Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

There is no fool like an old fool

Spiritual progress is almost an oxymoron.  The only progress is from dis-abusing oneself of one's conscious and unconscious stories, opinions, and transferences.  Most people very unconsciously reenact issues of childhood in any relationship to get into, which is called transference.  That other person takes on the characteristics of both mother and father, and we respond to those images and varied stories as if they were real, and they are not.  One can even spend years with a good psychotherapist and still have many transference issues as well as many holes or weaknesses in one's personality structure.  These are almost impossible to root out.

The strange and ironic thing is, that when one first enters spirituality and begins reading about spiritual heroes such as Ramana, Robert Adams, Muktananda, one begins to learn new stories, new illusions about Shakti, the void, a sense of presence, inner energies, etc.  Soon one has added hundred new stories to the thousand old ones that still live in and through you.  No one is ever finished with growth and development except perhaps by someone who has Alzheimer's who loses all memories and identifications.  Only they are without ties to a tragic past or two ideas about who and what populates this world.

I know this world and myself better than most.  I have been around a long time, studied with many teachers, have a PhD in psychology, practices a psychologist for many years, was in therapy for many years before that.  I have seen hundreds of students, go, including students I was with as a student myself under many teachers, as well as the many students that were with Robert and I for a period of seven or eight years, as well as students I have taught for the last 11 years.

My need for love has betrayed me, and made me wander far from my own truth.  I do not think I am any longer fit to be anyone's teacher, because I have failed myself.  I am weak and have let people control me.  My way of teaching of letting students stay with me, rather than keeping an arms-distance really has not worked, because transference dominates over any spiritual bond, and people that live with me act out their old relationships with their parents and siblings.  Really, nothing of value is learned.  The ones who have benefited most from my teachings have kept at arms length.

So, I will continue to write my blog and on Facebook, and I will probably published another book or two over the next few years, and I will continue to have weekly Satsang as long as I feel the spirit moving through me every Sunday morning.  But effectively, I am bowing out from any more active role of being a teacher.  It is too nerve-racking, to intensive, and too much responsibility is involved, and I need now more to just relax.  I do not have the endurance of the Sasaki Roshi was still teaching at age 106 when he died.

I love you all.  Be well.