How to be a Good Spiritual Teacher
Learn as much as possible about spiritual bypassing.
Make sure you are doing some deep work on your traumas. If you don’t think you carry any trauma, think again.
Get into some quality shadow work to make sure you are not projecting your shadow onto your clients/ students.
Get in touch with all your emotions, every single one of them. This will help you deepen in your humanity so you can be more in touch with your heart as you connect with people.
Never offer a spiritual solution (or consolation!) to a practical problem. Don’t spiritualize everything.
Even though there is great overlap, learn to honour the personal, relational, social, and the spiritual as if they are separate realities.
Do not confuse the liberated mind with the liberated heart.
Get very clear about what’s the domain of psychology and what’s spirituality even if you include both in your perspective.
Make sure you are interested in Being more than you are interested in being “good” or “right” or even “spiritual.”
Do not underestimate spirituality’s power to further delude people. A whole lot of spirituality is no different than empty beliefs and assumptions about the nature of Reality.
Make sure you honour what develops in human beings as well as what doesn’t. We are as much as we are becoming, and vice versa.
Notice the beautiful privilege of your position, that you get to talk about the Unknown and the Unknowable. Engage in this privilege with utmost sincerity (not seriousness) and humility.
It is much more respectable to admit “I don’t know,” than to make things up so you don’t lose face. Remember humility is freedom. Work on your shame.
Be aware of your tendencies for aggression and reactiveness and get to the pain at their root. Feel, heal, and digest this pain as often as you need.
Learn as much as you can about how projection and attachment work and make sure your students are not becoming dependent on you like children are to their parents.
Clarify any baggage you have around money. Look deeply into your survival panic and fears to make sure money never becomes more important than serving people with honour and dignity.
Learn about how religions and spirituality have been used for thousands of years in ways that kept people small and afraid. Be aware of the historical baggage of certain words and concepts.
Did you know that the teachings about karma have historically been used to justify oppressive economic-class divides in India?
Are you aware of the impact of Christianity’s “original sin” in people’s self-worth and sense of dignity?
In a World where we have nuclear weapons and 8 billion people, do you see how spirituality can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to social problems?
Let’s get real to the best of our ability, at every level possible.
You are needed friend, so so needed.