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	The Tyranny of Teachers by Robert Rabbin Do you know that you are using your spiritual teachers, incarnate and disincarnate, to keep yourself lost and confused? Yes, the very ones who you think, believe, and hope will lead you to the promised land of your true self, your higher self, your non-self — whatever name you give your favorite form of redemption and salvation and freedom? Until you understand what you are doing to yourself, and then stop doing it, you will continue using your teachers to as excuses for being lost and confused — in spite of what you think you've found and know. You see your teachers in a meditation hall, a satsang room, a retreat center — where they are surrounded by the staging and setting of seeming holiness or spiritual attainment. They present themselves in their roles as "teachers," all snug and cozy in white gowns or maroon robes, with that special smile that signifies something. Surely it must! You don't know anything about them, other than what you see in these staged environments. You know them in their role; you know their persona, their facade — crafted as much by their own PR departments as your desperate need to believe someone can help you out of your confusion. You swoon willingly into the cartoon of the community of other lost souls, and listen eagerly to the teacher's every word. You never question. You don't know them. You don't want to. You want them to be "different" from you. That's how you create them. From the beginning. From the first moment you need them to be different from you. And this is how it all starts. You do it. You're making it all up. You only ask esoteric, metaphysical, spiritual questions. You play the game right along with everyone else. You imagine the teacher knows all kinds of "real" and "true" things. They don't. The poor dears, they really don't. It is only your confusion that thinks this. In actual fact, they are only sharing their guesses and opinions. That's all anyone can do. They don't know anything special. There isn't anything special to know. There is only getting rid of your confusion, and you have to do that on your own. There is only coming into your own life, discovering your own realization. There isn't one for everyone. There is a unique realization for each of us. Your realization, your freedom, your exuberance and passion, your freedom to roar your head off — the face and form of these are all unique to you. But you don't get this, do you? Not really. Oh yes, you might say it, but secretly you are trying to be like the teacher you idolize, the teacher about whom you know nothing but imagine everything. You only see the Wizard of Oz effect. Their role, staged by them in accordance with the projection of your confusion. You don't want to see behind the screen. That's why you just ask goofy and empty-headed, useless, going nowhere questions. You don't ask the teacher if they masturbate at night and do they use vibrators. You don't want to know they take anti-depressants to soothe the pain of a bad breakup. You don't want to know what they do with the money you so generously give. Lord, wouldn't you be pissed to know they were off in Europe on shopping sprees? You don't want to know that they have sex, which is why they do and then lie to you about it every night for years at a time. You don't want to know. You don't want to know when they are anxious, fearful, or angry. You don't want to know they may have the emotional intelligence of a three-year-old. You don't want to know that they may be psychopaths, as violent and vindictive as Hannibal Lecter. Maybe they are sweet and kind, but utterly inept and incompetent. Maybe they are so feeble they have to be carried from one room to another, or so vain they need plastic surgery. Do you want to know this? I don't think so. Because then you'd have to face the one thing you don't want to face: your own self. And that's how you create the tyranny of your teacher. You use them to avoid seeing yourself, to avoid experiencing yourself, to avoid expressing yourself. You want to be like the teacher you've imagined. You mistake whatever realization they may have for its expression through their role of teacher. You secretly believe you have to end up as they do to truly be realized. You are always rejecting your deep nature and desires for what you think the teacher is like on the inside. You use the teacher to go to war with yourself. You've invented a unicorn and then fight against yourself because you can't see the horn growing from your head. Most teachers are dishonest. They don't tell the truth. They tell the truth that your confusion wants to hear: a way out, a way up. Tell me about heaven. Tell me about the void. Tell me about exotic other dimensions and higher states. Don't talk to me about impeccability here and now, about personal responsibility and character, about initiative and boldness, about fierce sexuality, and cosmic roars of creative impulses. Don't talk about business and money. Don't talk about power and politics. Don't talk about anything real. Make all this disappear! Help! I'm lost and confused. Save me! Years ago in Los Angeles, I would often meet with groups of people to speak candidly about our lives, exploring deeper dimensions of our authentic selves. Some people had lumped me in with a group of people allegedly teaching the nondual philosophy from India called vedanta, misinterpreted by the spiritual subculture in America to mean "you don't exist: only consciousness is real." Supreme escapism disguised as "nondualism." One evening, after we had finished our discussions, a woman came up to me and told me she had tried to get a friend to come along. It must be almost ten years ago, but I remember exactly what she said. "Robert, when she heard you taught vedanta, she was interested in coming to hear you. But then she heard you also were a business consultant and decided not to come. She said that no one who worked in corporations could know anything about vedanta." (I did work as a consultant to companies. I will admit to that grave sin.) I cracked up when I heard that! First, I never taught vedanta. I never mentioned it. I don't know anything about it, other than what I read in a few books years ago. My teacher mentioned it. Also, I never talked about non-duality. Why would I? It's not something you talk about; it's a place you speak from. As an idea, its just as silly as the Easter Bunny and God. But the question that begs answering is this: Can a person work as a consultant and be proficient in spiritual philosophy? Can a person work as a consultant and be graced by inner storms of light and beauty and grace? Can a person work as a consultant and at the same time live in the center of creation, where all things learn to breathe? How about a teacher, nurse, engineer, shopkeeper, shoe salesman, pharmacist, airline pilot, landfill manager, mathematician, veterinarian, soccer player? How about a social worker, sex therapist, horse-breeder? How about you? Can you ever be who you are, not in an idealized way, but in a real, grounded, practical embodied way? Can you? And who are you going to ask for permission? Who is going to approve of YOU? Who is going to say whether or not your desires are good or bad, right or wrong? Who is going to validate and certify your thoughts and feelings? Who is going to tell you if you're coloring in the lines, or out? Who? Who is your boss? Who is the authority you have given the glory of your life to? If for one minute you would put down your own confusion and stop suppressing who you are and what you know, you would see through the tissue-thin facade of those people and everyone else. You would see there is nothing out there but what you imagine. Sooner or later, you're going to have to come back to yourself. The real you. The one that wants what it wants. The one that speaks truthfully. The one that acts ferociously. The one that only you can be. There is no realization apart from this; no realization apart from you being what you are, who you are, standing up and claiming your place, your right to be. It starts from way down deep, before words and ideas. It roars through you. And then it shakes the earth. It's not spiritual or worldly. It's not good or bad. It's not right or wrong. It's just you, your life, raising a little hell while it can. Making a little noise. Tag. You're it. © Robert Rabbin 2009 Back to Reading-Room New Articles page

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