The Spiritual Guru.

Steven & Amy North provides insight into the experiences and implications of being a self-proclaimed Spiritu Guru. An in-depth topic of what it means to be a “teacher” and the implications of sharing false teachings.

Introduction & Personal Reflection

The past few weeks for myself have seen one heck of a push (or ass-kicking) into stepping forward and getting the courage to write about what I’ve been witnessing, talking about, thinking about and having had experienced personally. My pattern has always been to internalise experiences, close myself off and not really talk about them.  Even with encouragement to “document” my thoughts, I’ve not really complied with that advice.

So with this frustration surging again, there was a scream that the message needed to be shared. I not only spoke about it with Amy & Jocelyn (transcript below) in December and have been researching this topic by talking more with trusted friends to get opinions, advice and to get various perspectives of the topic on hand.

I confess that writing about this topic has been very challenging, a lot of going within, a lot of questions, reverting to the Bible and almost quitting because I got stuck on which direction this was going. Do I share said experiences, do I make it generic, what do I focus on? I questioned my own thoughts as if I were reading another’s articles so that I could understand the direction that I had to take the article as there were so many perspectives that I could see just on my own.

What is a teacher?

Last night, in conversation with Jenny Schiltz, I was trying to understand what is actually defined as the teacher and we thoroughly looked further into this as we felt that in every single moment, we are all both a teacher & student at the same time. Every experience is an opportunity to be stretched, to be challenged, they are all about personal growth and development. Whether it is a narcissistic manager, a troubled relationship, falling off a push bike, speeding whilst driving, dealing with technology issues or meeting someone who radiates love so beautifully that one feels like they’re ‘in’ love with them as it is so divine in nature.

If someone walks into a tree for the very first time and discovers that by doing so that it hurts, the discovered that it does indeed hurt when you walk into a tree. Does this mean that the tree performs the role of a teacher? One of my own experiences with a self-proclaimed expert (he did have clairvoyant abilities) was narcissism with a splash of fancy spiritual words. In that experience, I learned a lot in regards to the human mind, the narcissism, self-respect and self-love. So I began pondering whether in this experience, was the expert a teacher or playing out a role as part of self-development and life plans?

Yes, life is a teacher but life has no conscious entity that will declare or say “Today, we’re learning this lesson”. Life is a beautiful tapestry of lessons, experiences, ups & downs. Life is meant to be challenging, life is meant to be filled with obstacles, it is to make us grow, develop and move beyond what we think we know. No life is ever easy.

All of which is being put into place by your highest self, so the real teacher is the highest self and we are just one of the many facilitators – Jenny Schiltz

A conversation today (12-Jan-18) with Perth musician, Ross Daglish revealed that Teaching is an active process, a dissemination of information. The process of teaching is to constantly impart knowledge and wisdom. Life lessons and experiences aren’t considered a teacher as they are not a conscious role of teaching. We can learn from them all the same, the outcomes are the same but they are not taught in the same manner.

In one of the many sessions Amy makes reference as to how she has been working with other spirit guides for other teachers, some I may not meet but she talks to them about what their incarnates experience. She also makes reference to a group of souls that are actual teachers. These teachers are already enlightened souls and have been sharing their wisdom and teachings with humanity for many lifetimes. It is a natural calling and their Spirit Guide & guide team are also teachers which support them.

Identity, Marketing & Teaching

Marketing a spiritual based service can get very challenging and when I did my own research into developing a marketing strategy with the NEIS program. I looked at various models when looking at selling a spiritual based service and interviewed a handful of people on their marketing strategies. One of these models that I’ve observed is the “Hey, I’m a Hero, Look at me”. This technique is used to describe how fantastic they are, how incredible they are and if you don’t book a session with them, you will be missing out and your life will suffer because of it. This technique has been in use for many years, in all industries. Industries such as advertising services, DJ’s, business coaching, sports coaching and it is also in the spiritual services sector.

This really old, out-of-date form of marketing is driven by a desire to create a label, define the person, create a definition for whom the person is, what they do and to actually make themselves sound like a celebrity. This form of marketing does not work in the spiritual sector because there are those that have such an awakened awareness that they can see right through the bullshit of self-made prophets. With more and more people entering this sector to teach awareness, awakening, ascension, paradigm shift, new earth, etc. These gurus are grabbing as many buzz words as possible to make themselves sound like a form of all-knowing Oracle.

The issue is that any person who has read books or has done a course or two are now beginning to call themselves a teacher, coach or a form of powerful healer and they get so very excited about this new venture (Do not blame them either, it’s exciting!) that they scream at the top of their lungs “LOOK AT ME!” or “I can fix all your issues” and begin using all of the latest buzz words to try and catch people’s attention. You will read more below as Amy mentions that there are those that stand on the shoulders of Masters, share their teachings with absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

When it comes marketing & advertising, there are many that are supporting and saw this on LinkedIn where someone was promoting their eBook regarding terminology on cryptocurrency to help you fake it, until you make it. The whole “fake it, until you make it” is such a disgusting, deceptive and horrible paradigm as it encourages people to step into a role with minimal awareness and you can be held liable.

This just does not happen across the spiritual industry, it is happening across all industries with many people stepping into a position of empowering or guiding others lives and are using attractive mind manipulative marketing techniques. I saw a comment (below) on a Life Coaches video post on LinkedIn and you can see that people are wanting talent rather than ego. Yet, I ask myself, how is one able to differentiate from truth and false?

Personally I’d prefer a light-hearted goose who inspires me to be my best and in turn drive results, too many stuffy “leaders” out there who drive with ego rather than talent.

When it comes to the realm of spiritual teaching, one of the essential requirements is that the person must have an enlightened soul, many of the ancient teachers have been teaching enlightenment are in fact, enlightened souls. As an example, my soul is an enlightened soul and when it comes to the teachings, I am consciously aware that what I teach is true, although when there are topics such as this one, I do spend quite some time meditating and pondering on the topic before I reveal it. I also make sure that what I talk about, I walk it.

The necessity to understand what it is that is being taught to others is very important. I, as well as Amy, like to make sure that we see as much perspective as possible before a teaching or a discussion on a topic is delivered and in some circumstances, the exploration is necessary as the development of this article has proven.

Amy North with Jocelyn Joy Thomas

This session with Amy North was from December 2017 when addressing the emotions and frustration that has been surfacing. I asked Amy what is happening and why this is so, this is Amy North on this very topic that I’ve been writing about.

Amy North

We’re talking about your emotions and your emotional state of late, with not being that happy and then you bring up these experiences, so let us talk a little bit about that situation now.

First of all, the emotional state is one that is subjective to the surroundings of an individual at all given times, especially a person that is empathic, sensitive, this sort of thing. You’re going to be picking up all sorts of things like a radio antenna picks up frequencies and so a lot of the time, the people around you may not be the greatest energy, you’re going to be taking that in and working on that, transmuting it, that sort of thing. This is just something that people do when they are not aware that they’re doing it and you know how to get rid of this, you want to surround yourself with protection and ground yourself.

The first thing you do when you notice your mood, especially when there is nothing that has really happened to trigger it is to clear yourself and put up that protective wall.

Now about this situation in the experiences, that whole thing is a control drama, it means that it is something where a certain person’s ego gets a little insane like egos can, you know, a little drunk with power that kind of thing. Look what I can do, look what new toy I found, look what new powers or skills I have and they tend to run amuck. So you know this, we’ve talked about some of this before. It is not even people that are new to the spiritual path and this is really something that I’d like to talk about for a moment here, if I may. Anyone on the spiritual path runs the risk of it, anybody, especially those that are newer to the spiritual path, there is a tendency to get a little piece of knowledge and then run with that and become an expert on that and it is a dangerous thing to do.

Let’s say that somebody figures out how to look at how past lifetimes, lets just say that they looked up one of their own past lifetimes and then suddenly they will say, “Yes, I know how to go to the Akashic records, I know how to read your Akashic record, I can do anything in the records, Yeah”… No, No because first of all, a place like that has levels that they allow you to see in, you know, lower level, middle level, higher level, higher level, higher level! Also, to the degree in which the particular life is exposed to the person viewing, that will depend on their access. The access is merely dependant on how much soul wisdom that person posses. Why? because they’re not going to give it to them, or we can even come from this on a different angle, you’re literally not going to see whatever wisdom it is, whether it is Akashic records, a person’s intentions, soul contract, whatever it is your trying to see, you’re not going to see it if you don’t have awareness. You’re not going to have the ability. It is like learning a language and only knowing a few words versus being fluent. You’re literally not going to be able to translate what you’re seeing.

People that think they are because they’ve learned a few words, those are the ones that run the risk of really, not only in a way, drunk with power but they are creating karma for themselves and that is where it is dangerous. They are not only creating it for themselves but the people that they’re counselling, that they’re giving guidance to, are hearing things that aren’t necessarily authentic and what that means is that they’re creating a big web of karma or karmic consequences and that means that, depending on how far someone is relying on someone’s guidance, they can get themselves into quite a bit of trouble. It is like a ball of yarn that gets bigger and bigger and bigger and now there is this knotted ball of yarn that is karma and guess how many lifetimes it will take to sort that out!

So the worst thing is when someone says that they’re an expert and then they try to get up and speak in front of people. If someone is saying that they know it all but maybe all they’re doing is talking to friends, then there is not going to be a lot of harm done but if someone is acting like that they are a teacher and they know a great deal, I would say, to safely say, you should not talk about a topic, you should not teach a topic until you feel comfortable in everything about it, all the ins and outs and often times that can take years.

Now that may go against some of the things that guides often say like “No, you don’t have to wait to be perfect. You want to start learning as you go” that is very true in some respects. When we say something like that, it is because we know the individual has a solid enough background and foundation that they’re going to be able to present enough facts and whatever this new technique is they’re going to be able to implement and incorporate that into whatever they’re already teaching. We’re not going to say that to someone who is brand new and say, doing readings or giving talks, we’re not going to have a person like that go out and wing it. We would say, why don’t you take some time and privately research, study, practice and you know, talk to friends about it, immediate family, that kind of thing, we don’t really want it to be something that is broadcasted.

The problem again is that the internet is this wonderful information portal where we can do classes and things like that, but there is also social media which means that there is absolutley no filter and people can say things and pose as experts and there’s no way in proving credibility and so if they use a couple of phrases that they’ve heard here and there and they try to piece it all together then somebody, unfortunately a few somebodies start to think that this person knows what they’re talking about and they develop a following. Some people are just really good mimics, they parrot what they hear others say but they have no idea what that really means, what they’re saying really means and unfortunately there is a great deal.

Even people that have been on the spiritual path for decades can do that because they have stood on the shoulders of masters, so to speak but they haven’t walked the actual path but they know the words and know how to sound flashy and they know the right things to say and what they’re really interested in is the glory, the fame, the attention.

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