Needing the Love of a Spiritual Teacher

Needing the Love of a Spiritual Teacher

The love of a Spiritual Teacher is not human love and this is often misunderstood in our Western culture.  Many people are drawn to spirituality because they are profoundly lonely.  For those looking for the love of a Teacher, you can count on that loneliness to be a profoundly unconscious desire to be connected to the Self and to Spirit.  On a dangerous note, this is how cult leaders thrive, by preying on those who don’t know they are seeking Spiritual Love and by offering a manipulative human love (often involving sex, and sex with minors). Because human love can never fill the gaping hole,  and because cult leaders tend to be sociopaths, it can take years for cult followers to wake up and by then there will be a great deal of damage control needed in order to heal.  What is underreported and perhaps even more prevalent are the smaller encounters among new-agers.  Unhealed new-age spiritualists (mediums, healers, channelers etc.) reach out to gather admirers to heal their unconscious neediness and sad lonely followers get stuck to the flypaper of people with talent. Talent does not guarantee that one is working on her/his own life path journey (so many do not have any daily practice), is educated in the ways of human psychology or physical health, or is living a balanced life.

Westerners try to “fall in love” with their Spiritual Teacher and because of the Western culture of combining sex with just about everything, the love can easily turn sexual. People come on to their Teachers; even will have their babies (trying to breed in a “Gift”?).  This has made it impossible for Tantric practices to exist in the West.  Those who have received Tantric work (to me, the only way to truly and deeply heal extreme sexual abuse in childhood) tend to confuse sexual energy work with love, and when the human love does not appear, will accuse the Tantric practitioner of rape or prostitution. It is a shame to have lost access to Tantric work because of the emotional confusion of the West.

On slightly more benign levels, lonely people seeking love can get confused about what to expect when working with a Spiritual Teacher and for the Teachers they can cave into the neediness of others even when trying to resist. When this happens one of two outcomes can be expected, either the Teacher finds him/herself trapped in an endless round of hugs, “I love you’s” etc. and finds his/herself longing for privacy and feeling like a fraud handing out “love” like girl scout cookies or the Teacher finally starts to set some boundaries and the “student” or client is horrified and emotionally (and/or in other ways) retaliates.  These scenarios end ugly.  

There are a number of ways to address this potential before it manifests.   Teachers need to keep their own life (especially their emotional life) in balance and need to continue to maintain their work on their own spiritual, emotional and physical health.  For some, it would be best to not “hang out” with “students” or clients (at least for a while) until boundaries are learned and practiced.  If you are a “student” keep a lookout on yourself for signs of hero worship and notice if you are constantly seeking approval from a Teacher, and are overly concerned with receiving complements from a Teacher.  If so, you don’t have to leave, but do bring this up to your Teacher so the behaviors are brought into the Light.  Look for a Teacher that does not collect followers that seem to worship the Teacher; students should fall in love with the practice(s) being taught rather than hero worship of the Teacher.  Great Teachers encourage students to leave, not stay, to excel not to worship the Teacher for being amazing.  Excellent and balanced Spiritual Teachers model how to be in an amazing relationship with the Self and with Source (whatever belief system one follows) and educate students how to love and accept themselves rather than fill that hole for the student with endless complements, reassurances, motivational speeches, and endless encouragement.  All of these things should be (eventually) internalized by students. Students should be learning that a Teacher loves the student enough to offer criticism so that students learn to grow and accept they are not perfect and shows them through their behavior and actions that they are loveable with all their “shortcomings” and challenges.  Spiritual Teachers are committed to soul evolution, not personality worship and they will love you no matter what your circumstances, however they will not encourage hero worship, give superficial compliments to soothe your ego or theirs, or necessarily make huggy kissy faces to make someone feel good,  Great Teachers refuse to accept adoration and consistently redirect that energy back to students so they learn to not depend on external factors to define them and/or build self-esteem which includes complements or praise from a Teacher. Notice I said learns to not “depend on” these factors, so that does not mean never giving complements, or hugging etc.  It means maintaining balance.   

The Teacher has responsibility to keep the student /teacher relationship healthy.  If a student keeps fishing for complements or favors, it is time to teach the student how to love themselves in a more concrete fashion.  Sometimes students will say things like “I am not good enough for you” or “If you want to kick me out, I understand” and these are examples of students trying to manipulate (unconsciously) the Teacher into giving the student more and more complements and reassurances.  It is up to the Teacher to recognize and correct these behaviors (through teaching, and/or refusing to respond to the manipulations) rather than get sucked into an automatic response. Needy Teachers will respond emotionally and hand out “love” because they too are missing a good relationship with the Self and need a student to love them as much as the student needs them. Not healthy.  Many Spiritual Teachers use their self-definition of  “empath” as their justification to not set (or even learn) boundaries and to hand out “love” because they cannot handle the reactions that typically come with setting boundaries or they cannot handle losing the unhealthy love of a student or client. 

This is but a brief introduction to this topic. Please do not think this article fully addresses the issues of either of how to be a more balanced Teacher/Healer or if you are a “student” and have concerns about your path and/or the “teacher(s)” in your life. If this article strikes a chord with you, continue to research, read, grow, and if you need some help from a Teacher you might want to work with Life Path Healings for a while.

Journey On.