Today, the message being conveyed in all kinds of relationships is this: “You are perfect just the way you are. You do not have to do anything differently. If you follow my ideas, all will be okay. If you bring your view of the world in line with mine, all will be okay.” The paradox is that there actually is something you have to do: agree with them, and do as they say. Then everyone will know you are being true to yourself and that you have the right voice. Is there any internal awareness or questioning? No need. They are the deciders.
This sort of relationship is sustainable—up to a point. And that one point is disagreement: dissent is considered treason. Arrive at that point, and you will be rejected, because they have the right vision. You have no right to question them, and you should not have your own voice. That would take you off track. Your voice should simply echo theirs. “Just follow my voice, and I’ll like you. And when I like you, all will be okay”.
These people say they care for you, but who’s the “you” that they care for? They support your narrative, because they resonate with your shrunken self. How do they show their love? By wanting what is best for you, they say. But what they really want is for you to surrender to their narrative.
The actual word “surrender” is never used, but surrender is implied. The delusion is that these misguided people are not asking you to surrender to them but wanting you just to be yourself. How do you get to be yourself according to them? You already are, as long as you’re in agreement with them. That’s harmony. In harmony, there’s nothing to do.
The true teacher, however, is unsafe for any narrative—especially this one. According to the above narrative, the true teacher is asking you to go in the wrong direction. From this perspective, the true teacher does not want you to be “successful”; the true teacher makes you feel bad about yourself. In reality, the true teacher challenges you to turn to the true Self and hear your real voice.
Unlike the true teacher, the misguided person does not turn your world upside down. The misguided person lets you keep everything—but there can be no growth, no change, nothing. That is all your shrunken self wants, and the misguided person reinforces the delusion that that is all there is.
The true teacher wants you to turn inward, listen to the Self, and find your true dharma or path, which will bring you into harmony with God. The true teacher wants you to have and be Love. The true teacher leaves room for you to test the teaching. The true teacher wants you to surrender, and says as much—but you are to surrender not to the teacher, but to God.
But if you have already bought a misguided person’s teaching, then you will see the true teacher as not true, not right, harsh, too much work. You will believe the true teacher doesn’t really love you, that the misguided person loves you and cares for and about you.
So the true teacher is seen as the scam, and the misguided people are seen as telling you the truth. It’s a comfortable truth, an easy truth. And it is nowhere near the Truth.
How is someone to get past this delusion? What makes that move so difficult is that the true teacher can do nothing to facilitate it, because the true teacher has been labeled as the false. The only way out is for the trapped person to wake up to their delusion. How do they do that? Too often, only by following their delusion to the bitter end, and finding that the people to whom they surrendered never really cared about them. Once the scales fall from their eyes, they may be able to hear the true teacher, and heal themselves.
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