When Bliss Comes with a Cost
Spiritual experiences vs. student-teacher relationships
Last month I wrote about allegations of physical, sexual, spiritual, and financial abuse by the hugging saint, mega guru Amma. But what about the miracles? The healings? The trance states? The hug that cracked your heart open? Do those mean nothing if she kicks and scratches people who don't make her tea properly?
Was it all fake?
This is one of the questions that weighs on spiritual abuse survivors and even outsiders. Can a wise, powerful, great healer, or spiritual teacher be abusive?
Here is the most important thing I learned from working closely with an abusive spiritual teacher:
There are state experiences. And there are student-teacher relationships. Learning to separate the two is a fine art that just might free you from a whole lot of pain.
By state experience I mean heart opening, mind opening, tears-streaming-down-your-face divine peace, unity, or power. Or periods of non-self. A temporary shift in consciousness that is an awakening or peak experience. There are many other states, but in this essay I'm talking about the wowee divine bliss fireworks kind. Amma's former assistant, Gail Treadwell, had one of these when she first heard Amma chant.
Even if Amma opens hearts with her chanting, does trance dances embodying deities, and gives a phenomenal hug, does that make her someone you should trust with your soul?
The Lover Analogy
Here's an analogy I like that helps me navigate the tension between state experiences and roles of spiritual authority:
Imagine a lover. Someone new who you have an out-of-this-world erotic experience with.
After this incredible encounter, do you assume you should get married? Start a business together? Trust this person with your emotional, financial, and spiritual life? Or worse, become subservient to them forever?
If you have more dating experience, you might appreciate the experience for what it was and move on, or explore the relationship gradually with caution. You might be assessing: How does this person relate to anger? Boundaries? How are their finances? How do they handle conflict? What are their values? You also might ask friends for feedback about your new lover (couples therapist Stan Tatkin calls this vetting) and tell this new lover your non-negotiables before committing.
All of that would be harder if thousands of people were constantly telling you how amazing your lover is. Or if they had written bestselling books about their exceptional wisdom, abilities, and what a great partner they are. The power would tip in their favor quickly.
Chasing the Fire
A spiritual teacher may have magnetic energy, a field of influence around them to elicit devotion or a particular state experience, or a mystical reputation (which may be real or fabricated). They can also bring years of their own experiences and initiations to the space and the power of the spirits they work with. Your socks might be blown off by any combination of these. Perhaps something in you is ready to open and boom! Those state experiences are rocking your world. Great!
AND just because your socks were blown off once or ten times does not mean the person is a good, kind, or ethical teacher. It does not mean more of those experiences are essential to your soul path. Though if they're a cult leader, they'll likely tell you they are.
I remember speaking with a former student of a meditation teacher I studied with. "I've tried other meditation teachers, but I just can't get that feeling anywhere else... the fire! That's what I keep coming back for," she said. The conundrum was that more and more people had exposed our teacher's spiritual abuse. Where would she get that feeling now? And why was she so hooked on it that she was willing to risk abuse to get it?
The Dance is Yours
Amma's longtime attendant, Gail Treadwell, said:
"People really, really, really want to believe that in Amma there's this savior, this embodiment, and that belief is very euphoric. But the problem is the common devotee gives all that credit to Amma... when in truth it's only indirectly because of Amma. The energy and euphoria they're feeling is actually their own...They think they're feeling Amma's love, but it's actually just their own love, projected back onto them."
It took me years of walking my neighborhood wondering why I didn't feel that I owed my best dance teachers anything after the greatest dances of my life, yet I felt a confusing sense of debt to my meditation teacher each time I had an experience of expanded awareness or deep stillness. The dance teachers knew that I was the dancer, and their only job was to support my dance, which they did freely. With the meditation teacher, I was taught that students' experiences were ultimately BECAUSE of him and what he believed he was connecting them to. That their openings were his gift, their breakthroughs proof of his power (or behind closed doors - threats to it), and that their spiritual progress depended on staying with him and doing his practices.
A teacher can open doors for you or prompt a state experience and still not be a good match for a teacher-student relationship.
The heart-opening happens in your body. The peace, the ecstasy, the no-self moments are your experience of being alive. THE DANCE IS YOURS. These moments don't belong to the teacher. Though a guru may evoke interesting states, so might a rainbow, a bee, a dance, or the sound of your own voice singing. It's your nervous system and your soul doing the dance, your consciousness awakening to itself. The teacher is simply one of countless doorways life offers for remembering who you are. And life is endlessly generous with teachings and opening experiences if you invite them.
June Schedule
I have ten openings for 1:1 sessions left in June, including a rare Sunday spot. If you want a really great state experience that you can only get from me and nowhere else ever, sign up! JUST KIDDING!!!!!!
If you want support in connecting with your own ancestors and guides, or animistic healing with no guru worship, I can probably help.
New to working together? Reach out and we will decide if we need to have a 15 minute consult first or go right for a session.
*For those in financial difficulty, session fees can be divided into two part payment plans at no additional cost.
Appreciating
There are a few spaces left in my dear friend Elizabeth Astor’s Heart Journey Through Nepal trip this October.
The Holy Hurt Podcast on spiritual trauma
A conversation I found so life giving with the Author of On Tyranny and On Freedom, Timothy Snyder: Avoiding the trap of ‘negative freedom’
20 Lessons on resisting tyranny:
Still loving Home Exchange for making travel so much more affordable. We have saved thousands of dollars in Airbnb costs from the free points Home Exchange is constantly giving (like for posting pics of your house) and the actual exchanges we have done - which have been nice excuses to de-clutter and also have gone well. You can get a few free nights of a Home Exchange with this code.
Daily Accomplishments Journal: If you tend to overlook your accomplishments/progress and be frustrated that you didn’t get more done in your creative work, this is a really sweet tool. It is changing how I see my flow as an artist over time and I love the daily creativity tracker.
