Find a Teacher

Personal Expression

Teachers express their personal understanding of the universal principles, varying their teaching with time to suit the circumstances and people involved.

From this each student understands what is taught in their own particular way.

When students have studied for 10 years with a good teacher, they will understand what that teacher is trying to express, although it will take at least that time again to make it their own.

Finding a Teacher

First look for a teacher who has trained for at least 20 years with their genuine teacher, or an instructor who is still under the direction of such a genuine teacher.

Then consider the deeper lineage or quality of the teaching line in which they have studied, and the teacher's nature or ability to accurately express that teaching. Lastly consider how openly they give out that teaching.

Because of their various work on the Earth, different teachers will have access to widely differing sources of internal power.

The end result of these factors can be seen in the quality of the students that the teacher has attracted and the atmosphere generated in the classes.

Finding a Student

"It is difficult to find a good teacher", laughed Master Huang, "but it's more difficult to find a good student."

What are the qualities of a good student? To wish to learn whatever the effort required, understanding that true learning involves changing yourself – not just adding new things to an unstable base.

To temporarily put aside all previous beliefs creating space for the understanding of what has been given from above – later the useful elements of previous knowledge can be integrated with the new.

Student Attitude

Aim to understand those around you, rather than criticise. Remain positive towards the teacher – this opens an inner connection through which subtle aspects of the teaching can flow.

As good teachers teach on several levels simultaneously, their teaching seems to grow as fast as your understanding.

If you feel they are repeating the same things then you should realise your progress has stopped.

Cost of Learning

A genuine teaching can neither be bought nor sold – true teachers hold it in trust for those who, due to their sincere and intense efforts, are in a position to receive it.

Any money paid is simply for the teacher's time and expenses. It is each teachers choice what outer price to charge, though neither excessively high nor foolishly low prices help students attain balance in their attitude towards the teaching.

Usually, sincere senior students who contribute more internally, are asked less externally, while for beginners it is the opposite.

Teachers are Scarce

There are not many real teachers around the world, maybe a few dozen past the 4th initiation, many hidden away from the public, the majority concentrated among the Sufis of the Middle East, the Yogis of India and the Himalayas, and the Sages, both Daoist and Buddhist, of Asia.

Those who have passed the 3rd initiation and are progressing towards the 4th, are barely more common.

My old teachers all noted that there are many fewer sages nowadays, than when, as youths, they began their inner training.

Real Teachers

If you can find a true sage to train under then you are lucky. Their teachings are remarkably similar, generally beyond religious and sectarian boundaries.

Their genuine students number in the tens or hundreds at most. Without any sense of self-importance they realise all power flows through them from above.

They know they are young members of the group of all people who have refined themselves in the past, a small part of a large and complex universe with apparently endless numbers of beings.

Cost to be a Teacher

The price of becoming a genuine teacher of a deep art is decades of training as a genuine student.

Those who assume the position of teacher without wishing to pay that price with their own sincere effort are imposters who mislead their students and waste their inner potential.

No person can choose to be a genuine teacher. Only if you follow genuinely can the possibility arise that you may be asked to lead. For these reasons 'Teachers training courses' cannot possibly be part of an internal system.

Low-level Teachers

The rest of the teachers in the world fall into 2 categories. The genuine but unbalanced teachers, and the charlatans.

Of the charlatans I can say little. Cunning or delusional, recognizable by their lack of long training under an experienced teacher, cut off from their Deep Mind, they attract students - often in the thousands – like themselves interested in power, prestige, money or sex.

The inner cost of such a path is high, the debt collected on the death of their body.

Partially Developed

While understanding something, partially developed teachers, are either narrowly entrenched in a particular outer teaching or caught by an inflated sense of their own inner state, either or both factors blocking them from further inner progress.

Sometimes past the 3rd initiation but with the ego appropriating much of the person's spiritual power for itself, they are held back in a partially developed state.

They do much good in the world, helping people rise towards their own level, though they build into their students the same weaknesses they themselves possess.

Unbalanced Teachers

To encourage the search for psychic experiences and visions or to attract thousands of students, allowing these students to worship them almost as a god, are both signs of unbalance.

In the extreme unbalanced teachers typically come to believe they are the greatest teacher of the age and prophecise the coming destruction of the world.

Again, while sometimes past the 3rd initiation – the 'conditional enlightenment' spoken of by the Buddha which gives limited access to the 4th energy level – they may not escape rebirth, being drawn back by their attachment to etheric power.

Teacher Needed

We sigh at those who believe that as all knowledge is inside no guidance is necessary, while we shake our heads when they preach this to others.

Those pressing the other extreme, that some teacher or god will do everything for you if you just believe in them, evoke a similar response.

The first of these theories is promoted by those who wish to do as they please, the second by authorities looking for power or students seeking to avoid responsibility. Practical experience does not support the wishful thinking of either of these methods of seeking internal evolution.

Leaving Your Teacher

If the teacher is not genuine you should discover that in the first 1, 2 or 3 years. If you have stayed longer and felt they are genuine, then be sure to examine your motive very carefully when considering leaving.

The most common mistake is to leave because you feel the teacher has corrected you unfairly – a sure sign of your outer self or ego pushing you to go. If you also decide you can work on without help, it is a further sure sign that spiritual pride was a major factor in your decision. To then continue to teach in that state, experience reveals, will likely be a disaster for all involved.

If the teacher is a true one then your Inner Guide will almost certainly have brought you to that teacher. To then leave, rightiously offended, is to go against your Inner Self and the guidence coming from above.

If for some good reason the time comes to leave your teacher, do it as correctly as possible. Be genuinly grateful for all help given in the past.

Go with a positive feeling – any negative feeling is completely your own responsibility and will strongly interfere with your future evolution. Maintain a positive memory and speak well of your past teacher.

Few true teachers are willing to accept a student who has left their previous teacher in a negative way.