Choosing a Path

Saturday, September 14, 2013:

When you have explored the great mystical traditions, choose one mater and follow him or her. It’s one thing to set out on a spiritual journey; it’s quite another to find the patience and endurance, wisdom, courage, and humility to follow it to the end. You may have the karma to find your teacher. For very few of us know how truly to follow a master, which is an art in itself. So however great the teaching or master may be, what is essential is that you find in yourself the insight and skill to love and follow the master and the teaching.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Glimpse After Glimpse

256

If a man string putrid fish\on a blade of kisa grass,

That same grass will putrid smell.

So with him who follows fools.

If a man wrap frankincense

In a leaf, that leaf smells sweet.

So with those who follow sages.

Ituvutaka 76

365 Bhuddha

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It is difficult for the Western mind to grasp what it means to follow a path, a master or a teacher without becoming overly submissive or dogmatic. If not that we reject the idea of following anyone else. We have a different take on individualism that is at once as creative as it is destructive. Following a master tends to lend itself to the type of submission that is characterized by the example of a Hitler or a Jonestown. But we do have the example of the Christ whereby he led his disciples to a point and then set them free once they “got it”. Once we "get it" the individual is free of bondage to self and that person ought then to be free to express his or her individuality.

            

     In AA we have instituted the concept of a sponsor and some mistake a sponsor for a mild form of dictatorship. There are far too many who even relish the idea of calling themselves “Step Nazi’s. To me such an attitude is contrary to every instinct ingrained in my spirit. Granted, the Twelve Steps were confusing to me at first and I needed a spiritual guide to help me understand them. However, it is important that I don’t put a sponsor on a pedestal because he/she merely an alcoholic like me and has no more understanding of profound spirituality than a toad. So, where a spiritual guide is concerned it behooves me to choose wisely and become consciously aware of what kind of wisdom they are expounding. A sponsor or a spiritual guide that is thorough will be able to let me go. A teaching that is wise will depend on the power of my own concept of a Higher Power that will also rely on the teachings and the Fellowship to take me further.

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