Choose a spiritual teacher by what they ask of you and what they leave you with. A teacher worth trusting welcomes your questions, is clear about money, keeps your doctor and the people you trust in your life, and keeps pointing you back to your own experience. Ask that of anyone, me included. Pressure, secrecy or isolation are reasons to walk away.
Three faces look up at Vitomir from the table by the shop window.
It's a small bookshop in Ras Al Khor, in a warehouse unit that smells of coffee and new paper. The table is labelled Inner Life. Each of the three books has its author on the cover: one smiling with the sea behind her, one in white with his eyes half closed, one laughing at something just out of shot.
He picks up the first and reads the back. Then the second. Then the third. Each one promises, in slightly different words, to show him who he really is.
"Any of those any good?" he asks the woman at the till.
"Depends what you're after," she says, and goes back to her crossword.
Vitomir stands there for twenty minutes. In the end he buys the one with the laughing author, and on the walk to the car he realises why. He liked the face. He hadn't read a single page of what was inside.
How do you choose a spiritual teacher?
Slowly, and by watching rather than by listening to promises. Notice what happens when you ask a hard question, how money is handled, what's said about your doctor and the people close to you, and where the teacher keeps pointing: towards themselves, or back towards you. Charm and a good photograph tell you very little.
Before anything else, a word on safety. If a teacher or a group has frightened you, pressed you for money or contact you didn't agree to, told you to keep secrets, or tried to pull you away from people you trust, that isn't a choosing question any more. Step away, tell someone you trust, and if anyone is in danger at this moment, contact your local emergency services. If any practice has left you feeling unreal, far away from your own life or unwell, see a doctor and tell them what happened. Anything you're being treated for stays with the professionals treating it.
The free step I'd suggest from here is my Who Am I? masterclass. It finishes with a guided session, so one note first. If you've ever felt unreal or detached from yourself or your surroundings, or you're being treated for anything like that, talk to your doctor before the guided part, or leave it out and keep the rest. Anyone can stop the audio at any point, open their eyes, feel the floor under their feet and tell someone they trust. Receive the Masterclass. Or read on.
What should you ask any teacher?
These five work for a teacher you meet in person, one you follow online, or the author of a book. They work for me too.
What happens when I disagree with you? A good answer sounds relaxed. Watch the room as well as the words: if questions are met with coldness, laughter at the questioner or a quiet drop in attention, you've learned something.
What does this cost, and what is the money for? Fees are ordinary. What's worth checking is whether the cost was clear before you started, whether it keeps rising as you go deeper, and whether you could stop paying without being treated differently.
What do you say about my doctor, my medication and the people I trust? Any teaching that asks you to stop treatment, ignore medical advice or keep your practice secret from people close to you has told you what you need to know.
Who checks your work? Some teachers belong to a tradition, a community or a lineage that holds them to account. Some don't. Either way, you're entitled to ask, and to hear a clear answer.
Where are you pointing me? Over months, does the teaching send you back to your own life and your own seeing, or does everything keep leading back to the teacher?
Many faiths carry their own guidance on finding a teacher, and that guidance belongs to them. Nothing here is meant to replace it.
When is it time to leave a teacher?
Some signs are quiet, and some aren't.
- Urgency. You're told the opening is rare, the price goes up tomorrow, or you'll lose your place if you think it over.
- Secrets. Teachings or rules you're asked not to share with anyone outside.
- Distance from your life. Gentle suggestions that the people you trust don't understand, or that your doctor is part of the problem.
- Only through them. The idea that you can't get there without this one person.
- Rising demands. More money, more hours, more service, with the reward always one step further on.
- Any contact you didn't agree to. That one isn't a sign to weigh. It's a reason to leave.
If several of these are present, you can leave without a long explanation to anyone.
Teachers who promise a dramatic experience deserve particular care. I've written about one such promise in what is ego death, and why I'd never make chasing it a goal.
Why is it so easy to hand a teacher the wheel?
Because the search often starts at a tired moment. When you're unsure who you are, someone who seems sure of everything can look like the answer itself. Handing over your judgement can feel like relief.
As I read it, though, the urge to find someone who'll finally tell you who you are was learned. Plenty of people were told who to be for years before they ever went looking for a teacher, by the places they grew up in, by schools, by workplaces and by whole cultures. A teacher who does the same, however kindly, can become one more voice adding to the pile.
That's why the question I'd want any teacher to leave you with is a simple one, and it's yours to answer, not mine: Who were you before the world told you who to be?
You are not broken. You are buried. A good teacher, as I see it, helps you notice what's yours under the layers, and never asks to become one more of them.
If you do end up choosing a room full of other people, how to prepare for a personal growth retreat covers the week before, including telling the organisers if you're in treatment.
Can you read one teaching for what it wants from you?
This is a reading exercise, with no therapy or medical care in it. If you have a doctor or therapist, keep working with them, and let their advice outrank anything here. Your treatment, your medication and your support all stay in place, and people in recovery keep their programme, with every person in it. Leave out anything tied to alcohol, drugs, self-harm or a person or group who frightens you; take those to your GP, a support line or a trusted person instead. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
- Choose one short piece of teaching you're weighing up. A chapter, an article, a talk under twenty minutes. Skip anything that asks you to close your eyes or follow a guided exercise.
- Take it in once, when you're settled. No notes the first time.
- Afterwards, write three short lines. What it asked you to believe. What it asked you to give or do. Where it pointed you: towards the teacher, or towards your own experience.
- Notice how you feel in your body. Settled, rushed, small, curious: any answer is useful.
- Sleep on it. Read your three lines again the next day before you decide anything.
Should the reading bring up something painful, stop, and take it to your doctor or a person you trust.
What a teaching asks of you is often clearer on paper than in the room.
Why might the Who Am I? masterclass suit a first step?
If you're still weighing teachers, here's one place to start, free with a code, and three reasons it may fit.
- It points you back to yourself. In its guided session, the page says, I lead you "into a state of direct contact with the part of you that has always been watching."
- It's made to be returned to. Of the written part, the page says: "A companion that deepens on every re-read."
- It's free with the code GIFT26. You enter the code at checkout.
The guided part closes the masterclass. As above, if you've felt unreal or detached, or you're being treated for that, check with your doctor first or skip that part, and stop the audio whenever you need to.
Every teacher I've learned from was, before anything else, a person.
Rayyan, among the book's reviewers on Amazon: "If self-improvement has stopped working for you, this explains why."
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. Before you choose anyone, try the three lines from the reading exercise on whatever you're reading now, including this page. Receive the Masterclass