community garden or environmentally and soulful community housing project.

What inspires you?

Coming Together: Communion on the Material Plane

This time of material distress is a time to learn that the old system was not leading us toward greater communion, both with ourselves as servants of the Truth and with each other as the fire of the greater I Am that leads us to Wholeness. Taking that to the ground level means that our economic system was often built on the individual working to further his interests, then thinking of his neighbor... maybe. Today, we are in a crisis that affects us all, great and small, rich and poor. We can't escape the fact that corruption and a turn from healthy environmental practices has affected us all.

One option we have is to come together and share what we have. There are many choices for living in community from organic farming communities to spiritual communities to co-housing communities with apartments and homes. It's a new way of being from the way we have been living in America. But, if we come together to live in community, not as a form of escapism or isolation, but a way to build a global network of spiritually informed, healthy living people who support each other in eating well, teaching our children and ourselves to love one another and value people of all ages, then in these communities, be they an expanded household or a hundred acre farm, we can daily practice living not just together, but in communion, in flow.

The more we isolate, the more we fall apart. The more we share, the more we come together. Even if you don't live in a community household, you can still be part of the greater community. There are many ways people are finding to share rides, to share groceries, to share meals, to share gardens and to share child care.  

If we let Love be our leader and generosity our follow though, we are apt to end up in a stream of gratitude.  Gratitude is a state of the heart, not of the mind or the wallet.  No matter where we are and what we choose, we can still return to gratitude and Love.  This is a given.  This is a solution.  

My Prayer

My Prayer is that you be tremendous

That you shake with the sound of your Name coming back to You

That you move the Earth with the sweet sound of your footfalls because

You know you have come to do a duty that only you can do

That you have come

To bring back the Sound

Of One Name crying out

Together We Are

I AM

With Love,

Atala