In this episode I share the many spiritual influences on my life – Christian and non-Christian - and why I see Jesus as my spiritual teacher. All true spiritual teachers throughout the ages in all the different spiritual traditions are in essence the same Spiritual Teacher. Jesus calls this inner Teacher “the Father.” I call this inner Teacher Christ. I explore how Jesus’s death was intentional, so as to expand his ministry and message beyond the lifespan of a first century carpenter. The meaning of the Resurrection is that the True Teacher does not die, even though his body dies. I also talk about the importance of having a human spiritual teacher to guide us to the One Inner Teacher.
In this episode I share the many spiritual influences on my life – Christian and non-Christian - and why I see Jesus as my spiritual teacher. All true spiritual teachers throughout the ages in all the different spiritual traditions are in essence the same Spiritual Teacher. Jesus calls this inner Teacher “the Father.” I call this inner Teacher Christ. I explore how Jesus’s death was intentional, so as to expand his ministry and message beyond the lifespan of a first century carpenter. The meaning of the Resurrection is that the True Teacher does not die, even though his body dies. I also talk about the importance of having a human spiritual teacher to guide us to the One Inner Teacher.
Jesus is My Guru
I am a proclaimer of Christian nonduality, and Jesus is my spiritual teacher. The disciples of Jesus called him Rabbi. Jesus is my Rabbi, which means teacher. Jesus is my Lord. He is my Savior. He is the Christ. I am comfortable using all these traditional Christian terms, even though my mystical approach to Christianity is not the type you normally find at your neighborhood church.
In India they use the word Guru. Jesus is my Guru, even though that may sound strange to Christian ears. It is not important what word is used. It is important to have a Spiritual teacher. Left to our own resources we can easily wander in the wilderness for forty years and never see the Promised Land.
A lot of other spiritual sages have helped me along the way. The Buddha has been very helpful. So has Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching and the Taoist teacher Chuang Tzu. The authors of the Upanishads have taught me a lot. Meister Eckhart has been important to me, as has Shankara.
I came of age in the 1960’s and early 70’s and cultural icons like Alan Watts and Ram Dass were important to me at that time, as well as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Aldous Huxley, Huston Smith, Thomas Merton, and Evelyn Underhill have helped. More recently Ramana Maharshi has illuminated the way, as well the writings of his disciples. I have learned from all of these, but Jesus is my Guru, my Teacher, my Lord, my Savior. It is an icon of Christ that hangs on my wall, not an image of Ramana or Buddha.
Jesus is the one who showed me the Kingdom of God. He led me into the Kingdom of God. He taught me that the Kingdom of God is within and around me. He has done that not just by his teachings written in the gospels but more importantly by his Living Presence now. Even though Jesus died many centuries ago, as the Eternal Christ he is still present as he promised he would be. That is why I unashamedly call myself a follower of Jesus Christ.
I see no contradiction between being a Christian and learning from these other spiritual teachers. It is the same gospel being proclaimed by all of them. Many Christians disagree. They see religion as a zero-sum game - another religion’s gains are Christianity’s losses. They compete with other religions to win souls for their team, and they rejoice when a Muslim or a Hindu becomes a Christian. That has traditionally been the purpose of Christian missions. I see all religions as variations on the one eternal gospel, the perennial philosophy. As a Christian pastor I am not in competition with other faiths. We are on the same team. Yet I call myself a Christian. I follow the teachings of Christ, who is alive and present today.
In the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John, we see the transition from an emphasis on the teachings of Christ to an emphasis on the life of Christ, in particular the final week of Jesus’ life. We learn from his life as well as his words. Chapter twelve opens with Palm Sunday and the rest of the book brings us through Easter Sunday and beyond. In this chapter Jesus comments on this shift. He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” It was Jesus’ way of saying that his death was necessary to move the gospel to the next level.
While Christ was one Jewish man living in first century in Palestine, his ministry and teachings were limited to that venue. But with his death and glorification, his ministry expanded to all times and places. Jesus says here, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” The death of Jesus was not an unfortunate tragedy or a mistake. It was a planned strategy to expand his ministry beyond the lifespan of Jesus of Nazareth.
In this chapter the words “glory” and “glorify” are used to describe this transition. Jesus is struggling with the emotional aspect of dying, since he was a human with human feelings. He says, “Now My soul has become troubled. What am I to say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
That is the glory of having Jesus as one’s spiritual teacher. It is as if we were living in the first century in Palestine. Sometimes I hear Christians pining for the old days – the biblical times and wishing they could have heard Jesus teach with their own ears. We can! It is even better now than then, for Christ is within us.
That is the important thing to remember about a Spiritual teacher. Regardless of what human teacher you might have, there is only one real Teacher. That teacher is within. That teacher is the True Self, the Inner Christ. The human teacher is only useful to direct our attention to the Teacher that resides within. In that way the Teacher is with us always and never leaves us.
The crowd of people who had gathered for Palm Sunday discuss this with Jesus. The account reads: “The crowd then answered Him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how is it that You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?” So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; also, the one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
Here Jesus is talking about his forthcoming death, which he compares to darkness falling. That picks up the theme in the very beginning of the Gospel in the prologue, which I call John’s Christmas poem. The prologue says that light was coming into the world in Jesus. It says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not put it out. I put that verse on our Christmas cards this year. Not even the execution of Jesus was able to extinguish the Light. That is because Jesus taught us to be sons and daughters of the Light. We are the light of the world.
The Light that shines in the darkness shines within us. The Teacher is within. Human teachers come and go. They are born and they die. The Eternal Teacher is not born and does not die. This Teacher does not come and go. This teacher is always present. Good spiritual teachers point us to that one Teacher. They do not desire to be worshipped or served. A true teacher points to the Teacher within. True teachers work themselves out of a job.
That is why it is alright when they die. Death is just another opportunity to teach that the real teacher does not die. That is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus, which is what the second half of the Gospel of John leads up to. The resurrection of Jesus is a dramatic way of saying that the Teacher cannot die – not really. The teacher’s body can die, but the Teacher does not die. As Christ promised after the resurrection, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
Back to the importance of a spiritual teacher. Without some type of spiritual director or spiritual guide to point us in the right direction, we are at the mercy of our body and mind. Our ego will pull us in all sorts of directions. The ego – the false self – will do anything to deceive us in order to remain in control of our lives. Left to our own resources we deceive ourselves. That is why it is important to have someone outside of us to show the way. It is the same reason that counselors and therapists are helpful to guide us to psychological health. We need someone who is spiritually mature enough to direct us to the Teacher within.
Human teachers are not perfect, and we must not mistake them for such and deify them. If you do, they will disappoint you. But if you find a genuine teacher, they are useful to point us to the One who is perfect. But be careful. There are a lot of spiritual con men and greedy gurus out there. There are a lot of so-called spiritual teachers who use their position to feed the ego and the body. As Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.
All true spiritual teachers throughout the ages in all the different spiritual traditions are in essence the same Spiritual Teacher. Jesus calls this inner Teacher “the Father.” “For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me … what to say and what to speak. The things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.” There is only One Teacher speaking through human teachers. It is just a matter of recognizing this voice and following this teacher. I call this inner teacher Jesus Christ.