By Jac O’Keeffe Spiritual Integrity is the combination of a state and a quality. Spiritual integrity is the state of being undivided together with the quality of brutal self-honesty. It demands a considerable depth of self-awareness and an uncompromising willingness to be authentic. The first step to cultivating spiritual integrity is to recognize that we are not always honest. We aren’t honest when we control our actions in order to micromanage another’s reaction. We aren’t honest when we have a personal agenda that modifies how we show up. We have an inner split.  What we would or could do is derailed by a need to control either a situation, others, or ourselves. Fragmentation, dividedness happens within us. We are out of integrity. We compromise inner wisdom and what would otherwise organically flow from within us. We choose to present a reactive, self-serving, often manipulative alternative. When we recognize this can only happen in the absence of self-honesty we can begin to do something about it. Being in spiritual integrity requires us to be acutely aware of and responsible for our needs. If we are not aware of our own needs we can’t meet them and our neediness will bleed into our actions. We are fragmented and not in alignment with what is our authentic voice and presence. Spiritual integrity requires us to unconditionally love and respect ourselves. In this way, we become more autonomous, self sufficient and confident. We gain maturity. When we stop playing games with our internal self we cease fragmenting.  We are open, honest, vulnerable, available, humble, and reliable. When we are in spiritual integrity we are naturally willing to support our personal and human evolution. We are motivated to become better versions of ourselves. We are drawn to learning and growth. We are curious about others’ points of view. We are open to diversity. A commitment to ongoing self-awareness with brutal self-honesty ensures that we take responsibility for our psychological blind spots. Here lies our primary potential for growth. When we are in spiritual integrity we can apologize with ease and commit to doing and being better. We are naturally kind and confident. We do the right thing—not for approval, because it is expected, or a learned habit—but because our direction comes from an inner state of authenticity. We are internally undivided. Self-honesty helps us to relax in mind and body because there is no game playing and personal agendas. There is no fear of being caught out, no sense of being a fraud or fake. We don’t doubt ourselves, yet we are not arrogant because we are open to constant revision and improvement.  We are responsible and don’t make excuses for ourselves. We are fluid within because we know that we honor our authentic self with confidence, while we are willing to revise and learn more. When we are in spiritual integrity we are embracing our humanity. We are at our best, we are whole and in alignment with an inner wisdom that we all have access to, if we choose to listen to it.  Being in spiritual integrity requires us to learn the skill of discernment so that our minds grow quiet enough for us to hear its direction. Next we need to cultivate courage to follow through on what naturally flows from within us. Our minds can masquerade as our protector—it will always have a controlling agenda. As we mature we can set it aside and align with what originates from deeper within us. With spiritual integrity we show up and participate with humility and discretion.  There is ease and we are in sync with being human. It can be said that then we operate from the heart. With a cultivation of spiritual integrity the world will be a better place because spiritual integrity insists that we unleash our innate capacity to be truly kind people.

Dr Neil is in conversation with Dr Connie Zweig, author of Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path. This is from their podcast Dr Neil’s Spiritual Awakening to Nonduality. Dr. Neil, a psychologist who is awake, explores key questions: How can someone be awake in a high stage and still act out his or her personal shadow? Why is there an epidemic of gurus and priests acting out their shadows today? Why do we need to cultivate shadow awareness in the context of our spiritual lives? Because there is shadow material stored in the subtle body at each chakra, he goes through each one and describes the risk of eruption of shadow material at that stage. Listen to the episode HERE .

Author Requests Anonymity. “Of all places, why would somebody experience burnout in a retreat center where everything is about relaxation and meditation?” “Oh, another one of those from the retreat center who were not taken care of and did not take care of themselves.” “It’s your fault. You have to learn to set stronger boundaries.” “You can’t blame your teacher for this. Ultimately, you are 100% responsible for your situation.” “Just think of all the merit you accumulated along the way.” “I am in this auspicious position where I can serve my teacher in this lifetime. Yes, they are demanding and contact me every day – but it’s for the Dharma! Such a blessing!” “Burnout – yes, that could be me. But how could I change anything about it?” “If you are close to the fire, you get burned.” This is a short collection of the different reactions my situation triggered in myself and others. What was your first reaction when reading the title of this article? For some, the topic of burnout in Dharma communities might feel like a juxtaposition of two words that semantically should not go together, while for others, it might be the elephant in the room. I experienced burnout myself while serving my (then) main Dharma teacher as assistant. I came to a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center as a young person in my mid-20s, full of energy and enthusiasm for the Dharma. After only a few months of serving as a volunteer at the center, I moved there full-time and became the assistant to the main teacher. Four years later, I left this position with severe burnout, health problems from constant stress and overwork, and was mentally distressed. In the following years, I practiced more mindfulness-based meditation, which helped me to become more present in my body and I thus discovered the full devastating effect of this experience on me. I was able to allow all the feelings of injustice, anger, and disappointment. It did not feel right to leave the position as assistant to a Dharma teacher in a worse mental and physical state than when I started. While I admit and realize now I came to the center with patterns of low self-esteem, perfectionism, and wanting to please, this led me to work too much and to seek confirmation from outside by performance. And you can be sure that I was told that many times. Numerous times, the fault for my situation was directed back at me by the teacher I served and, to some degree, by community members. Few were the voices pointing out that others, before me, had suffered the same fate and left this position after mere months and that the teacher’s behavior and personality were also contributing to this situation. The teacher sometimes tried to help by looking for other people to work alongside me and attempted to change their habits. But at the end of the day, it was easier for them to fall back into the familiar pattern of being demanding and of having me take care of most things. They continued to contact me at any hour of the day, any day of the week, during time off or not. This constellation was made worse by my limited understanding of guru devotion. Because of my ignorance, guru devotion supported my lack of self-confidence, not voicing my needs, not establishing boundaries, and wanting to please. My behavior fitted neatly with the glorified stories of people sacrificing themselves in service for their teachers without any regard for their bodies or mental state. This distorted notion of guru devotion also justified the constant urgency, the many needs and ideas, and the lack of consideration for questions of work organization, planning, and the need for staff rest from the side of the teacher. Rare were the people who had enough self-confidence to say “no” to the teacher. As if it was not already difficult enough to do so, that teacher further did not accept objections easily and usually tried to find a solution to get their way, even if it meant triangulating people. In this pervasive culture of urgency and obedience, rarely could I question if something needed to be done at all. Throughout the years, I tried to use “pure view” as much as possible to see things in a positive light, to take situations as teachings for myself, and ultimately to try and justify the teacher’s behavior. This helped me endure my work situation longer while retaining a positive work ethic. However, I made the fundamental mistake of not acknowledging my feelings of being emotionally hurt, angry, stressed, and physically exhausted in the first place. As a result, pure view only served to override these feelings – creating an unhealthy dynamic. Ultimately, concepts of pure view and guru devotion maintained a situation where I gave away my power to a person who did not always have my best interest in mind – and, from a superficial understanding of the teachings, it seemed like the right thing to do! The teacher asked me not to share my struggles with people but rather to talk to them directly when I was feeling particularly overworked. This is one of the main principles of non-violent communication, and I can respect this on many levels. Yet, in this setting, it left me feeling isolated. I was upholding an image and could not share my feelings openly with most of my co-workers and Sangha members. My state of well-being was so intertwined with my life/work as assistant that an honest answer to the question “How are you?” seemed inappropriate and potentially damaging to the teacher’s reputation. Officially, I left my work at the center for health reasons—a partial truth. At the same time, I am convinced that many co-workers and long-time Sangha members were aware of my lack of well-being, were deeply concerned, and were not at all surprised that I left. After all, many other assistants before me had left as well. These dynamics are familiar to anyone who has been following the various abuse scandals in Dharma organizations and sanghas. In my particular situation, this teacher is aware and critical of the negative dynamics that can be born out of guru devotion, including how guru devotion, when misunderstood, can be the perfect set-up for abuse. Still, a similar dynamic played out. On many levels, it was subtle, and many of the misunderstandings were in the messy grey areas of guru devotion, pure view, and right speech. The abuse was not comparable to the types of abuse highlighted in the headlines of recent years. Still, it was a damaging dynamic and brought me to a point where I have decided not to practice Vajrayana Buddhism for the time being. This should be a warning sign for Buddhist Sanghas and illustrates just how tricky this terrain of guru devotion is to navigate for both teacher and student. I could have benefitted greatly from more critical conversations and clarifications around guru devotion as part of my onboarding. I was practically new to Vajrayana when I started volunteering at this Dharma center. Guru devotion gets all the more complicated and important to discuss with its many fine details, the closer you are to your teacher. I am now convinced that it is precarious not to talk about guru devotion in all its complexity. More importantly, it needs to be an ongoing process of mentoring and requires senior Sangha members to lead by example and embody the right way of guru devotion. Otherwise, students (like me) are left to their own devices and go to the stories of the lineage, which are solely examples of highly qualified, extraordinary students who have flourished through selfless devotion. There are no prominent, traditional examples of students who struggled with devotion and grew through their mistakes and misconceptions. I heard these stories in personal conversations with other Dharma practitioners, but too late. Maybe because people did not want to spread rumors or slander their teachers? Or because they had already left the Sangha disenchanted? I know now that stories of “failure” are just as important, and I bow to all the survivors of sexual/power abuse who have been willing to share their stories. The teacher did apologize to me and is aware of their challenging behaviors and character traits. That’s a start – but the solution cannot rely on somebody changing their character and their habits. Different systems and structures must be set up to protect the employees and volunteers (most of whom are first and foremost Dharma students) from power abuse by Dharma teachers. The work culture of the Dharma organization can be changed. Examples of people establishing boundaries, saying “no,” and taking care of their own needs can be respected and honored, not labeled as people who don’t care about the teacher and community. Speaking out about these issues in the community should not be seen as spreading rumors and slandering the teacher but as opportunities for the growth of the center and the collective practice. The board of directors and the leadership of this particular Dharma center have tried to establish more structures, organize workflow in a better way, and protect the employees from these dynamics over the last few years. Still, certain positions, like the assistant, the leadership, and other people who work closely with the teacher (the infamous “inner circles”), remain the most exposed and the least protected. For these positions, especially, I would hope that there is an open and critical debate about guru devotion, pure view, notions of service, self-care, and self-confidence. People for these positions need to be chosen extra carefully, not for their obedience and impressionability, but for self-confidence and boundaries. Too many people have left this center (and probably other centers) disenchanted, exhausted, and disoriented after months or years of service. Dharma organizations need to start addressing the systemic reasons for this. While I can say that I was not mature enough for the position of assistant, there were also no safe structures in place to support my well-being, to check on my workload, and how the teacher (who was also my supervisor) managed me. Ultimately, the teacher breached the trust I put in them as my guru. My projections and expectations might have stemmed from a misunderstanding of the Dharma, but how could I have known being so new “to the club”? I was not mentored enough on how to navigate the tricky waters of guru devotion, and maybe so because it served the teacher. At the very least, I hope that my story can now serve as an inspiration for Dharma centers and Sanghas to discuss dynamics around work, volunteering, personal boundaries, service to the teacher and the Dharma, and how power, projections, and expectations play into this. Any abuse of power (and it often comes draped in an overwhelming workload than sexual abuse) in a Dharma Center, and especially by teachers, leaves deep marks on students and should not be justified, maintained, or painted in pink colors by any Dharma concept. * Throughout this article, gender-neutral pronouns are used for this teacher to underline that these dynamics can occur independently of gender and to account for the anonymity of both the author of this article and the teacher in question. —— Below are questions for reflections to help different actors assess the situation at their Dharma Center regarding the problematic dynamics discussed in this article. If you are a Dharma teacher and especially if you hold a managerial role in the organization, you can ask yourself: How do I exert power over others? Am I getting used to being served? How do I react to people questioning my authority? Do I take the advice of my senior staff who has responsibility for managing the organization? Am I a qualified manager? (This is different from being a teacher) Are there low-level opportunities and structures for my authority and decisions to be questioned and for others to provide feedback to me in a safe way? Do I see and treat the people working in my center as my employees or as my students most of the time? (The relationship of being your students runs deeper than the employee relationship. I recommend treating them as your students first and foremost) Are the boundaries clear when someone acts as an employee and when someone is in the role of student? If you are in a leadership role in a Dharma center: What type of role model am I? Do I take care of myself? What culture is prevalent in the center? Is it one of self-care or one of self-sacrifice? Is it OK to question the authority of the teacher/leadership in certain decisions? How do I handle people who are complaining about the teacher? What support do I provide to people “closer to the fire”? Are there any dynamics, patterns, or structures I notice that could be indicative of people being overwhelmed, abused, or stressed, like a high turnover rate? Does my silence condone abusive power structures? If you observe somebody working too much: Am I physically and mentally in a position to provide help? If not, who can I make aware of this situation and ask to intervene? If yes, how can I best support this person? How can the hard facts of their situation be changed? If you are feeling like your work situation is not sustainable: Who can I share my feelings with safely that will support me? What do I need to recharge and make this situation sustainable? How can I get a break? What expectations and projections do I have of my teacher? Is my teacher truly living up to these? Which projections do I need to let go of to regain control of this situation? Do I use any Dharma concepts to justify my suffering? Can this situation be changed and improved in a way that I can stay in this position / at this center or do I need to leave? Problematic Dynamics And Which Dharma Concepts or Projections Obfuscated Them Gaslighting Self-reflection over blaming other people The teacher is beyond faults Isolation from the rest of the community Right speech, direct communication, respect for the teacher, no slandering, not wanting to turn people away from the Dharma Invasion of boundaries Guru devotion, accumulation of merit This is service to the Dharma not work Triangulation Guru devotion / pure view (“The will of the teacher is most important even if sometimes not obvious”) Unnecessary urgency about requests Guru devotion (“If the teacher is asking for something urgently, it must be most important even if it does not make sense.”) Lack of consideration for other people’s needs, policies of the organization or workflow The teacher’s requests are the most important and stem from wisdom It is part of Vajrayana to shake things up Lack of planning and last-minute changes It is part of Vajrayana to shake things up Pure View (“Teachers are so much in the moment – planning is contradictory to their nature”) Willingness to go above and beyond one own’s need for the teacher / the Dharma Serving the teacher brings vast amounts of merit and ultimately benefits all beings Lack of critical feedback and opportunities to question the teacher Guru devotion / pure view

Jac, how does the Association for Spiritual Integrity aim to transform the paradigm of spiritual leadership, and what role does ethical education play in this mission? The idea of transforming the paradigm of spiritual leadership arose from recognizing the need for contemporary reflection on the cultural foundations that influence spiritual leadership today. Spiritual leadership has been shaped by sacred traditions and revered lineages, yet it has also been influenced by male-dominance and hierarchical institutions that can exert control and abuse power without accountability or oversight. At ASI, we ask: Where is collective spiritual leadership headed? If we can shift the cultural narrative, even slightly, alongside others who recognize this need for change, then we can initiate meaningful impact. I believe in the butterfly effect—small actions can create ripples that extend far beyond our immediate influence, perhaps coming to fruition beyond our lifetime. Cultural shifts have their own momentum, inspiring others to show up in ways we cannot predict. Having served as a spiritual leader myself for 15 years, I have firsthand experience of how spiritual attainment—no matter how deep, abiding, or embodied—does not automatically redress or reset one’s ethical compass. Without guidance, education, training and self-reflection, unconscious habits from our cultural conditioning can persist, shaping how we relate to our students and followers. While there is little scientific research validating the connection between ethical behavior and spiritual awakening, a forthcoming study (Penn State University, summer 2025) will soon lend empirical support to this perspective, affirming what I have observed for over a decade. If we, as spiritual leaders, do not take responsibility for our own ethical integrity, external regulation may eventually be imposed upon us—potentially through a licensing system akin to what exists in professions such as psychotherapy. While licensing serves a protective function in many fields, I believe it would compromise the essence of spiritual leadership, which is inherently intimate and transcendent. Rather than allowing an external control to dictate our evolution, we have created a community where anyone can join freely, who has a shared commitment to ethical integrity. Our focus is not on measuring the depth of one’s awakening—that remains personal and sacred—but on refining how our human selves show up in the world. Until individuals awaken to their own inner sovereignty, their spiritual teachers play a pivotal role. This dynamic of power—one that inevitably shifts away from teachers as students evolve and become more sovereign—can be easily misused or abused.Our mission (at the ASI) is to elevate ethical standards, promote ethical responsibility, and ensure that power is exercised humbly with awareness, integrity, and a commitment to the highest good. What inspired the founding members to create ASI, and how have the organization’s goals evolved since its inception in 2018? The idea for ASI emerged unexpectedly during a lunch meeting at a conference, where three of us delegates discovered we were independently addressing the same issue in our presentations: the troublingly low standard of ethical behavior among spiritual leaders. This wasn’t the theme of the conference, yet we each found ourselves drawn to the topic from different perspectives. I suggested that we should talk. It seemed significant—perhaps even synchronistic—that three people, coming from distinct backgrounds, were independently grappling with the same concern. By the end of our lunch, we had committed to doing something about it, and ASI was born. Two of us remain actively involved in leading and shaping the organization. Our first major project was developing a comprehensive code of ethics—one designed to be as applicable to a Catholic priest as it would be to a coven of witches, both of which are equally suitable members of the ASI. (Although, to be precise, we don’t yet have a Catholic priest in our ranks despite my best efforts, even within the tradition I was born into and later abandoned.) Creating this code of ethics was a meticulous, three-year process. We engaged in ongoing community consultations, holding open meetings to discuss and refine each principle. Every tenet was scrutinized—what does it mean, how is it interpreted, and how does it apply across different spiritual traditions? This consultative approach remains central to ASI’s identity. The code is not a rigid, static document but a living framework guiding good practices, evolving as new challenges and perspectives emerge. When an organization approaches us saying they align with ASI’s principles but take issue with a specific tenet, we take it seriously. Sometimes, we allow an exemption from one tenet because of how an organisation is structured; other times, we bring the issue back to our community for deeper exploration. Seven years in, we continue to engage in consultation and refinement. However, I’ve observed a distinct gap between those who intellectually agree with ASI’s principles and those willing to truly embody them. Many resonate with the ethical framework in theory but resist the changes in behavior and personal transformation it specifies. Deep self-inquiry, confronting uncomfortable truths, and working through conflict require a level of commitment that many ultimately shy away from. Instead of engaging in the difficult but necessary work of ethical evolution, some have opted to dismiss ASI entirely, avoiding the introspection and accountability we advocate.At the heart of our work is a commitment to “walking our talk”—returning to dialogue, relationship, and connection even when it is difficult. Yet, contemporary culture often resists this. Increasingly, people default to a polarized stance: “You’re wrong, I’m right, and I’m going to denounce you publicly,” often with no real engagement, no evidence, and no willingness to work through differences. This dynamic extends far beyond the spiritual realm; it’s a broader cultural norm now that we find ourselves pushing against. Given this landscape, I try to keep ASI’s focus clear: let’s not take on too much; let’s do a few things exceptionally well. Above all, we must personally model what we advocate. Yet, we’ve found that even those who claim to share this commitment often fall short when faced with real conflict. When we suggest mediation, consultation, or dialogue, the reaction is often one of avoidance or mistrust. Some assume bias even when we ask them to choose an impartial third party. The real challenge here isn’t just ethical leadership; it’s confronting our own human nature. The promise of ASI is that we will learn and grow together, that we will hold space for our collective humanness while striving for ethical integrity. But this understanding—that true growth and evolution requires returning to relationship again and again—is still far from being widely embraced. Until it is, we remain committed to holding that space and leading by example. The Honor Code of Ethics and Good Practice is central to ASI’s mission. Could you elaborate on how this code shapes the responsibilities of spiritual leaders within the ASI community? Over the years, we’ve seen a pattern. For example spiritual leaders can say, “Of course, I would never exploit anyone or have them work for free,” and, “Of course, if I don’t know the answer for a student, I’d refer them to a professional (e.g. psychotherapist or trauma therapist).” But in reality, that’s not what always happens. For some reason, many spiritual practitioners resist referring their clients to another professional. On paper, they agree that if they are out of their depth, they should refer out—but the problem is, they don’t actually recognize when they are out of their depth. They think they are following the code of ethics, but in practice, they aren’t. It’s easy to agree with a code of ethics in principle, but it takes self-reflection and change in behavior to truly uphold it.When we realized that this was quite a widespread issue among our members, we knew something was wrong with our onboarding process. People were signing the code of ethics, believing they were committing to a higher standard, but they weren’t actually modifying their behavior. So, we asked ourselves: how do we improve onboarding? This year, we’re launching a series of 18 videos covering the trickiest aspects of the code of ethics. Each video explains, “This is what this code tenet actually means. This is how it applies in real-life situations.” Will everyone watch them? I don’t know. But at the very least, it will highlight how much we all need to learn in order to truly understand what we’ve signed up to.I’ve found that many members don’t fully internalize the code of ethics. They agree to it in theory but don’t follow through in practice. And that raises a bigger question—why are we so resistant to education? For example, last year, a former member publicly attacked me online. He took something from one of my teachings, stripped it of its context, and twisted it into something else entirely. He didn’t bother to understand the full conversation—he just pulled a quote, misrepresented it, and accused me of being unethical. The irony? The very last point in the code of ethics he had agreed to abide by (when becoming an ASI member) states that if you see another member falling short, you should reach out to them and start a conversation. It reads: Offering support to our colleagues and fellow ASI members, to the extent that we are able and available. Instead of doing that, he went straight to attack mode. Why not reach out to me and ask, “What did you mean by this? Why did you recommend that to a student?” That could have opened up a real discussion. If I was out of line, I want to know. And it would have taken much less of his time also! The shift we’re trying to create is a movement away from power struggles and fear-based attacks toward mutual support. Spiritual leadership, in many traditions, has historically included guidance on ethical human interaction. But in modern, non-lineage-based spiritual teaching, this is often absent. That’s one reason why we see so much misuse of power. We need to be honest with ourselves: Are we truly embodying the ethics we claim to uphold? Or are we just agreeing with them in theory? Change requires slowing down, self-reflection, and a willingness to do both the inner and outer behavioral work. And that’s what we’re here to support. Can you share some insights from the ASI Peer Support Program and how it has impacted the professional and personal growth of spiritual leaders involved? When we first recognized the need for a Peer Support program, it had become clear that spiritual teachers, guides, and coaches—essentially, anyone guiding others on a spiritual path—needed a confidential space where they could connect with their peers. Many of our ASI members lacked close friends with whom they could truly let their guard down, step out of the role of “teacher,” and speak vulnerably about their own human experiences. We set out to find a model that would facilitate and help normalize this within spiritual leadership.However, I struggled to find an existing framework that was truly suitable. Peer support models from nonprofit and corporate alike didn’t sufficiently align with the deep inner awareness that many of our members bring to their work. Nothing felt quite right. So, we decided to run a series of pilot programs, as research models to create and refine a peer support structure that would serve our unique community. The results were remarkable. Each group consisted of four to six people, and a fundamental aspect of the model was uninterrupted speaking time for every participant. That alone created a profound shift for those who are accustomed to lecturing, guiding, or holding space for others but rarely have the opportunity to simply be heard. We found that when spiritual leaders are placed in a setting where they cannot immediately offer advice or solutions—where they are simply present with their peers—they can develop a greater ability to truly listen, to suspend judgment, and most importantly to relax their nervous systems into a state of vulnerability. The role of teacher is dropped. This is the magic of the Peer Support model: it facilitates a nervous system shift that grants permission to explore aspects of one’s own shadow that may have been neglected in the perpetual role of “teacher.” I experienced this firsthand during our initial pilot. One day, when it was my turn to speak, I thought, I don’t think I have anything to share. So, we sat in silence. After three minutes, something shifted within me, and I realized, Actually, I do need to talk about something. What followed was one of the deepest, most personal shares I have ever had in a group context. In that stillness—not the stillness of meditation, but the stillness of being held in a safe, nonjudgmental container—I was able to connect with my own humanity in a way I hadn’t before, with others. A key element of our model is the option to request or decline feedback. Sometimes, a person may want reflections from the group, while other times, they simply need to sit with what they have expressed without external input. This flexibility ensures that the process remains centered on individual needs. The success of the pilot programs was undeniable. One of our earlier groups has continued meeting for four years now, unwilling to stop because they find the experience invaluable. A group from our 2023 pilot has also chosen to continue independently, also meeting every two weeks to this day. Given this overwhelming positive response, we have refined the model further and are now preparing to offer it as an ongoing, well-structured service. Our goal for this year is to establish a service where anyone interested can join a peer group based on their time zone and availability. We hope to have enough participants to form multiple groups, train them into the process, and allow them to operate with autonomy. I’m interested in assessing whether participants feel heard, respected, and supported—whether the experience influences how they show up as spiritual leaders… For many, engaging in this kind of deep sharing initially feels like an act of exposure. It is rare nowadays to have a space where we can fully express our human concerns without the need to perform, perfect, or uphold an image of spiritual mastery. Yet, we all have shadow work to do, and we all have aspects of our humanness that require attention and refinement. The peer support program creates a space for that work to unfold, and the impact on participants has been very positive. The full analysis of our pilot findings is available on our website, and we are now moving toward making this an ongoing, structured offering. Our hope is that any ASI member who wishes to participate can find a group that fits their schedule, receive training in the methodology, and experience the profound benefits of this unique support system. What challenges do spiritual leaders typically face when it comes to maintaining integrity, and how does ASI’s Peer Support system help address these challenges? Some spiritual leaders lack awareness of how their behavior impacts others, believing they bear no responsibility for the effects of their words and actions. I have encountered individuals who say, “God spoke through me; I am not responsible for the impact—God is.” That is absolute nonsense. This mindset allows spiritual leaders to evade accountability, often for years, because confronting their own influence makes them uncomfortable. As a result, they elevate themselves onto a pedestal, adopting a guru-like persona to insulate themselves from their own shadow. Peer Support provides a crucial training ground, demonstrating that not only is it safe to acknowledge our humanness, but it is essential. True growth requires space for reflection, evolution, and transformation. We are part of a larger ecosystem—just as the Earth is in a constant state of change, so too must we embrace continuous personal growth. Old conditioning must fall away to make space for new ways of being, which, in time, will also evolve. Accountability is not optional; it is a fundamental value requiring a skillset that every spiritual leader must develop. Without it, we remain blind to aspects of ourselves that need attention and transformation. Peer support is one of the most effective tools for this work, offering a space where we can unravel unconscious habits and behaviors that we may otherwise struggle to see. Only by becoming truly aware of our humanness—and by taking responsibility for our impact—can we grow into authentic and ethical leaders.

By Ray Bratcher Author’s Note:  I wish to thank Rick Archer, host of Buddha at the Gas Pump and founding member of the ASI, and his friend Steve Wolk, for including me in the e-mail exchange which gave rise to this article. Many of the insights herein are theirs and any oversights undoubtedly mine. I should probably also note here that although I am on the Board of Directors for the ASI ,the opinions expressed herein are entirely mine and that I am not speaking for the ASI in anyway. As spiritual awakenings become more common, and contact, even familiarity, between seekers and teachers more commonplace, it is probably past time to revisit the mythic perfection of the “enlightened teacher”, the expectations and projections of seekers and students, and to examine the role of both in the modern teacher/student relationship. I can remember from many years ago when the “propaganda” around enlightened spiritual teachers was that nothing bad ever happened to them anymore, that nothing in their lives ever went wrong. This of course was almost certainly never true. Now, though, it is more like, “Of course things go wrong. But I don’t suffer anymore because it doesn’t “hook” my ego.” Before enlightenment: get a flat tire, fix a flat tire. After enlightenment: get a flat tire, fix a flat tire. The difference is, you no longer throw a fit in between. Ideally. Eckhart Tolle tells a story of waiting in a slow moving line at a store and feeling “the energy of irritation” arising in him (this was many years after  his “awakening”). He describes a kind of detached observation of the energy and coming to the conclusion he didn’t want it in his body. And it goes away. Nisargadatta Maharaj was once asked, “Does the Personality ever arise in you?”, to which he responded, “ Of course  it does. But I see at once it is illusion and discard it.” So, is this two well known teachers most people regard as being “enlightened” admitting to flaws and imperfection? Notice Nisargadatta saying, “Of course it does”! In other words, he does not find it strange that post-enlightenment there can still be some ego left. This is reminiscent of the Hindu concept of “lesh avidya”–”the faint remaining seed of ignorance”. Which highlights an interesting distinction. Should we consider the above two examples of Tolle and Nisargadatta to be examples of egoic imperfection? Or merely invitations from the remaining vestiges of ego which were politely demurred? Does it only become an issue when it lasts a long time, and/or is covered up, and/or isn’t seen through “at once”? Irritation and other reactions commonly perceived as coming from the ego will still arise, but we can use those as grist for the mill. I imagine both Tolle and Nisargadatta benefited beyond just the specifics they released and discarded. That’s a purification process that as it goes on releases and discards more and more until the teacher can eventually appear to others to be completely unflappable and even “perfect”. But inside herself, the teacher knows there is still work left to do. It may be on a very few things, which may hardly ever arise, but being willing to admit their existence rather than pretending to a mythic superhuman status is the only way to keep the integrity and authenticity that are necessary to the path. And lesh avidya is said to be necessary for living in the world. There is a difference between waking up in  the dream and waking up from  the dream is how I have always thought of it. If you had no darkness, no irritation, upset, fear, etc., no lesh avidya, I don't think you would be here on this plane anymore. You’d Ascend or Rainbow Body out of the dream. We could say that any “enlightened” being who still has a body with which to teach must have some remaining darkness, and denying that in order to meet expectations could very well be the root ethical breach of modern “awakened” teachers; setting them up for catastrophic failures eventually. Pretending to be perfect, when you know you are not; surrounded by a protective “inner circle” which pretends you are perfect, when they know you are not, begins as what seems like a minor and innocent “white lie” or even “public relations”, selflessly maintained for the benefit of the students and seekers, but soon creates an environment rife with in authenticity, dishonesty, fear, and, eventually, abuse. So it would be a good thing to make it safe for teachers to be imperfect, but that has to be within a context of the teacher no longer identifying with those imperfections and allowing them to “run away” with him or her. This would preclude teachers using “enlightenment” as an excuse for bad behavior and set an expectation that teachers should be more conscious about their darkness than the average Joe. A reasonable expectation I think. “The master is without anxiety about imperfection” doesn’t mean he is unconscious/ignorant of his own, nor does it mean he doesn’t have any, and hiding it only happens if there is anxiety about it. It means, the master accepts her own imperfections without judgment, as one with the whole of Life, to be gently discarded (as they arise, hopefully) as Life helps us to discover one more useless thing. The personality may still arise, old habitual energy patterns or lesh avidyas may still make their presence felt, but it doesn’t become a problem unless the teacher’s reaction is a resistance energy of “OMG! That’s not supposed to happen!”, instead of the realization that the imperfections which arise in them are not theirs and can be cleanly discarded without further involvement. And that this is a purification process which continues so long as they have a form body. Mistakes still happen, and imperfections still arise within the life of an awakened person, because mistakes and imperfections are necessary to growth. They are a part of Life’s movement towards the highest expression. Only a sterile petri dish is “perfect”. IMHO: in the East, no one really thinks Gurus are perfect. That’s just a polite fiction everyone maintains out of respect for the teachings. And yet they are happy to support them financially. In the West on the other hand, the assumption is that the Guru is flawed, unless he proves his worthiness by being a commercial capitalist success, while, paradoxically, at the same time charging very little or nothing at all, because “spiritual work is supposed to be free” according to the puritanical mindset the west still suffers from. Which exerts a pressure on the Western Guru to appear to be perfect for financial reasons. Making the road to authenticity in the West more challenging. (And making for problematic situations when the Eastern Gurus move West). So making it safe for Western teachers to be imperfect might also mean making it safe for Western students to have teachers who are not this year’s new, hot, with-it thing. After all, ultimately, it is the students, not our fellow teachers, who make the space for the teacher safe or unsafe. And the students’ projections are every bit as problematic as the teachers’ claims. And the root cause of those projections is that the student wants much more from the teacher than what is on offer. What is on offer is a shift in consciousness that makes for a better way to live primarily because one no longer tortures oneself unnecessarily. What the student wants is an unending life of unending bliss. No human being can do that for you, so the teacher has to be seen as godlike. However, I have noticed that lately, people are becoming much wiser about this, and receptive to my approach of being a “spiritual friend”, not some kind of “perfect master”. So I think ASI would find students and seekers ready and receptive for more realistic relationships with teachers and finders. Yet, it does seem to me that one’s awakening should not be so easily threatened, and especially not by mere money. Even if the West is more challenging financially, if financial stress is all it takes to lose one’s awakening, how stable was it? On this point, then, it is interesting that at the times Tolle and Nisargadatta “came clean” they both had already “made it ”so to speak. By the time of the story, Tolle had long since had “The money” as he calls it, referring to his vast earnings, safely banked, and Nisargadatta while not Tolle rich was doing quite well for an Indian man of his class, was retired from a successful business career, and was already famous as a spiritual teacher. In his case, furthermore, by this time he had been diagnosed with cancer and given not long to live. So what did he have to lose by “coming clean”? Still, it is probably better that Tolle’s irritation arose in a checkout line at a store, and not at one of his events, directed at a person engaged in one of those one on one sessions with him in front of the whole audience that he does. In the check out line story, by the way, he goes on to say that when he finally reached the check out, the young woman working there was in fact on her first day, and when she realized who he was said something like, “Oh my God! Eckhart Tolle! I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you!” Needless to say, he took the obvious lesson to heart. So maybe the arising of the energy of irritation was just the Universe using one of his lesh avidyas to further his progress? For which he was grateful? As opposed to some other teachers who might feel under pressure to hide the imperfection to maintain financial viability because they have not yet “made it”? Maybe going by the old adage of “forewarned is forearmed”, a helpful thing ASI can do for spiritual teachers is to just let them know that even after awakening they will still have habitual energy patterns arise, aspects of the personality will arise, there will still be lesh avidyas, and to be conscious about that and to see those as opportunities for further growth, rather than “something going wrong”. And recommend that they don’t blow them off, but go as deeply into them as they can to get as much purification as possible. “Of course things go wrong. But I don’t suffer anymore because it doesn’t “hook” my ego.” Before enlightenment: a negative emotion arises and plays you like a fool for the better part of a day or two. After enlightenment: a negative emotion arises and you go, “Oh look. Isn’t that interesting. Wonder what else I can find.” Ultimately, the journey of radical authenticity is a sacred one, marked by the willingness to embrace imperfection as a catalyst for growth. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of self-awareness. As spiritual teachers and seekers walk this path together, they create a space of compassion and understanding, rooted in the recognition o four shared humanity. It is understandable that modern awakened teachers look to the past as a guide for their interactions with their students. This includes how their own teachers interacted with them. It is also understandable that modern students and seekers look to the past as a guide for how “awakened” people are supposed to act. Both, however, must be careful they aren’t wearing rose colored glasses and make the effort to sift past the mythic perfection found, after all, in stories usually told by “unawakened” admirers. The modern spiritual teacher must free herself from the corrosive false expectations of a paradigm of perfection that never actually existed and never served anyone, teacher or student, well. As must the modern spiritual seeker. I am calling for modern spiritual teachers to practice a radical authenticity with their students by being completely open, honest, and transparent about the imperfections which continue to arise, and for modern spiritual students to come to the spiritual relationship with a greater maturity. You can deconstruct the ego like an onion, one layer at a time. Or, you can cut it down at the roots, like a tree, in one fell swoop. But you still have to rake the leaves afterwards.

Jac O’Keeffe, Phil Goldberg and Sneha Rao presented at the Harvard Divinity School conference on “ Alternative Spiritualities of Celebration, Resistance, and Accountability: Engaging Our Colonial and Decolonial Contexts. “ You can watch Jac O’Keeffe’s talk “Exploring the Influence of Colonialism on Ethics and Accountability in Alternative Spiritual Teaching and Proposing a New System of Accountability” below. Jac’s presentation focused primarily on the mission of the ASI. A link to the full panel discussion that explores broader issues will be available shortly.

At the start of this year, ASI launched the second pilot of the Peer Support Research Program. The findings are detailed below. Throughout the pilot, 37 participants formed seven groups, each consisting of 4-6 peers. The program took place from January to May 2023, with groups meeting at least eight times. Four groups decided to continue their meetings beyond the official conclusion of the pilot, and one of these groups wishes to continue indefinitely. It is worth mentioning that our first pilot also saw some groups extending their meetings beyond the official program duration, and one group has continued indefinitely.  Their feedback was not included in the data collection for the second pilot to prevent the success stories from the first pilot from skewing the findings of the second pilot. Throughout the second pilot, participants were asked to provide feedback through online surveys, and one-on-one interviews were conducted with the facilitators of each of the peer support groups. Here are the key findings from the post-pilot survey, reflecting feedback from 27 participants: Supportive Relationships : 78% of participants reported that their groups formed supportive relationships that were personally beneficial to them. Self-Discovery : 78% of participants stated that they learned important things about themselves, including their strengths and challenges, from their group experience. Learning from Others : 78% found value in listening to how others in the group approached their issues and challenges, learning from their experiences. Support and Advice : 78% received valuable support and/or advice related to specific challenges they faced during the months of group meetings. Practical Insights : 44% gained practical insights about the business or professional aspects of their spiritual leadership. Broadened Perspective s: 78% appreciated hearing perspectives from spiritual leaders in other lineages and backgrounds. Value of Peer Support : 81% developed a greater appreciation for the value of peer support for spiritual teachers and leaders in general. Future Interest : 81% expressed interest in participating in a similar peer support group in the future. Here are three of those points, reflected as charts – the rest are in the attached pdf file. These results underscore the significant impact of the ASI Peer Support Program Pilot 2 and the positive influence it had on our community members. It is also evident from our findings that matching the right peers and providing training and support for group facilitators significantly contributed to the success of these groups. Each group had the autonomy to explore professional-related themes or create a space for personal vulnerability and honesty. It’s interesting and exciting to note that receiving personal support was valued more highly and more frequently than learning business skills from each other. We extend our gratitude to all who contributed to the success of this program, including our team of volunteers who established a supportive online platform, offered training, and monitored ongoing participant needs. We look forward to further enhancing and expanding our peer support initiative for the ASI community.

Izzy Swanson presented the following paper at the recent Harvard Divinity School Conference “Uses and Abuses of Power in Alternative Spiritualities”. He kindly agreed to let me share it on our blog. Izzy is a devotee of the Morrigan. He is a founding member of the Order of the Crows Priesthood and a hearth member of the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood. In his day-to-day work, Izzy is an Energetic Safety and Trauma Specialist and the owner of Feileacan Ministry in Austin, Texas. If the PDF document does not display correctly in your browser, please click here to open a copy in a new tab.

Recording Available to Watch ASI Presentation At Harvard Divinity School Conference  With many thanks to the team at HDS, we are glad to be able to share this recording of the ASI presentation Lessons From a Young Organization Making a Difference  by Jac O’Keeffe, Philip Goldberg and Rick Archer from the Harvard Divinity School conference Uses and Abuses of Power in Alternative Spiritualities .   This recognition from a leading theological institution is acknowledgement of the behind-the-scenes work we’ve been doing to transform the paradigm of spiritual leadership with a code of ethics, resources, education and peer support.

BY SETH ZUIHŌ SEGALL Does enlightenment make you a good person? Seth Zuihō Segall ponders the balancing act of enlightenment and admirability in Zen Buddhism. Read original article here: https://www.lionsroar.com/youre-going-to-carry-that-weight/

By Riya Gulati, Guest Blogger No one really wants to grow old, but growing up gracefully is an art which only few people practice. Every age has its own beauty, glory and wisdom. It’s a misconception that one becomes (physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually) weak during old age. One can truly defeat the age by keeping the childish attitude alive as it helps in the healing process and enjoying little things in life. The fountain of youth can be perennially present in one’s mind, soul, attitude, creative skills, emotions, innocence, energy, talent, enthusiasm, passion, pleasure, excitement, love and laughter. Practicing the ten rules of Ikigai can help in living a fulfilling life. The Japanese people live a longer and happier life because they stay active and don’t retire; leave urgency behind and adopt a slower pace of life; only eat until they are 80% full; surround themselves with good people; get in shape via daily and gentle exercise; smile often and acknowledge the people around them; reconnect with nature; are grateful to everything that brightens up the day and makes them feel alive; cherish and live in the present moment and follow their passion. It is good to be selfless, but at the same time taking care and taking out time for oneself is pivotal. You are capable of taking care of someone else only if you are well so make sure to be your best friend and carer. The persisting lifestyle has not only reduced the number of years from one age, but has also introduced new varieties of mental disorders. Mental health issues are not only restricted to old people, but are also prevalent in youngsters and middle age groups as well (depending upon their life scenario). Being gentle and kind to the person facing a mental issue is what we need to learn. Also, never miss out the chance to help such people as you are making a difference in someone’s life. The good thing about mental health issue is that it can be improved taking into consideration the following pointers: Adopt a new hobby:  Getting busy in life avert the eruptions of negative thoughts. Try to get engaged in solo or group activities. There is no limit for any age to explore new things. Had age got some restrictions, India would not have been able to see the dawn of development under the regime of Hon’ble Narendra Modi. Do the best you can until you know better and when you know better, do better. Spend Time with your loved ones:  Life becomes miraculous when you have got your loved ones surrounding you. The purpose of earning a living is to give a better life to family members and earn bread & butter for oneself, so make sure to respect both! Less Screen Time:  Reducing screen time frees up more time to live in the real world and enjoy the beauty that is happening all around us. It also helps with better focus and brain function. Prolonged screen time impedes sleep, decreases vision, and leads to physical, emotional and mental health problems. Laugh out Loud:  In the early morning, you might have heard the laughter of people. Oh yes, laughing is a good exercise. Unfortunately, the persisting lifestyle has made us practice artificial laughter. Try to be light and spread happiness all around. Watch funny shows, laugh at your problems and yourself, befriend a funny person, spend time with kids/pets, play fun games, do more what makes you laugh, try laughter meditation and think funny Love without limits and learn to be detached:  You usually have control over yourself and your emotions (not on others). So, love selflessly without any expectations in return. In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty. Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you. The root of suffering is attachment so allow others to be who they are. Don’t force situations as solutions will emerge. In attachment, man loses himself wherein he is no more a master of himself, but a slave. Relish every moment and enjoy deeply:  Your life is simply a collection of all your thoughts and actions. So, make sure to steer it in the right direction. Be joyful of little things in life. One day, everything will make sense so for now, smile through the tears, laugh at the confusion, and remind yourself that everything will be alright. Sing, dance & play hard. Have a child-like attitude of enjoying life to the fullest with utmost innocence. Meditate sincerely & have faith:  Meditation helps in averting the distractions and reinforce the focus. Brilliant things take place in calm minds. Meditation leads to a life of serenity. Quiet the mind which is wandering in wrong direction by breathing exercises, bird/sky/star watching, spend time in nature, go for a walk, listen to music, read, write out your feelings, watch something good, help someone, relax, hang out, get creative, manage household chores, practice mindfulness, colour, count, recite and run, practice acceptance, and most importantly pray. Help endlessly:  Practicing kindness really makes you the most beautiful and adorable person in the world. Helping another struggling soul sends out the message that love can be found in the world. Also, you are always remembered by your deeds. Unlike beauty, good nature/soul is imperishable. People will always remember you for how you made them feel. So, make sure to leave a lovely memory for them by practicing good deeds. Also, you radiate differently when you help others. Small gestures, compliments, giving a helping hand, lifting others, making someone smile, sharing your blessings and giving back to the society can make a difference not only in the lives of others, but also in your life. Henceforth, be rich in heart and generous while helping others. Ignore quickly and forgive more:  Both candle and incense stick burns, but while burning, the candle melts down quickly, whereas the incense stick also gets finished, but it spreads its fragrance all around. The incense sticks create a refreshing, alluring and aromatic environment. So, if any person has done wrong with you- ignore that quickly, forgive easily and move on. Don’t let the wrong of others occupy or burden you. Create and spread your own fragrance by imbibing a big heart. Forget the past, live in the present and worry less about the future:  The only thing you have now in your hand is your present, so forget the past (bad) memories and worry less about the future. The past is a place to learn from, not to live in and the best way to forget the past is to build new memories. The art of life is to live in the present moment. It is fine to visit the past to cherish good memories and think about the future for planning purposes (just avoid overthinking). Stay strong and cheer out for yourself:  You need to stay strong as things will get better during the due course. Nothing is permanent in life. If things are going well- enjoy it as it will not last forever. If things are going unwell, don’t worry as it can’t last long either. God has faith in your abilities that is why he has given the problem to someone who has the capability to overcome such difficulties. After every dark night, comes a bright day. Be your own light during the time of darkness. Be happy and think positively:  Children are usually happy as they don’t have clutter in their minds that emits negative thoughts. They go with the flow as these innocent hearts know the fact everything will be alright. Try to be so happy that when someone sees you, they too become happy. Adopt a positive mental attitude as it will help you in overcoming the challenges in your life. Life is simple, don’t make it complicated. Spread your radiance and happiness all around. About the Author Name: Riya Gulati Qualifications: LL.M (Intellectual Property & Information Technology) from University College Dublin (Ireland) & BA.LLB from Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University (India)

Text reposted: Truth be told: I’ve been in a healing cocoon, mending a broken heart. In 2020, I learned that my spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan, who passed away in 2004, sexually abused many women in his lifetime. A few months after finding this out, the pandemic hit, and a tour I had planned was postponed. That’s when I entered my cocoon. I could have stayed there forever as the image I long held of my teacher crumbled before my eyes. I cried with those bravely telling their stories and as more stories of abuse emerged from our community. Yogi Bhajan taught me Kundalini yoga and introduced me to the Sikh lifestyle, all of which inspired a set of daily practices I have done since I was a teenager. These practices have brought joy, peace, and strength to my life. I had many positive experiences with Yogi Bhajan. Yet, here is what emerged in my time of reflection. Although I never experienced physical abuse firsthand, I realized how much control he exerted over my life in ways that caused me a lot of pain that I am beginning to process and heal from. I also realized that I believed that Yogi Bhajan was perfect and that I could never match up to that level of perfection and what I thought I should be. This belief left me feeling disempowered and insecure as I aimed for the impossibility of that perfection for many years. I am now forging my own sovereign connection with my spiritual path. I can no longer call Yogi Bhajan my spiritual teacher. Here are the questions I ask myself. Do I love my daily practice and lifestyle that Yogi Bhajan inspired me to do? Absolutely. Do I hate the abusive and controlling behavior I have come to understand? Yes, completely. Holding both hate and love is my path right now. It causes my heart to break and tears to flow. Yet, I am inviting myself and anyone who has ever tried to be perfect or thought someone else was perfect, to let go of that notion and just be who you are. Stand in the “I’m sorry.” Stand with the goal of doing better and being better. Stand in love and in the pain. Go deeper into something much greater — into the presence of your soul and being. I am grateful to those who have bravely told their stories of abuse and pray for my capacity to do my part along with our entire community, to acknowledge our mistakes, apologize, repair, and create environments of healing, love, and respect for all — now and for our generations to follow. In love and gratitude, Snatam Kaur

See What’s Important” painting by Carol Phillips Whitt I have lived my life from a feeling of equality with all beings and want to resurrect and make popular old-fashioned values like humility and respect. In March of 2021, I wrote about the value of promoting humble and vulnerable art. A year later I felt moved to expand what I’d written to include the realm of spiritual awakening. Through spiritual writing and teaching, I advocate for equality and integrity and work to evolve formats that support equality both within hierarchical structures and also as an alternative to hierarchy entirely. My work in the world has primarily been that of a teacher and caregiver. Power in Transmuting Fear by Arena Heidi Those whom I teach and care for, in their own ways, also teach me. I have discovered that even individuals with extremely severe handicaps have different but equally valuable qualities and lessons to offer. Teaching, learning, and caring are mutually dependent and intertwined. Although all parts of life offer opportunity for insight, my husband, Denny, has been my most consistent spiritual teacher. We each follow our own path but support each other as equals in accessing and living our true nature. Always, he helps me to keep it grounded and real. Due to the loss of my caregiving work during Covid-19, I have had time to devote myself to inner healing and writing. As I move into spiritual teaching and publicly sharing my work, the equality that I established in other capacities is strengthened here as well. I receive pleasure from collaborating with others and drawing out the wisdom of another. My life has been lived on the outskirts of mainstream culture, so I easily identify with those whom society has cast away. I know firsthand what it is like to live poor and on the edge. Spiritual awakening, healing trauma, art making, and subconscious guidance from dreams have tightly woven themselves together. In this article, I write first about humanness in the art world and then how it relates to spiritual realms of wisdom. When making art for inner development, I have found that the quality of the art is relatively unimportant. What matters most is receptivity and inner listening. Spending time gazing at a completed healing image, is an effortless way to absorb nonverbal communication that flows from the unconscious. I make art as a way of partaking of the vast unknown mystery. I have learned to not reject any work that feels like failure or a mistake. It is even more valuable to sit with and absorb uncomfortable elements that arise. It’s a means of becoming more human, more whole. Art-making then becomes a practice of learning to judge less, and a way to integrate rejected portions of self. Along with beauty and inspiration, art may bring forth imperfection, shame, confusion, immaturity, or some other shadow aspect of self. I hold uncomfortable things with compassion and love; it’s an ongoing practice. When living in a space of open receptivity, words and writing may then deepen nonverbal understanding and connection. Though we respond powerfully to art without knowing its intended meaning, appreciation expands when one learns about the artist and what the piece meant to them. I like to understand an artist’s process, especially that which compels them as a human being. Some people make art for money, business, and fame. But many seek something more than just selling. Unfortunately, there may be a rift between those who make art for galleries and collectors, and those who make art for healing. Art made for healing and personal meaning is typically judged and devalued. Those without training, who make art that has been labeled “outsider”, often leave a rich legacy of work that is only appreciated after they pass. I long to inhabit a world that does not divide insiders from outsiders. I want to reclaim and promote art that expresses humbleness, vulnerability, sensitivity, and intimacy—art that serves to keep us open and human, connected and whole. Art that allows us to recognize and value under-appreciated aspects of each other and ourselves. A Sensitivity of Connection by Arena Heidi Although I wrote the above words about art-making, these same metaphors apply for spiritual awakening. There are insiders who use the charisma of self-realization to amass followers, fame, and material wealth for themselves. And, as in other areas of life, there are insiders of spiritual lineages, who misuse their position of hierarchy and power. I intend no disrespect, and recognize that countless beings have benefited from ancient wisdom teachings of diverse religions and faiths. However, many have also been abused and harmed by those in positions of spiritual authority, as well as by insiders who covered and minimized the abusive misdeeds of their teachers and cohorts. People and situations are complex. Sometimes extremes of both benefit and harm coexist together. We must all hold ourselves responsible for caring about the treatment of the vulnerable. And also, we must delve more deeply into the core of abuse and find humane and restorative ways to end repetitive cycles of victims becoming abusers. Many difficulties arise from imposing hierarchical relationships upon others and the world around us. Especially when existing within systems of hierarchy, it is helpful to not elevate teachings, teachers, or self, and put someone or something on a pedestal. Often, that which is put up, invariably falls down. Conversely, it is good to take care to not belittle and judge others or self. The tendency to put others up and down, often arises from an underlying sense of lack, or a feeling of being damaged at one’s core. Instead of encouraging blind obedience to authority and elevating particulars, we can teach a cultivation of respect, dignity, kindness, and reciprocity; and move in beneficial directions of empowering one another. That which you seek and elevate externally, may also be found within. Beginning to See by Arena Heidi There exist among us, some who live humble, quiet, enlightened lives, without attracting much attention at all. There are stories of sages and hermits who’ve lived entire lifetimes meditating in hidden caves. People in undeveloped nations often recognize and revere the saints, shamans, and sadhus who roam among them or live penniless in nearby caves. In these places, boundaries between insanity and enlightenment are often blurred. In our developed world, it is perhaps even easier to live a simple life of spiritual obscurity, because people tend to only see that which meets their predisposed expectations and is glorified and promoted by the media. It has become difficult for us to discern truth from lies, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that which our media manipulates us into thinking. We don’t recognize the living buddhas and saints standing next to us, because they may be clothed in and speaking the unexpected. We dehumanize, judge, and isolate those who do not meet our standards of acceptability. Healers sometimes see ordinary people, or those who have been deemed outcasts, with remarkably expansive energy fields. But also, and even more importantly, every person alive has unique gifts to offer. To recognize and value the strength which lies hidden within another, is a blessing for us all. Gathering of Another Dimension by Saskia Rosa Hartmann It is much more difficult to live an invisible and challenging life of obscurity, than it is to evolve within families or systems of support. Expansive beings often incarnate into handicapped bodies and difficult lives because of the extraordinary opportunity and potential those lives offer. The book, “In Love with the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying” by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is one of my favorites, because it illustrates the hardship that an awakened monk experiences, when living an unrecognized life without his robes of distinction. Mingyur Rinpoche gave up his prestigious monastic life to wander the world for four years. He survived his ordeals and near-death experience. The arduous circumstances profoundly tested and deepened his wisdom. Yet, he also came close to passing away in obscurity, and that happens frequently, too. There is no way for us to hear about and learn from the invisible lives of those who wandered but didn’t return. Or the radiant beings, who roamed too far over an edge of mental illness or addiction, and passed beyond without enough time to share their more sensitive light. We each are a vital and equal part of this grand dance of divinity. Our lives and existence depend entirely upon a vast unknown mystery and indwelling spark of God. Some of us consciously surrender to the unknown and rest in the genuine to a greater or lesser degree. But each life may be likened to a spiritual teaching of one kind or another. I hope to reclaim and promote the lives and spiritual qualities of those who have become lost due to the sophistication and intellectual reasoning of our culture. I spend time being with and humbly integrating a full range of diverse human experience that exists within and around me. It is only through being with my own weakness and flaws, that I may be able to grasp and appreciate the humanity of another, with its full capacity for both hatred and love, craziness and sanity. For wherever we fall on the spectrum of light and dark, awakened or asleep, may we retrieve and treat kindly these underappreciated aspects of each other and ourselves. May we learn to live humble lives of integrity. May we discover and live a redemption of the whole. ~ Arena Heidi has lived a simple, dedicated spiritual life in Vermont. Seamlessly, over a span of 30 years, she has eased into a sense of inner fruition. She has a BFA from Tufts University, and enjoys learning and exploring the natural world, the subconscious, human nature, and a vast unknown. She appreciates comments and inclusive discussion that welcomes sensitive and diverse perspectives. She is looking to collaborate with others around non-hierarchical ways to impart spiritual insight and empower those whose voice has been suppressed. Her website is www.kindground.org

by John Lindsey , ASI Member With the rise of the internet over the past three decades, a massive amount of information is now at the fingertips of nearly two-thirds of the total world population. Spiritual teachings are no exception to this and are widely distributed to—and by—a varied and diverse audience. This is wonderful, as teachings which had remained esoteric for millennia are finally available to the public and have encouraged the growth and acceptance of spirituality beyond its traditional religious associations and rituals. On the other hand, this accessibility can easily lead one into spiritual cul de sacs or alleyways that might not have been possible with less available teachings. YouTube, in particular, has become a kind of broadcast hub for many within the realm of contemporary spirituality, with a growing contingent from nonduality schools, old and new. While experienced, well-known modern teachers can be viewed on the platform (Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, John Prendergast, Pema Chodron, Thomas Keating, Swami Sarvapriyananda, etc.) in addition to archival footage of historical teachers, there are many others taking up the mantle of teaching on a regular basis. Independent contributors regularly present videos describing various awakening-events, post-awakening processes, Satsang which they host online, guided meditations, and more. Herein lies a treacherous path for any seeker: Thousands of accounts of what one should or shouldn’t be doing to move toward so-called “enlightenment.” The stakes seem high, indeed. How is one to know which perspectives to engage? I’d like to offer the following considerations if one is searching for nondual resources through YouTube. These are based solely on my own experience of the platform—others may have a significantly different interpretation. The suggestions apply primarily to lesser-known presenters, but can potentially be helpful across the whole spectrum of teachings available. They primarily refer to nondual content and teachings, though they may apply to other approaches to spirituality as well. I will use the terms “teacher” and “presenter” interchangeably throughout the narrative. Presenters with ambiguous language masking a commercial structure: The marketplace for commercialized spirituality has seen an exponential increase since its beginnings in the early-to-mid 20th century. There is nothing inherently unethical about a teacher asking for financial compensation for their time— there are plenty who are clear that they run workshops, retreats, and individual sessions for a fee. However, if what is presented is referred to as a “sharing”, “friendship”, or “mirror of yourself” and then payment is somehow requested or required, I view this as a deliberate misrepresentation. It seems like there are some YouTube channels which present content that is designed to “dangle the carrot”, encouraging a viewer to visit the presenter’s website for more engagement—it then turns out that there is a fee for any further interaction (some of which are quite high—the largest I’ve encountered is a $2,000 per month commitment, which pays for two meetings per month). While the YouTube content itself may, in fact, be a pro bono posting, the intent behind it may be financial gain. Fundamentalist message/teaching: Fundamentalism of thought and an oppositional stance is generally best approached with skepticism. While at first glance it may seem that the nondual viewpoint fosters this position less than mainstream religion, one may quickly come to find that it is equally as prevalent within various traditions and systems of nonduality. These “My Way or the Highway” teachers tend to regularly bristle when questioned or challenged and reject contrasting viewpoints as illegitimate. While occasional frustration or defensiveness is a human pattern that can happen to any of us, some of these teachers tend to display it regularly, though it often masquerades as a kind of lofty authority to their presence (to say nothing of a stereotypical guru-persona that may accompany this kind of presentation). Denouncing the viewpoint, thought process, or experiential validity of others can be common. Emphasis on a singular aspect of nonduality/potentially damaging language: This may be the single largest issue present within the YouTube nonduality community and has the most potential for detrimental outcomes. It is frequently encountered amongst those who have very recently begun their discourse/teaching/sharing and those who begin speaking on nonduality relatively soon after an awakening experience, which sometimes go hand-in-hand. However, this kind of linguistic description can also be found within more experienced teachers as well. An approach that is more slanted toward the relative world and various manifestations of life can sometimes lead seekers into a kind of hedonistic irresponsibility— everything is seen as “a celebration” or “miracle” that deserves some kind of recognition or indulgence, and compulsive behavior may be dismissed as non-problematic. This language tends to discount suffering in the world as “part of the perfection” without acknowledging the pain it entails. Additionally, this approach is the most frequent source of “mythologizing” the awakening experience and the subsequent shift(s) in consciousness that may occur. Spiritual bypassing can be common. On the other end of the spectrum are presenters who place a heavy emphasis on the path of negation and/or disregard for the relative world. These teachers tend to view the waking human experience (if not all of existence) as illusory and insignificant, with physical phenomena being viewed as perturbations of vast nothingness. Commonly used phrases are “nothing matters”, “there is no purpose”, “you don’t exist”, etc., to communicate what they view as the absolute nature of reality. Impersonal language abounds in this approach, sometimes bordering on the nonsensical. This view, especially when presented by those with a recent realization, can be given without sufficient compassion in its delivery and be confused as a kind of nihilistic, reductionist view of life. Some individuals will find themselves overwhelmed and hopeless in the face of this language to the point of severe psychological breakdown that may or may not entail suicidal or other harmful thinking. Spiritual bypassing is common here, as well. While both approaches contain facets of truth, I do not view either as complete in or of themselves. If a teacher truly experiences either of these aspects as the dominant perspective from which life is viewed, there is no fault in saying so— however, great caution must be taken in how these experiences are described in order to safeguard the health and well-being of individuals who come into contact with the message. Semantic debate and disagreement are plentiful in nondual circles and serve to enliven the conversation around a subject that is, in actuality, completely indescribable. Even so, this should never supersede the needs of those who are seeking out these viewpoints. While there are plentiful cautions in addition to the short list above, these three seem important regarding lesser-known presenters who are gaining traction on the YouTube platform. These attributes are rarely malicious in their intent; rather, they are simply presentations or teaching that may be less skillful than they could be. What, on the other hand, are the hallmarks of a skillful presenter? I won’t go into as much detail here, but the following is a list of a few of many notable qualities that seem to point to authentic, beneficent, and ethical presentation, in my view: Balanced presentation between affirmation/world of relativity and negation/emptiness Presenter does not speak outside his/her/their experience, and acknowledges when a given subject is beyond his/her/their purview Presenter acknowledges and respects varied viewpoints Presenter meets questions or objections with kindness and compassion Presenter is not afraid to say the phrase “I don’t know.” Presenter is focused primarily on the wellness of other beings, with the explanation of their viewpoint/method/experience in service to that end Presenter utilizes self-disclosure sparingly and with purpose Presenter maintains a presence of openness, non-aggression, and safety for all involved Although there does tend to be a natural upwelling and outpouring instinct pertaining to the insights that can arise after awakening, presenters would do well to approach this patiently, methodically, and preferably in partnership with a peer or more experienced mentor. These measures are not to dispute the validity of an awakening—only the individual knows the authenticity of that. Rather, they serve as linguistic safeguards against discourse that may mislead or harm those it is meant to help. After all, if one is going to speak about spiritual practice, awakening, and/or orientation after awakening, the only reason to do so in my view is to be of benefit to others. Accordingly, the language used must consider the very real fact that many spiritual seekers are part of a high-risk group. Individuals often come to spirituality after some kind of life-shaking event or crisis, and the wrong language at the wrong time can further destabilize an individual’s situation. The click of the record button must come not only with the acknowledgment of our transcendence, nor only our emptiness, but also our precious, fragile, miraculous humanity.

The dangers of becoming a spiritual teacher—and how to avoid them by developing peer-powered embodied wisdom to match our awakened minds By Nick Jankel Author, Keynote Speaker, Leadership Theorist, Transformational Coach, Wisdom Teacher, Co-Creator of Bio-Transformation Theory & Practice® The Dangers of Spiritual Teaching I am clear that most wisdom teachers, spiritual teachers, come to the work because of their own pain and suffering. It’s what happened to the historical Buddha. Enlightenment can turn wounds into embodied wisdom teachings . Most of my fellow teachers will happily say this healing process was part of their journey. I can definitely say that I found the truth and experience of enlightenment to be the only thing big enough to help me handle the pain of my abused, bullied, and neurotic former self. When one realizes that the process of  switching on  /waking up changes everything, and one groks that until others get this they will always suffer, a lifelong commitment to spreading this realization seems the only sensible choice. I fully understand the fervent, all-encompassing evangelism for sharing spiritual enlightenment with the entire world. However,  as I detail in my books , any purposeful mission can always be hijacked by our need to protect ourselves from threats and control a chaotic world. The ego, what we prefer to call our Protector, is not wrong or bad. Far from it. It has a sacred and evolutionarily elemental job to keep us alive. But to do this, it uses old patterns—feelings, beliefs, and habits that once worked to keep us safe but are now probably maladapted—to do its job. This is where most self-sabotage and almost “evil” behavior stems: the repetition of defensive moves to control the crazy and protect us, when they are not a fit for the moment. Anyone who has established protective patterns to get by life that include, say: being rude or mean-spirited; being desirous of being sexually desired; becoming over-confident when anxious to the point of arrogance; wanting to be safe in life with a pot of cash; wanting to be seen, heard, and respected as brilliant— so that means pretty much everyone — will always be at risk of being triggered into such patterns. This is biology. This means most people who become wisdom teachers are at the constant risk of being profoundly inappropriate, sexually tacky, power-crazed, and financially duplicitous. It goes with being human. This is why there are so many abuses of power, money, and sexuality in so many spiritual communities. When charismatic spiritual teachers meet everyday folks who project their need for a savior/divinity/master onto a teacher, power can reshape the teacher and disconnect them from the flow of humanity. Many (mostly male and definitely masculine) gurus enjoy being the savior/divinity/master. If their own protective patterns have developed to allow them to feel strong, important, respected, special, then they can easily get hooked into assuming a role atop the pyramid of power. Even if we think we are liberated and emancipated, the social conditioning of expecting a father-figure to save us, to guide us, to provide us with the answer… can be hard to be free from. Then otherwise smart and sensible people get caught in the tractor beam of charismatic power, becoming acolytes who enact their own often neurotic protective patterning to “enable” the gurus. Turning Our Own Wounds Into Wisdom In my view, a true wisdom teacher—and embodied wisdom teacher—must have a sufficiently healed heart, from years of deep and committed inner work, to have anything worth teaching in the first place. This means not just doing spiritual practice, teaching non-duality, or helping people bliss out in the oneness (whether with aya or dance, meditation or toad venom) but integrating that experience into everyday life with the rigorous transformation of gnarly psychological trauma… ours first of all. Perhaps no one is ever fully healed. But the process of constant healing helps us become ever-more whole, which helps our teaching bring others in wholeness, through transforming trauma into embodied wisdom. Old-world, positively medieval, hierarchies are so embedded in both West and East and they lock us into permanent disempowerment and diminishment. No genuine teacher of wisdom, who has embodied that wisdom as love glowing in their hearts and guts, can believe in a dominative hierarchy. As teachers/coaches/healers, we merely point the way, provide a map, hold space for heart opening, cultivate the condition for healing, dialogue with the nervous system of our clients and participants, wake up the wisest parts of them… but we are never doing the illuminating or healing ourselves. Once someone has learned what they can from us, we must send them along to their next teacher—or just go practice what they have learned for a few years in everyday life). We should have no ‘acolytes’ ever, least of all those who cover up their messes from the public, attack critics in workshops and online, and act as apologists for any abuses. We never form an (abusive or neglectful) parent and (traumatized) child dynamic with our students/clients. This relationship will disable, disempower, and diminish everyone in the system. So the teacher refuses sycophancy of all kinds: actively and compassionately. Above all, we must never get high on our own supply. We always know we are always going to be vulnerable and deeply flawed beings who have a Protector ready to hijack anything we do, no matter how heartfelt, and turn into something that hurts others. Hurt hearts, hurt hearts. When it’s a wisdom teacher, it is truly tainted love. Systemic Failure In The Patriarchal Guru System As someone who does wisdom teaching on the one hand, and  transformational innovation  on the other, I have come to realize that the issues of guru abuse are symptoms of “fails” in the teacher-pupil paradigm; and guru-disciple business model that underpins it. As one of the ‘gurus’ of systems change, Peter Senge, says: never blame the person, look to transform the system. The next Buddha must be the sangha, or community. Not an individual but a network. Not a guru but a group. Not another Christ but a Circle. The network or circle — complete with peer-powered transformation technologies — is the “antidote for, or the completion of, hierarchy” (to quote my peer coach/teacher Scott Vineberg): it flattens out command and control urges, sending power to the edges where it then empowers everyone to switch on and step up with their own transformations. As teachers, we insight-share and space-hold to create the conditions by which others within the group or circle can heal ruptures in their relational fields. We teach people tools and practices by which clients/students can work with their peers (family, colleagues, lovers, friends, fellow students) to do the inner work together. We harness our disciplined practice of, and nuanced knowledge about, meditation, music, movement, and more to help people integrate their realizations and revelations into their body, and embed them into life. But we always know that we are peers in the network/circle/sangha. Wisely designed peer-to-peer systems allow everyone to work with other humans to free themselves from old patterns and embed new repatterns into their leadership and love lives. In peer-powered horizontal networks, those in vertical positions atop pyramids, whether CEOs or gurus, have to give up power to the people (whilst still being confident yet humble leaders). They support the people from below: with servant, supportive, stewardship. In a transformational network/group /circle /community, many people have some of the truth. They can, and must, share it with others. This is their purpose calling them to act. To be of service they teach with love about love. They can even be paid for it. After all, those diapers don’t pay for themselves. Teachers amplify the potentiality for the wholeness of those they serve. Showing Up Whole There is still very much a role for an embodied wisdom teacher within this network-sangha, as long as we see ourselves as one in a node in a network, or one a point within a circle. True wisdom teachers of the 21st Century don’t ever seek to rise up to the top of the outdated pyramid of hierarchy (literally, “rule by the priests”); or seek to sit upon the apex pontificating to subordinates and preaching to acolytes. Sure they teach. Sure they write. Sure they send out Youtube videos and podcast interviews. But they never take their mission too seriously even as they know it is the most important thing on the planet bar none. If we are going to ride the wide-open plains of the unregulated wild (wild) West of wisdom teaching/coaching/healing, it is essential that we surround ourselves not with people stuck in a “fawning” protective pattern (wanting to be loved or find a rescuer) but those who love us and can act as peer-supervisors: they see us as awesome yet deeply flawed human beings. Given the trappings of power, and the evolutionary design of the Protector to grab onto it to feel safe, I believe that it is essential that every teacher surrounds themselves with friends, lovers—and above all peers—who do not drink their Kool-Aid (or at least are not addicted to it); are delighted to burst their bubbles (lovingly, in-service); and can elegantly coach them on their blindspots to become ever more purposeful. I take to heart the Jewish mystical saying: don’t take up too much space but don’t take up too little either. Suffering is everywhere. People are yearning for support, for inspiration, and for guidance. If we have teachings and practices that can alleviate the suffering—after years and years of our own humbling stumbling—then our dharma is to offer it to others as a teacher/healer. Nothing else can suffice. Yet no matter how much other-worldly spiritual brilliance and “ crazy wisdom ” we (profess to) have, we must also have this-worldly integrity and old-fashioned social morality: we pay money back if it’s owed; we show up on time to meetings, always respecting others time as much as our own; we don’t cheat on our partners; polyamory is consciously consensual by all parties (with no-one really wishing they were in committed monogamy); we can be relied upon to change diapers and be present for our children’s bathtime; we are transparent about our business dealings and happy to explain all and any profits; we are ready to own our own contribution to anyone’s upset. This means we must be embodied wisdom teachers, not  disembodied minds competing for attention in the gurusphere . We are congruent and coherent: our everyday actions and emotions align with our wise words and wonderful philosophies. We know deep down that whilst we package up and share teachings, we don’t “own” them (and such teaching are never a complete system that has no fragilities or frailties). Embodied wisdom teachers walk the Middle Way between nihilism and absolutism, between hubris and humility, between chutzpah and chochmah: modern-day bodhisattvas vowed to spread the love… without the need for big paybacks in Rolls Royces, Youtube likes, or adulating crowds. If we as a wisdom teacher, of all people, can’t laugh at how our Protector has taken control of the ship, and release our protective patterning go quickly as we can transform it in real-time with presence, then we are clearly hooked on our own supply. Time to stop teaching and start  learning  again! Footstool vs. Pedestal Theory Perhaps embodied wisdom teaching starts, and possibly ends, with being able to come into an open-hearted, reciprocal, and interdependent relationship (then dialogue) with anyone, without needing to be on a pedestal of any kind. In other words, we can be with any human (and element of nature) without needing to be mysterious, hard to reach, inaccessible, or hidden behind acolytes or media walls—and without grasping for higher status with passively aggressive ways of teaching. We teachers must sit atop a footstool from time to time: just above others to be seen fully. Otherwise, people won’t get much value from us. Students/clients cannot see who is speaking and sharing. They cannot connect with us or relate to us as we are blurred by the crowd. They probably cannot hear us either. But we never sit atop a pedestal (nor a fancy throne), no matter how tempting it may be to the Protector within us. When people provide us with such a pedestal—literally, metaphorically, or metaphysically—we resist its siren song with all our healing/wholing heart. For the Connector within, the One that actually does the real teaching and healing, is always a learner. So we are always ready to jettison the footstool in a heartbeat, handing it off to a peer as we melt back into the community, from whence we came, to learn again. Whenever The Protector is in command, the Connector must be invited back in to heal, transform, and start over with what the Buddhists call “beginner’s mind”. The true embodied wisdom master is a perpetual pupil because life, and so consciousness, is always dynamic, growing, and changing. Thus we can move from floor to footstool—and back again—in an instant: always ready to serve, always ready to observe. The Atman/Brahman within, the wisdom teacher we all have inside, is a node in the network of humanity—and all life. It is the jewel within Indra’s vast net. Anyone can call anybody out on anything (patterns, amorality, lack of integrity), at anytime (with respect and responsibility). There are no disciples to abuse. There are no acolytes to enable us. There are no gurus to break bad.

Written by Lorell Frysh The Purpose The role of the spiritual teacher or guru is to mirror and reflect the true nature of awareness. The teacher’s presence should remind the student of their own essential nature. It is the love for the guru and the freedom that he/she represents, that triggers the unfolding of the spiritual journey. The whole of the success and validity of the relationship depends on who the teachers and who the students are, and on what each of them is willing to bring to the relationship. The Process It is the warm, open love for the teacher, and the freedom that he/she represents, that triggers the spiritual unfolding. This love enables the student to undergo the onslaught to the ego that is the work of the spiritual journey. Initially, there may be difficulty, as the neurosis of the ego is heightened. The ego needs to be seen in order to be purified. In these moments, the student comes to see the places that are closed to love and those places that crave it. They learn to see the nature of their defenses that arose due to early wounding. It is the unconditional loving regard of the teacher, characterized by the qualities of mutual recognition, equity, respect, honesty, vulnerability, curiosity, openness and trust, that fosters the best possible growth. Common Difficulties in the Relationship One of the difficulties students experience in the student/teacher relationship is the projection onto the teacher of their parent or authority figure who was responsible for their early wounding. In this case, students may unconsciously engage in the projection by trying to please or seduce the teacher, or alternately, by rebelling against them. This because deep down, they don’t believe that they are lovable just as they are. Initially they may project the good parent onto the teacher, and if the teacher disappoints them, they may see the teacher as manipulative or abusive. The judging mind can unconsciously create splitting defenses by flipping between what it likes and does not like. Another issue that may arise is the confusion between submission to a teacher and surrender to a teaching. Submission is the response of an ego that feels a lack of self-worth. It operates from a place of weakness and fear, and depends on the teacher for its sense of self-worth. Surrender on the other hand, involves allowing oneself to be really seen with all the frailties of being human. It is important for the student to be aware of the fact that it is they who grants permission to the teacher to act as an authority on their behalf. Naturally, it is hoped that the student has a strong enough sense of self to be aware of what it is that they want in a teacher. When a person does not have the inner strength of a well-grounded psyche, and embarks on spiritual work, there is a tendency towards spiritual bypassing. Therefore, there needs to be work on both the psyche and the spirit in order for true spiritual expansion to happen. It is a healthy ego structure that can support the deconstruction of the false ego self without further defensive splitting taking place. Ideally, the student should not idealize the teacher, as idealization constricts the energy. The work is best engaged in a spirit of curiosity, innocence, humility, and wonder, allowing for the primordial terrors that often surface as part of the process. Work should be able to contain the student’s feelings of being stuck, resistant, righteous, and struggling over power and judgment, with the recognition that these are part of the process. It is in being truly seen, that we heal. Healthy Student/ Teacher or Guru relationships. The relationship between student and teacher is an important “crucible of learning.” The crucible should be one of mutual recognition and equity that also embodies the qualities of respect, honesty, vulnerability, curiosity, openness, and trust. This allows the intimacy of the relationship to foster the best possible growth. The relationship that is created should be one that enables both the student and the teacher to come together in a way that allows them both to go beyond perception, projections and transference. Because spiritual work involves leaving behind what is comfortable and familiar, adherence to taboos against murder, stealing, lying, and abuse of any kind are imperative in order to maintain a relationship of trust and safety. A good teacher should have the ability to lead by example, and the capacity to admit it when making mistakes. The teacher’s purpose is to enhance the training of the student with appropriate commentary, offer knowledge and wisdom, and ultimately, through love, teach the student to fall in love with the Ultimate Reality. A student should be able to test a teacher in order to ascertain whether they feel the teacher is right for them. It is also imperative that the student be able to recognize when it is time to leave the teacher. A good teacher never creates dependency, as the teaching should be about freedom. When students are ready to be individuated away from the teacher, they should be able to reflect upon the teachings with gratitude, track their growth through the process, have awareness of the places they had been most challenged, and make reparations to themselves and others for anything that still needs to be mended. Unhealthy or False Teachers/Gurus Teachers who are not still working on their own development tend to maintain the dynamic of the parent/child projection. Unhealthy teachers are unconsciously serving their own ego gratification and narcissistic needs, and often have power issues. They prey on the vulnerability of their students and are consequently destructive both to themselves and their students. Warning signs that the relationship is unhealthy: The teacher/guru or upper hierarchy inner circle of the group mislead the student about the group’s purpose. The teacher/guru or upper hierarchy inner circle of the group denigrate the student’s interpretations and do not allow dissent. Students are fed the idea that if they don’t follow group rules or ideas they might “miss out” on some deep inner secret or promise of Enlightenment… or miss a great opportunity “in this lifetime.” Students are segregated within the community. Students are isolated from society. Isolation removes a person from their normal reference points and puts them in an environment that is controlled by the group. Students are deprived of sleep and protein. In unhealthy groups, students are subjected to peer pressure and reinforcement to group norms and behaviors are stressed. Fear and guilt are used as manipulative tools to get a student to adhere to the group ideals. Students who find themselves in this environment are often coming from a deep neediness for external validation and are easily manipulated and brainwashed. Questions for students to ask themselves about their experience with the teacher and the group: Answering “yes” to most of these questions is a sign that you may be in a Cult with a narcissistic teacher: Was I running away from something in my life? Was I in transition or feeling emotionally lost when I joined the group? Did I hope someone would give me something that I felt I did not have? Did I engage in deification of the teacher seeing them as “more than human” or super spiritually accomplished? Did I have an unconscious desire to be “special”? Was I promised Enlightenment or some deep inner secret knowledge that I would miss out on if I don’t follow group norms and rules? Was I told not to trust my intuition? Was I denigrated for being “in my ego”? Was I allowed access to the teacher? Or did I have to build up to that privilege by performing certain tasks and “proving my loyalty”? Did I feel seen, heard, and acknowledged? Was it deemed ok just to human? Was I told to separate from society and my family because they would hold me back? Was the teacher or the group sexually, physically, or emotionally abusive? Were my movements monitored? Was I allowed to work, travel, and move about freely in the outside world? Was I told what or what not to eat, read, and to follow group exercises against my better judgement? Did I crave the acceptance of the group? Lorell Frysh received her PhD in East-West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA. Her doctoral studies focused on interfaith spiritual counseling, transpersonal psychology and the development of consciousness. She is a Minister and Senior Teacher in the Inayati Sufi Order.

In this video clip, part of a larger interview, Adyashanti talks about one of his central pillars, not abdicating authority. Discernment is important in our relationship with spiritual teachers. Ethics matter.

This article, written by Helen W. Mallon , points toward the need for a broader discussion on the topic of trauma. Written from a student’s perspective, we hope this piece stimulates your thoughts and encourages a fresh conversation in the comments below this blog post about trauma within the context of spiritual teaching and guidance. Try telling a goldfish that it’s wet. Assuming you speak its fishy language, it’ll probably say you’re nuts. The water it depends on is so inextricable from its goldfish self that it can’t perceive water as a separate thing. It’s like what the spiritual teacher Adyashanti says about enlightenment. Our consciousness is our arena for awakening, yet consciousness so permeates our being that we can’t feel or grasp it. We can’t experience how obvious enlightenment is until our preconceptions are utterly confounded. The goldfish has to be tossed out of the bowl. The goldfish also reveals something about life for trauma survivors, especially those for whom the identity-building phases of childhood were marred by abuse. Just as the fish can’t see water as separate, we grew up so fused to the trauma reactions embedded in our bodies that our notion of “me” was equivalent to those reactions. I was attacked sexually at a young age. After completely suppressing this memory, I developed an irrational fear of spending the night away from my parents. Sleepovers were torture. Lacking support around my fears and the abuse itself, I concluded that I had been born that way. Shame and feeling defective warped my sense of “me.” The effects persisted as I entered spiritual practice as an adult. As helpful as meditation is, expanded awareness also confronts me with as-yet unhealed pockets of trauma. Unfortunately, sometimes spiritual practice can eject traumatized people from their fishbowls too quickly, with damaging consequences. Occasionally, I’ve winced at the things spiritual teachers say. More than once, I’ve thought: I hope nobody else in this room has been through what I have. Being taught that “anger is never okay” is dangerous if a survivor has blamed herself for her abuse.  Given the teacher’s authority, that self-torture becomes spiritually sanctioned. In Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing , David A. Treleaven describes Brooke, who had lost her baby to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Before the tragedy, Brooke had benefited from meditation, so she thought a weekend retreat would be helpful. “At the end of the first day, disturbing memories (of cuddling her dying daughter) began to engulf her”…She felt “a black hole, pulling for her attention. Rather than feeling the expansiveness she’d experienced in the past, she felt trapped.” Brooke brought her problem to a retreat leader, who listened compassionately. Brooke was instructed to “to keep being mindful of the images and notice when they shifted.” It would have been good advice for most people, but the retreat leader was not equipped to deal with trauma. The images had already thrown Brooke outside her window of tolerance. Once the traumatized brain is hijacked in this way, it becomes frozen in its panic. Despairing, Brooke “left a note to the teachers saying…she had the flu” and left the retreat a day early. She may have viewed leaving the retreat as a failure. Actually, it was wise to leave a situation where she’d been encouraged to dig herself more deeply into a hole. The retreat leader is not to blame for the bad advice, but bad advice it was. The onus is not on people in crisis to correct this problem. The shame of complex trauma makes it hard for survivors to question their teachers or trust their own intuition. Spiritual teachers do not have to become psychologists or therapists, but they must become genuinely trauma-informed. This means more than recognizing signs of trauma and referring people to therapy, though these are important actions. Engagement with traumatized students has to go further. If we begin where we are—which is the only way to begin—then a traumatized person’s spiritual path is fully valid. I don’t view trauma as an impediment for a simple reason: Contemplative practice means engaging with immediate experience, and my immediate experience sometimes includes frightening symptoms. I can usually be with these in friendly curiosity. Recently, though, I did become overwhelmed. Last summer, I started a program designed to open students to their soul-level purpose, the unique way we were each born to be and to serve in the world. Prior to joining, I went through a vetting process, after which the director gave me a cheerful green light. While in the program, I experienced a deeper connection to nature and its messages for my soul than I had known before. It was lovely; I communicated with the energy of trees, and when I became lost on a long hike in a forest, putting my arms around trees gave me a surge of energy to keep going. I reveled in the magic of the forest. Yet the soul-exploration work mined our psychic depths. From my healing work, I was used to this kind of deep digging, but the program accelerated the mining. I shared this with my small group, admitting that the practices had churned up significant trauma. Afterwards, my small-group mentor contacted me with her concerns. She was worried not only about me, but the group. After we talked on Zoom, I decided it was best for me to leave. The program director wrote that once I was ready, I was more than welcome to enroll again. The people I dealt with were extremely kind. My mentor expressed regret that the program was not set up to deal with trauma. The experience left me with more questions than answers. First, I was “ready” before. My healing began about thirty years ago, but the process never ends. Who’s to say the same problem wouldn’t arise? And how could I bring my whole self into the program if it wasn’t equipped to deal with people like me? The subtle messaging wasn’t intentional, but I felt it. I could come back once I was fixed. Or at least more fixed than I currently am. After my plans for the next year crashed and burned, I felt disoriented, with a lot of time on my hands. I kept focusing on meditation. Here’s what I’ve learned: If what Adyashanti says about enlightenment being impossibly close to our everyday experience is true, then trauma survivors are pretty damn close to being monks. Our consciousness is highly tuned to the moment, if not in the most productive ways (we’re wired to look for danger and interpret life accordingly). We know that the world only offers hollow promises of peace. We are courageous and resilient, and spiritual practice demands both. To the extent we’ve experienced healing, we’ve done it through a practice. Like monks, we turned toward our pain and discovered it cannot devour us. My confusion about leaving the program was helped by a wise friend. He wrote, “You (have) tremendous gifts to offer. You are navigating the razor’s edge between deep, intense trauma and spiritual presence/awakening. One side drops off to powerful feelings and can swamp you; the other side drops off to the calm or nothingness connected with spiritual bypassing and disassociation. The task you face is to be on the razor’s edge… with courage and grace. Very few people are doing what you are doing. You have shown… perseverance to plumb this territory and this territory includes numbness, grief, confusion, and self-doubt. Stay the course.” While still in the program, I kept encountering dead butterflies: Twice, unnaturally plastered to the sidewalk, and once in a dream. These images felt significant. That day in the forest, I had fallen asleep under a tree. When I got up, I noticed a caterpillar hunching its way up the tree trunk. I watched it for a while, then blew on it to see what would happen. It froze in fear, flattening against the tree. 15 minutes later, when I continued walking, it hadn’t moved. The insects had something to teach me. The caterpillar reminded me of myself. I felt I was in a similar process of waiting. During metamorphosis, a caterpillar rots inside its cocoon. It doesn’t sprout tiny wings and expand like some happy embryo. I, too, felt spiritually dead. The mature, dead butterflies? It seemed they hadn’t completed their life cycle. Butterflies don’t simply drop dead on suburban sidewalks. Through years of healing, I’ve experienced many transformations. But these always related back to my history. I have shed fearful identities for more-healed versions of myself. I could continue on, but the butterflies I encountered were dead. What did it mean? In meditation, it came to me. Protective walls keep my small self in isolation from other beings. As a child, I needed those walls. The reality of abuse disappeared behind walls of forgetting, thin as butterfly wings. The new transformation is no longer about healing, though that will continue, but about releasing the walls of identity. Seeing myself as a trauma survivor was my self-orientation for decades. But ultimately, this was an idea about myself: a mental construct, true in the relative world, but reinforcing separation. Yes, the goldfish has to be thrown out of the bowl. But how can spiritual teachers support students who struggle with trauma? They can normalize it. More teachers can speak openly (perhaps about their own trauma), reframing it as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. The courage of survival can be harnessed. Some retreats might offer trauma-friendly practices. One such practice could be inviting students to titrate their own experiences. It can feel intimidating and shaming to tiptoe out of a meditation hall when you’re overwhelmed. If this were treated as a natural part of someone’s practice, perhaps leaving a retreat wouldn’t be necessary. The more students spiritual teachers have, the greater chance that some of them struggle with serious trauma. To the extent that teachers don’t recognize these students’ gifts, they may fall prey to the same attitudes as society at large: Survivors are “weak,” and we need to “get beyond it” in order for real life to happen. Wise practice opens us up to abide in the spacious Mystery that includes trauma, because it’s immensely bigger than all we experience. Trauma is not a spiritual curse. It contains tremendous possibility, and teachers can go a long way toward supporting that possibility. Helen W. Mallon writes about trauma and healing at Medium . She is co-editor of Collective Power , the publication of Home for Good Coalition. She has trained as a Gestalt therapist and has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Philadelphia. hmallon@navpoint.com

By Mariana Caplan , Ph.D., Psychotherapist and Author Reposted from HuffPost with permission. The author has since published a related book, Yoga and Psyche . Every year brings a new major scandal in the yogic field. The majority of scandals involve inappropriate sexual boundaries, but also frequently include power, money, and manipulation. Sometimes there is death. Most, though not all, occur among male teachers, both Eastern and Western. I have been surprised to find myself as the go-to psychologist for many such devastations, as well as counseling numerous spiritual teachers who are willing to do the depth psychological work required to prevent such calamities from arising in their communities. In spite of bearing witness to copious amounts of disillusionment and human complexity and on the spiritual path over many years, I remain fully optimistic about the spiritual journey, the great wisdom traditions, the resiliency of the human spirit, and the power of forgiveness. The vast majority of spiritual scandals are due to human psychology rather than shortcomings in spiritual traditions. The scandals we find in the yoga world are rarely due to any fault in yoga philosophy or practice, but rather result from psychological blind spots and weaknesses in the teacher. Spiritual teachers themselves are often deeply versed in, and transmit, great spiritual knowledge and even transmission. They are usually sincere and often brilliant. Yet many have not done deep psychological work on themselves, even if they recommend it to their students. They have never uncovered the psychological roots of their own struggles, patterns, traumas, and wounds. Their failure to do so often brings about suffering in their students and followers. What is emotionally un-integrated in the spiritual teacher becomes psychologically imbalanced in the teachings and community. The Western psyche is constructed differently than the Eastern psyche. To migrate successfully from one civilization to another, the great traditions must take into account the deep psychological structures of the countries and cultures into which they are being imported. The yoga of the East cannot take root in the Western world without recognizing the particular gifts and challenges inherent in the Western psyche. Psychological pioneer Carl Jung coined the term gnostic intermediary to refer to people who personally incorporate the wisdom of a tradition, and can then speak directly from their own experience and translate both the experience and understanding into the language and concepts of the culture to which they wish to communicate. This insight brings with it the distinct possibility to help prevent spiritual scandals by understanding the importance of psychology to yoga for the Western practitioner. Developments in somatic psychology, yoga research, mindfulness, yoga therapy, neuroscience, and trauma research, can increase the effectiveness of yoga to treat the whole human being. By drawing upon the developments in psychology, teachers can work with their own psychological weaknesses so they will not be visited upon their students. Psychology is new in terms of the emergence of great philosophical and transformational systems. Even in the 14 years since James Hillman’s bestselling We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy — And the World is Getting Worse, the approximately 140-year-old tradition has had major advances. Western psychology, though much younger than the 2,000- to 5,000-year-old yoga tradition, skillfully reaches into the traumas and psychological challenges that are unique to the Western psyche. It addresses the areas that often result in spiritual scandal, and thus is invaluable to the continued expansion and health of yoga in the Western world. What wakes me up to inspiration in the morning, and sometimes deep into the night, is the endless ways which the brilliant traditions of yoga and psychology can enhance each other, stretch each other, and make each other more effective. Towards this vision I have invited 20 pioneers and scholars of these two traditions to come together for a weekend in San Francisco in April for The Yoga & Psyche Conference, hosted by The California Institute of Integral Studies. It is the first academic conference in the Western world to integrate yoga and Western psychology. The conference speakers and attendees will come from as far as India and Brazil, and include inspiring medical doctors, psychologists, spiritual teachers, yoga teachers and practitioners, neuroscientists, and trailblazers in the integration of these two fields. Spirituality should make people healthier and happier, not traumatized and further alienated from themselves and others. To prevent scandal on the spiritual path, maintain a spirit of optimism and integrity, and contribute to the spread of yogic wisdom, we are each are called to examine ourselves deeply, take inventory of our strengths and weaknesses, share our gifts, and address our psychological challenges. As yoga further embraces psychology, and teachers of yoga and other spiritual traditions understand the importance of addressing their own psychological challenges, we can diminish unnecessary suffering and bring forth new possibilities.

by David “Davidya” Buckland First posted on the author’s blog . Reposted here by the author. Through the cycle of descending ages , most spiritual traditions came to overemphasize the masculine – both in approach and in domination by men. This has led to drier, more austere forms of spirituality and issues with repression. Those traditions cultured well-prepared teachers though. Teaching did not begin until they were trained and deemed ready by their mentors. Rising consciousness is bringing a gradual restoration of the feminine. This means healing emotions, relationships, and raising women into leadership roles. It also leads to a much richer unfolding when both our masculine and feminine aspects are supported. Today we see many independent teachers and a more entrepreneurial approach to spirituality. Many teachers self-assign or come out of a brief lineage with less formal structure. This has led to a much greater diversity of voices but also to some teaching without understanding the interpersonal dynamics of their relationships with students. Often, we see teaching begin before there is professional development. They may act out, develop co-dependent relationships, or unload on their students. There isn’t peer support nor an understanding of healthy boundaries, power dynamics, and appropriate relationship. At the same time, students may venerate teachers. Yet spiritual development doesn’t grant interpersonal skills. They’re different kinds of development. This has been a recipe for disaster. I’ve seen some egregious issues and the resulting fallout. Students have far too often become victims. While we are shedding many of the issues of rigid traditions, we’ve also lost the structure. To make spiritual teaching reputable in the West, we need a professional association and ethical guidelines. Not as a control mechanism or out of spiritual correctness but as a framework for education and standards that protect teacher and student. In 2015, a group of us discussed some of these issues during the Sofia panel . Rick Archer did a talk on the subject at last year’s SAND17 Conference and then had lunch with Jac O-Keeffe and Craig Holliday to discuss how they might contribute. They worked together on a formal structure all year. At this year’s SAND18 Conference , Rick, Jac, Craig, and Caverly Morgan formally announced The Association of Professional Spiritual Teachers (APST) during a panel discussion*. (All have BATGAP.com interviews.) The association offers ethical guidelines, education, and peer support for spiritual teachers and anyone who offers spiritual guidance. It also offers guidelines for students, helping them understand appropriate behaviour; for them and for teachers. The idea is not to impose on what is often very personal and very direct teaching. It is to offer a support framework for teachers that has been lost in the shift away from ancient traditions. The association is very new and very open to feedback and suggestions. The founders have been consulting with various professional organizations and spiritual therapists who deal with the consequences of ethical breaks. I had several discussions with the founders during the SAND conference and attended their meeting and the recording of an introductory video. I’ve joined the association and will help some on the tech side. You’ll see their logo on the right sidebar here. The founders describe the association as an evolving work in progress. But now they need awareness and teacher members to join for free and grow the presence of the organization. If you are not a spiritual teacher or guide, the student guidelines may be valuable and you can offer feedback through their Contact form. [UPDATE:] They’ve added a public Facebook group for general discussion. Finally, it’s worth noting the beauty of this. Not so many years ago, teachers were largely in silos, seeing others as competition. Here we see an opportunity for the community to come together under one mutually supportive umbrella. Another symptom of the rising tide. David “Davidya” Buckland *The SAND panel is expected to be posted on batgap.com on Dec 15.