Reconnecting with My Spiritual Teacher (Causal Body)
AC 271: May 29, 2007 (Boston)I haven’t felt my inner spiritual teacher around for a while. I’m not surprised. I’ve been caught up in trying to figure out my housing situation (should I stay, live alone, get a new housemate, move, look for another place with a friend?). There hasn’t been much room in my head for anything else.
I went to bed early, about 10 P.M. As I made myself comfortable, I tried to open myself up to my teacher. I was surprised by how quickly I connected. It was as if someone had thrown a switch. My inner senses came on. My head felt huge and expansive, full of light. The sudden clarity was like the sounding of a gong. And there was my teacher--not a visible presence, but an energetic one. I felt totally seen, held, loved.
I also knew that the connection between us had never been broken. I’d just fallen out of it, as it were, due to concerns about my housing situation. Now I was back.
Leadbeater speaks of this intimate connection between student and spiritual teacher (which he calls pupil and Master or Adept), saying:
if there is any serious disturbance in the lower bodies [physical, emotional, mental] of the pupil it will affect those of the Master; and, as such vibration would interfere with the Adept’s work on higher planes, when this unfortunately happens he has to drop a veil that shuts the pupil off from himself until such time as the storm settles down.” (The Masters and the Path, 2nd abridged edition, 1983, 94)I’m not sure that entirely agree with this statement. My experience has been that I fall into and out of awareness of my connection with my teacher, but the teacher is always there. Some level of my being remains aware of this connection--the causal body. But I don’t always have conscious access to that level. The veil is entirely of my own making.
Also, Leadbeater’s view of the Master in this passage seems strangely limited. I doubt that anything I might go through emotionally while present in physical reality has any effect at all on my teacher. He seems beyond having his own reactions to whatever is going on in my life. The part of me that is also beyond such reactions--what Leadbeater would call the Ego or causal body--is constantly in touch with him. If there’s any separation between us, I seem to create it myself, inadvertently, at the level of my personality in the present lifetime.
Leadbeater goes on to say:
It is of course sad for the pupil when he has to be cut off in this manner; but it is absolutely his own doing, and he can end the separation at once as soon as he can control his thoughts and feelings. (Ibid.)I agree with this statement. It accords with my experience. My only issue with Leadbeater is whether the separation is initiated from my side or my teacher’s.
I suppose it could be both. Also, the problem may be one of semantics: from which level of the self are we speaking? To human beings incarnated in physical reality, the connection to an inner spiritual teacher is infinitely precious. When it disappears, we’re chagrined. We feel like we’re being punished. Also, we project blame for our descent from bliss onto the teacher: he or she has withdrawn from us. But how could our teacher be so mean? So we must be responsible. Guilt, guilt, guilt.
My experience is simply that I got distracted by personal issues and lost the connection to my causal body, which is where I connect with my teacher. I noticed that my confusion was compounded by not feeling the support of my teacher. When I found my way back to my causal body and that connection was reestablished, my relief was enormous. But there was no sense of guilt or punishment, only that I liked the bliss that comes with this connection so much I would prefer to experience it more rather than less often.
I suppose that could be an incentive not to let myself get so confused by personal matters that I lose my connection with my teacher. So I’ve learned something. As the I Ching says, “No blame.”