Can a spiritual discipline be practiced without a teacher?
"A spiritual discipline cannot be practiced without supervision of a competent teacher." Thus proclaim tantric scriptures of the past, so say respectable teachers of the present. The reason that this proclamation is true has to do with the delusory, fiendish, and manipulative character of the ego and its natural opposition to the spiritual longing of the soul -- the key conflict to be resolved by the spiritual journey.
The aim of a spiritual practice is to uncover Truth -- the absolute knowing that there is one Divine entity playing many roles. Such absolute knowing is an intuitive "state" whereby one knows that everything happens in the imagination of singular Supreme Entity. Our human ego, however, is profoundly threatened by such spiritual knowledge because it has quite another plan in its micromind. Its plan is to play God itself!
Ego imagines itself Divine and continually strives to position itself at the center. Overtly or covertly, it incessantly attempts to manipulate the world to suit its own ambitions. The ego hopes to recruit all other inhabitants of the Universe to its petty mission and make them its servants. Indeed, this is the "original sin" -- the sin of making everything personal and taking everything personally.
Ego’s sense of its solidity and its notion that it has a continuous personality is, however, a grand illusion. In truth, it does not have any independent existence and is but a collection of disjointed thoughts and emotions -- which are frequently contradictory to one another. (This can be verified through meditation.)
Now we come to the punch line. The spiritual urge is a call of the soul -- a call full of longing for the Divine Who is at innermost core of each living being. It is a call to come back to our real (spiritual) home. Yet, this call is heard through the clouds of ego and these clouds mightily complicate the spiritual path. In fact, understanding and outwitting the ego’s soap opera is fundamentally what the spiritual path is about.
Ego plays with the soul to make it believe that it is the soul’s friend -- all the while plotting to subvert the soul’s spiritual urge and to bring it under control. Instead of being a way toward freedom, ego strives to convert the spiritual path into another ego-centered pursuit. Ego usually succeeds in its mission until the soul’s call becomes strong enough to shout a loud "No."
The key difficulty with seeing the true nature of ego is that our soul identifies with it. To see through this delusion takes a great deal of sa'dhana', maturation and, most of all, willingness. Divine Grace, particularly as it flows through the physical presence of your teacher, is the key to separating the ego from the soul -- because your ego cannot deceive your teacher, who can see through its games.
And ego will play masterful games conceived with exceptional guile -- until it is submerged in the greatness of the soul. A student needs a lot of patience, remarkable intelligence, and persistent dedication to the Truth to expose the ego’s play to his or her awareness and convince him- or herself that the ego must become a servant rather than the ruler of the student's life. Unless a student is a spiritual genius hoping to reinvent the wheel (an example of reductio ad absurdum), a teacher will save a student a lot of time.
Of course, a person uncomfortable with an idea of engaging a spiritual teacher is by definition not ready for serious spiritual discipline with its rigorous requirements. Many aspirants entertain hopes of learning -- yet, they do not like being instructed, fail to follow directions, or object to hearing the truth about their behavior. For such people, approaching a spiritual teacher is a romantic fantasy but is scary in reality. A skilful teacher will quickly let air out of such daydreaming.
A key role of a spiritual teacher is to lend his or her spiritual power to the developing student, while at the same time pushing him or her towards gaining his or her own soul (spiritual) strength. Once the student achieves a definitive degree of soul strength, he or she will no longer require the physical and emotional presence of the teacher -- because he or she will be able to hear and heed the commands of his or her soul -- wherein hides the Universal Teacher Principle Itself. Once the aspirant is connected to his or her soul, the union (yoga) has been achieved and the purpose of the master realized. And student becomes his or her own spiritual boss -- not a slave to the ego.
Making the ego a slave to the soul, rather than its ruler, heralds the end to suffering, which is, of course, another definition of the spiritual path. This path -- whatever the name of the temporal religious tradition -- consists of several natural stages. Among its first tasks is to expose ego’s shenanigans -- to seek how the ego tries to position itself at the center. This is done through observing your reactions by being continuously aware. Your teacher may provoke your ego at this stage to assist you in viewing your particular soap opera. For this, you must learn to trust the intentions and instructions of your teacher -- therefore, the bond must be strong and positive.
Sa'dhana' (spiritual practice) leads to a very special kind of learning -- the learning that is not accessible through the intellect. It is learning to intuit the totality of the Universe and Its current flow direction, rather than investigating a specific phenomenon, as in scientific inquiry. A person is likely to fail on the path -- that is remain centered on the intellect and the ego -- unless he or she has a strong personal urge and is gifted with penetrating mystical capability and intuitional intelligence. Even if the student has a well-developed intuition, he or she may be confused at times. The teacher can bring order and clarity to such chaotic moments.
A close relationship with a teacher is characteristic of tantric tradition because, being concerned with efficient spiritual development, it recognizes the matchless and incomparable role of the teacher in showing the student the fastest spiritual path known to humankind. One can assess the advancement of a student by the degree of his or her proximity to his or her teacher (not to be confused with mere physical or emotional closeness). For the ability to stand naked in Truth as represented by the Guru Principle is the key to the warrior path, which is at the heart of tantra teachings.
Even incarnate masters, when young, seek out a teacher. What can ordinary mortals like us hope to achieve without a teacher?
-- Anatole
