The case against following an external spiritual authority.
When it comes to spirituality, I often hear people say, “you need a teacher.”
The main argument seems to come down to this: if you don’t have a teacher, you will do it wrong. As a result, several things may happen:
- You won’t get enlightened.
- You will hurt yourself.
- If you manage to figure it out on your own, it will take a lot longer.
I think this argument is bullshit, and here’s why.
You won’t get enlightened.
This argument relies on the assumption that people with teachers — any teachers — are regularly getting enlightened. There are several issues with this.
First off, nobody can even agree on what enlightenment consists of. There are no clear criteria for saying “yes” or “no” to the question, “is this person enlightened?” So we can’t say whether anybody is getting enlightened, let alone people with teachers vs. people without teachers.
Most people’s criteria are impossible, like always feeling good, or never getting angry, or being in a constant state of oneness, and so on. Amongst the rare communities where criteria are explicit and attainable, such as the pragmatic dharma community, there are still constant debates about the meaning of various terms and who is or isn’t fully awake.
While some people may claim that their teacher is enlightened, awakened, realized, etc., virtually no one will claim that that same teacher’s students are also regularly getting that same level of attainment. Therefore getting a teacher is no guarantee of achieving the promised outcome.
“You need a teacher or else you won’t get enlightened” also seems to indicate that any teacher will do. But most spiritual practitioners also think that most (other) teachers themselves aren’t enlightened! Therefore one would have to select an enlightened teacher first, not just any teacher.
But it’s also often claimed that unenlightened people can’t recognize enlightened people due to their lack of wisdom, so that makes it likely a student will select the wrong teacher and be no better off than not having one.
The idea that having a teacher will help your progress also relies on the assumption that you will have a personal relationship with your teacher, where you can share very specific details about your practice and your life, and they will guide you. This pretty much never happens now, as most teachers fly from city to city to give talks. Usually a teacher won’t even know your name.
At best you might get a 15 minute meeting with a teacher once every few years. The idea that a teacher with so little information about you can give you wise, highly personalized advice is bogus. You are far more likely to know what is right for you than they are. If you want an outside perspective, grab a cup of coffee with a friend.
You will hurt yourself.
It’s true that if you just pursue your own weird spiritual path, you may hurt yourself. I messed myself up with strange practices too.
That said, many practices within groups are themselves experimental. “Kundalini Yoga” for instance consists of practices invented by Yogi Bhajan, often on the spot. Modern postural yoga similarly was mostly borrowed from Swedish gymnastics and has no textual record in the yoga traditions.
This also assumes that people who follow teachers do not also hurt themselves. That is a bad assumption. Advanced yoga practitioners often end up with injuries, whether from joint hypermobility, or quite disturbingly often, from teachers giving forceful adjustments.
Many spiritual teachers are sexual predators, psychopaths, or malignant narcissists, and many spiritual communities are cults. The most popular spiritual teachers are often the worst in this regard, so someone seeking a teacher is much more likely to join a cult than a non-toxic spiritual community. I joined two myself in my 20s.
Joining a cult can fuck your life up in ways far worse than doing some failed spiritual experiments with unique practices. And cult leaders themselves often emphasize the importance of having a teacher. Back when I was in Ken Wilber’s cult, Wilber would talk to his buddy Andrew Cohen and they would both ramble on about how spiritual seekers are so narcissistic and need a teacher to break through their ego defenses. Cohen now has a documentary about him called “How I Created a Cult”!
Even amongst non-cults, spiritual practices were often created for full-time yogis and monks, and need adapting for contemporary contexts. Teachers don’t always know how to do this in useful ways, or don’t even want to, because they are more committed to preserving the tradition than providing useful instruction.
While you may very well hurt yourself along the spiritual path, there is no evidence to show that you are more likely to hurt yourself going it alone than following a teacher. If anything, you might be more likely to be hurt if following an external authority, because you will no longer be paying attention to your own limits and what’s best for you. Falling under someone else’s direction is an excellent way to get hurt.
If you manage to figure it out on your own, it will take a lot longer.
A lot longer than what? Joining a cult? Working under a teacher where nobody gets enlightened by anyone’s criteria anyway?
Since the previous two points are bullshit, this one obviously is too.
In fact, “having a teacher” is itself poorly defined. Does that mean a personal relationship with a teacher who knows your name and a lot of specific details about your life? Because almost nobody has that nowadays.
Does it mean simply reading someone’s books and going to their public talks? How is that even “having a teacher” vs. “consuming information from a teacher”? Why would you only have one?
I think having more than one teacher, ideally teachers who disagree with each other on things, is the way to go. That way, you are forced to think for yourself about what you think is wise and good, and don’t simply mindlessly obey any one individual.
Ultimately the path of becoming wise is dangerous, but it’s not clear that it requires guidance from some specific wise person, or that we could even be wise enough to know who that person is. And it’s not like the path of foolishness is any less dangerous! Life is a gamble, we do the best we can with what we’ve got, and that’s all we can do.
This doesn’t mean that at times it’s not useful to get advice, methods, and so on from teachers and spiritual friends, it just means it’s not absolutely necessary to do so, or that you are lacking something because you haven’t surrendered your will to some wiser being.
Think for yourself and make your own choices.
