52
Traits of a
Genuine Teacher of Yoga
(Eternal Religion)
1
-- He will show the way to the divine bliss within yourself , showing
you how to experience divinity for yourself by your own effort. He will
show others how to approach God directly within.
2 -- He is not a mere collector of book quotations, but is a living
example of the content of the scriptures.
3 -- He will show piety in youth.
4 -- He will have expressed, early in life, renunciation impulses,
including fasting, abandonment of all possessions, voluntary
homelessness, and renunciation of sex, woman, etc.
5 -- He will have sought out authentic teachers or teachers
of high reputation.
6 -- He has spent many years in solitude, starting in youth,
and is
still inclined to solitude now. (The Lord is best found, and
enjoyed, in solitude.) He teaches his best students to seek solitude.
7
-- His mere word will influence men, change them, and lift them up.
8
-- He will teach brahmacharya (continence) to men as do the ancient
scriptures. He will also give understanding of its purpose and
teach its profound
significance for both spiritual life and human good fortune. A true
religious teacher will never soft-sell chastity for men, dissimulate
it, undersell it, shy away from it, or make excuses and
loopholes for moral sin, as this blocks the path to divinity
more than any other thing. Especially in a Porn Age when young men are
burning up with the destruction of sin and discharge! He will stand by
brahmacharya squarely and
defend it bluntly without apology to women, or to the corrupt, or to
anybody else.
9 -- Every age has its particular demons and problems. The True Teacher faces and
fights the demons appropriate and needful to fight in
this particular time on behalf of his people. He translates the ancient
imperatives into an address to the present conditions. (For example,
the understanding of the significance of male continence is the least
known today and the most needed, thus a great emphasis on it is needed,
etc.)
10 -- He will have bhakti and teach bhakti. Having devotion
himself, he will stimulate religious devotion in other men. He will
have great respect and devotion for his guru and guru lineage.
11 -- He will point to the old ways and live in the old ways,
especially
brahmacharya, austerity, and devotion.
12
-- He will re-enliven the old plus bring the new. He will easily
dispense with the old if it's useless or outmoded, yet champion the old
if it's vital, no matter how surprising to the current context.
13
-- He has a love of the scriptures, familiarity with the scriptures.
14 -- He can
explain the scriptures including providing new and deeper
insight into them.
He will explain scriptures in new and vital ways, giving new and
deeper understanding of scriptures in which the listener knows by
instinct "This is true." He will elucidate
esoteric and unknown content in the scriptures, pulling out content
secreted there for time immemorial, that is now ripe for the
present age. While treating
them with
respect, he will make confusing scriptures suddenly clear. He
shows the scriptures as surprising, astonishingly new, and newly
pregnant. He has the key, based on his meditation practice and
mergence with Aum, that unlocks the secrets in the scriptures.
15 -- Further:
He will add to and revise the scriptures, and
point out errors or obsolete material there along with the truth. He
will have no qualms about jettisoning or revising some scripture. He
will teach: Scriptures come from mind, mind does not come from
scriptures. Scriptures are part of the external inert universe and thus
are in flux. His own words will sound and feel like vital new
scripture and become new scripture.
16 -- He will have an awakened kundalini and the ability to awaken the
serpent power in others by shaktipat, and those followers
will know it and have the signs.
17 -- He will show warrior-like fearlessness, especially in defense of
the people.
18 -- He will be vitally connected to a religious lineage of siddhas
and have signs and proofs from them.
19 -- He will have attained both savikalpa and nirvikalpa samadhi and
have insight into meditation technique and experience. He will be able
to answer arcane questions about meditation experiences and stages.
20 -- He will be a genuine metaphysician. He will show an
efficacious path and techniques that
reduce suffering in the personal
life by natural law, and explain metaphysical law vis-a-vis the world
manifestation,
sin/virtue, and karma. Doing so, the true teacher will create
conviction about how one's personal karma can be improved, and men and
women will follow his way for the upgrade of their personal karma. That
is, he will be a metaphysician. He will be able to explain the workings
of phenomena in a way that is testable and shown to be true. He will
also be able to show others how to mitigate bad karma through his
metaphysical knowledge. His metaphysics will be both mentally engaging,
intellectually credible, practical, and shown to work in-real-life. Not
a mere theory.
21 -- He will have siddhi and understand siddhi, and his
followers will get siddhi.
22 --
He will act in defense of his people morally and rebuke
wickedness and those who would corrupt them or otherwise hurt them. He
will stand against drugs, moral breakdown, and mockery of religion --
the cultural heritage that points the way to bliss and divine knowledge.
23 -- His external bonafides come from his influence on men, by
attraction, and by the inner resonance of those hearts, as Christ said
in the Gospel: "The sheep recognize their master's voice" and "by their
fruits ye shall know them" (without any definition of "good fruit" and
"bad fruit" needed. Men and women simply know.) His authority also
derives from his word, and from his bhakti connection to a reputable
lineage. He spends little time trying to propound, adduce, or establish
his legitimacy or "authority as a teacher."
24 -- He feels no need to dress in guru costumes or adorn himself with
ancient accoutrements of a guru, yet men recognize and claim him as
their guru anyway. Neither does he need to say "I am guru" or
"try to become" a guru -- yet other men claim him as their guru and
make him that even against his will. He is not hungry for guruhood and
views it as a burden. He is given names by
his guru or his followers. If he bears accoutrements
of guruhood, it is for the pleasure and fulfillment of his students.
25 -- He will know kumbhaka, i.e. he will have mastery of pranayama. |
26 -- His words
will set other men on fire with faith and certitude, devotion,
and austerity.
27 -- The true
teacher doesn't need followers to be happy. He is
contented to be alone and spends much time alone. He teaches from a sense of duty and
obligation.
28 -- He will
prefer poverty to wealth, as instructed in
the Upanishads and by Christ.
29
-- He will
prefer homelessness to having a conventional or stable
home, as instructed in the Upanishads and by Christ.
30 -- He does
not
cling to conventional forms of
security, stocks, bonds, savings accounts, or property. He
enjoys wandering without material comforts. God
is
his security. He advocates this for his best students.
31
-- He will
not seek donations. Rather, he will support himself by
his own useful work or by the grace of God. He is not a
charity case. Any donations he does receive are spent on
charity or teaching.
32 -- The true
teacher doesn't base his worth on followers or the size
of his 'movement.' He doesn't point to his followers and say
"Look at my followers! Look at my organization! This proves I am
valid." He will not care about the size of his movement or point to the
number of his followers.
He's contented with just one follower, or none at all, or a million.
The integrity of his teaching matters more to him than collecting fans
or followers. He will offend or alienate his best follower if it means
standing by the truth for the sake of God or the greater good.
33 -- He will
have traits like the ancient sages, such as devotion,
austerity, seclusion, and meditation. At the same time he will be
unique in certain ways, as all sages have unique qualities as the Lord
is the creative Lord of uniqueness, from Whom all uniqueness flows.
34 -- He prefers nature and wilds to cities and places where
worldly people congregate.
35 -- He loves whatever reminds the mind of God, whether a church, a
mala, a song about God, a child, or a religious book.
36 -- He does not bow to trends, fashions, the changing standards of
"modern times," nor does he bow to "the zeitgeist," the
"consensus," the culture, or peer pressure. If he has to be
the last man standing for the right and the good, he will stand alone.
37 -- He will direct himself to men -- the toughest targets and the
strongest potential yoga teachers -- rather than women, and rather than
to groups of male with females. He will know the distinct
status of the male for comprehension of real yoga (austerities and
God-union) -- and the male's distinct gain in
brahmacharya. The true teacher will
not prefer the company of women over men, which is odd and
unseemly. He will also bear teachings uniquely fulfilling and
attractive to men. He will not prefer female company or staff over
male, or seek to create a crowd around him by catering to women.
Rather, he will try to set a good example of traditional moral culture
by having male staff and men around him, with the exception of his wife
or daughters. This is the way of all the old Hindu yogis and acharyas.
In any gatherings he will keep men separate from women. Finally, he
will not be a feminist or try to grow a movement by catering to the
desires
or agendas of women, and will identify feminism as a mere
expansion of female desires which leads to female unhappiness and
unfulfillment. His love for women is true and real, not simply male
weakness or kowtowing to their desires or to the standards of modern
times.
38 -- He will have a set of teachings for householders/marrieds and
a set for single men and women, and acknowledge the
differences in the sexes and the different approach to the world, and
to spirituality, found in men and women. He will understand both the
monastic path and the path of procreation/family. He will support
both
the path of family and the yogi's path of austerity, seclusion, and
meditation. He will speak with authority to support both paths
and make
them successful. The family side of his followers will be
fruitful, stable, and show ideals in marriage.
39 -- He will be able to speak with authority about the evidences of ananda, divine inner
sound (Aum) and light (jyoti), and ananda from personal experience, plus bring this experience
to
his best students and the divine sense
perceptions of light, smell, etc. as referenced in the Yoga-Sutra. He will be able to bestow the divine sense perceptions on
his students.
40 -- He will have "knowledge of the difference" as mentioned
in Yoga-Sutra 2:26 and be able to explain it.
41 -- He will have real tilak lines, 2 vertical
indentation lines going up his forehead in
the skull, from his meditation, rather
than having to paint them on his forehead as representations.
42 -- He will show himself as unafraid of death in defending his
children, or his people.
43 -- He will have compassion for the suffering and help the poor of
his own race, setting that example for other races. He will be an
open-handed giver to the most suffering people of his race.
44 -- He will have kyastriya-fire for
the wicked; evil people and evil forces will regard him as an Enemy.
45 -- If a teacher of Indian dharma, scriptures, and techniques -- he
will attract Indian males who become his students and champion his
teachings. A dharma teacher who does not attract Indian male
disciples
-- and even champions -- can not be considered a credible, genuine, or
worthy teacher of Indian dharma and yoga. He will inspire, direct
both Indian and Western men.
46 -- Even if old, he will attract the young, especially young males who are the
toughest to impress and have uniquely male spiritual potential.
47 -- He will have the amazing effect of attracting the irreligious to religion, attracting the
immoral to morality, and the non-spiritual to spirituality.
48 -- If from a Christian heritage, he will point to the good, the
truth, and the eternal yoga or dharma in his own heritage, celebrate
it, and bid his fellows to appreciate it. This will include items
unseen and unappreciated heretofore. He will not abandon his heritage
in preference for "the foreign" -- but will point to good and truth
wherever it is, and favor the stable cultural development and
continuity of his own heritage. He will get bliss in both churches and
temples.
49 -- Men and women with varied backgrounds will unite around his
teachings, including Hindu, Christian, Sikh, and others.
50 -- A genuine teacher of yoga and Eternal Religion will be loved in
some quarters and strongly hated in other quarters. A man who has no
enemies and is "loved by all" has no integrity, has made no hard
choices, and is not true.
51 -- The lives of men and women will be improved by contact with his
teachings.
52 -- He will produce, from among men, other teachers like himself,
having fire certitude and conviction, knowledge, and who are effective
teachers who also attract men, and these men will have the same
divine signs, experiences, and confirmations as himself.
Aum
Brotherhood Of The Sacred Word
www.celibacy.info
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