 161. Teachers, Spiritual |
The perfect teachers of mankind are the transcendental adepts. They appear in various times and places to "awaken" all individual beings to the "living divine" and to create a renewal of truly human and spiritual culture.
They unanimously declare and confess that only the "Living God," "The eternally radiant divine being" in whom all beings and things arise and adhere, is the "truth" and ever present savior of man. The adepts come and go. They "serve" and incarnate the "one" who is always already here (i.e., God).
-Franklin Jones
Invariable rules may not be formulated about God-illuminated saints: some perform miracles, others do not: some are inactive, while others (like King Janaka of ancient India and St. Teresa of Avila) are concerned with large affairs; some teach, travel, and accept disciples, while others pass their lives as silently and unobtrusively as a shadow. No worldly critic can read the secret scroll of karma (past actions) that unrolls for each Saint or teacher a different "script."
-Yogananda
Were man never vouchsafed a glimpse of "divinity" in the flesh, he would remain oppressed by the heavy "Mayic" delusion that he cannot transcend his mortality.
-Yogananda
When a spiritual teacher, master or guru says, love "Me," follow " Me," adore " Me," the teacher is not referring to his/her "egoic self" which has long been dissolved. The "Me" the teacher is speaking of is the "Me" that is God. (The inner spiritual me).
When a student or devotee has NOT learned how to meditate and connect with his/her inner Self, the next best thing is to be with a true spiritual teacher.
Being in the presence of a true being, Saint, master or guru is the same as being in deep meditation and one with yourself as God because, the teacher is that same inner God-self as the students.
Therefore, the teacher is the mediation process for the student. This is a blessing. This is grace. This is the "silent teaching" where the student, without any struggle is drawn into the same spiritual condition and attainment as the teacher.
The words and rituals are only secondary. This is the "silent teaching." It is the same or similar to Bhakti- Yoga, which means devotion to the teacher.
All teachers declare that they are not stating any new doctrines but are only restoring the old tradition, the eternal verity, handed down from master to pupil.
The teaching is a renewal, a rediscovery, a restoration of knowledge long forgotten. All great teachers like Gautama the Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu Mohammed and others are content to affirm that they're only restating the teaching of past teachers.
It is the ancient way that had been lost that the teacher opens up again.
The great teachers do not lay claim to originality, but affirm that they are expounding the ancient truth which is the final norm by which all teachings are judged, the eternal source of all religions and philosophies.
-Yogananda
"Wisdom that was not made; but is at this present, as it hath ever been and so shall ever be."
