On Spiritual Purity

When Sri Ramakrishna, the 19th century sage of Dakshineswar, India said that he couldn't associate with money his disciple Vivekananda wanted to test him so he hid a coin under his mattress. Next day Sri Ramakrishna reported that he couldn't sleep at all that night.

Along the Tao you will have to drop some of your habits. You might no longer be able to work in the profession you did before. You may change your eating or drinking habits. Your sexual practices might change or you might drop sex altogether. The thing though is, experience for yourself what this change is about. Just see for yourself what happens when you practice what you have been doing before and how you feel when you drop that activity for good. You can run experiments just like Vivekananda did. However, also remember that we need you to show your true colors. Only because some guru is a vegetarian and lives like a monk doesn't mean you have to. Explore and express yourself. You don't need to worry, the Tao will communicate clearly to you what works and what doesn't.

I have a very simple rule of thumb. I do whatever feels right to express my love. I have become vegetarian because I care for animals. I drink alcohol when I have the chance to toast with my friends. I also haven't found that sex interferes with my spiritual path as long as it is an expression of love. I work in the financial industry which is, many would argue, obsessed with money. It doesn't touch me though as I am focussing my attention on the interactions with my friends at work. This is the path the Tao has chosen for me. I am here to help my friends and will do that happily until I get the signal to move on to my next career, that of a spiritual coach. The Blue Lord was teaching Arjun the path toward enlightenment on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita. Define your own path towards purity but remember your starting point in this journey. You have to share your gifts with humanity in your special way. You will see that the Tao encourages you to express your idiosyncratic being. Be creative, be bold and be flexible to change course when the next cue shows up.

What is a Spiritual Coach

You cannot transcend your ego until you synchronize with a higher order. This is the 'I Am' experience. At this holy moment you leave your ego behind like an old skin. However, for those who came back on earth to tell others about this experience, they had to put some personality blanket back on again.

A spiritual coach is someone who helps you merge with the Infinite, while a life coach is someone who helps you getting you what you want to get out of life. It is as simple as that. We are all different, we all have different mission statements. So please do not make the mistake that you think that only because you are going after enlightenment, that you are something better. In fact, the institution that contemplates that thought - your ego - is exactly the force that will make sure that you never get 'there'. But if for whatever reason you think or feel that getting 'there' is your mission statement, trust that a spiritual coach will be there, granting you a helping hand.

It is impossible to get 'there'. You either are 'there', or you are not. Life - the Tao - is always there to tell you how to proceed. Not how to get 'there', but how to let go of your personality blanket in order to appreciate that you are already home. We are all on a subconscious journey to return home to our Source. Everybody who strengthens the ego does so to live out a desire. Only when you live out a desire can you transcend it. The greedy businessman, the alcoholic, the depressed unemployed may all be as close to a spiritual break-through as the devoted monk. There is no telling when, why or where a spiritual calling might come.

A spiritual coach is someone who helps you removing your personality blanket. Just as they say, when the student is ready the teacher will come. A life coach can help you getting to you to your desired destination, a spiritual coach can help you understand that you are already home.

Closing the Circle

A friend said to me 'Why don't you guys get a life coach?' when I told her that my wife and I were really buried these days by the demands from work, home and parenthood. I had to laugh because that weekend I had contemplated how to design the business cards displaying my next career as a spiritual writer. Should it be Author, Life Coach or Author, Spiritual Coach instead? Well, it is very simple really. A life coach helps you to accomplish what you want to get out of life, while a spiritual coach helps you on your journey home.

Actually, a Tao traveler would point out that the expression 'life coach' is an oxymoron for everyone who has the desire to come home: life coaches you already, all a Tao master would tell you is to keep your eyes wide open, listen to everyone and keep an open mind about everything, and stand ready to be coached moment by moment.

So if you still have a mission, have something to accomplish, you have to be ready to battle with life. Getting a life coach might be a good idea to get a little further ahead or to avoid some pain in the process. Having both feet in life is spiritual too; there is only one way to overcome desires and that is by outgrowing them. You can't yet close the circle just because you still have to make it bigger. Perhaps the job of the spiritual coach could be to help with that soul searching process. There are spiritual seekers who after a long period of drifting realize that they still have a job to do in the real life just as there are driven people who suddenly realize that they have outgrown their desires and happily start the journey home. Otherwise I don't think a spiritual coach has to do much, at least not if she is a Taoist like me. We strongly believe that there is not a better spiritual coach than life itself. Observe the signs that come your way and close the circle for once and for all.

Who is Teaching Whom?

Therapy is useful for some to empower themselves, outgrow their past and understand what had been holding them back. Yet, I wonder about the therapist - client relationship very much as I worry about a guru - spiritual aspirant relationship. It just doesn't gel with my experience. I only know about equality. Even when I raise my boys I have always found that these spiritual giants have at least as much to teach me as I teach them.

I had the idea of being a spiritual coach as my next career but I am no longer so sure about that. Coaching entails hierarchy, does it not? Whenever I meet someone in my life, I meet her as an equal. We are a sisterhood of man - born and raised as spiritual equals. 

Take this blog as an example. For a number of years now I have written down the insights I acquired along the way. With the help of Feedjit I have been able to observe the essays that readers like you have been browsing. Did you know that these articles are magically tied into my thought process? Old ideas pop up reminding me just at the time when I am ready to make new connections thanks to readers like you. The Tao makes us all equal, so who is teaching whom?

The Spiritual Coach

I don't like the expression guru very much, it is over-used and it implies hierarchy, which does not exists within the Sonship. Choegyam Trungpa suggested the expression 'spiritual friend' instead in his book 'Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism', which is much better; it implies an equal playing field among us spiritual path travelers. You are lifting up your sister and you learn that in fact she lifts you up in the process. Yet there is the time when you have finally arrived at our Source while someone else might just have been initiated on his path. In this case I would still prefer the phrase 'spiritual coach' over the guru expression. The coach's job is to impart that special knowledge onto you to launch you on your path, but he also experiences the beauty and the power of your journey vicariously. The coach may have travelled his journey despite himself and only managed with pure will-power to run down an imaginary wall. Then comes along a new traveler who finds a way to turn with your help the scary monsters of your past into friendly spiritual guides. How much joy that would that be; perhaps you even manage to write a book on it, helping millions in the process. There is no hierarchy in a player coach relationship, both are equals who need each other to get the job done. So enjoy coaching, the next student will be ready when you are.