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Holding Your Inadequacy: About Loss of Illusion and Discovery of the Teacher

At some point, you might decide to play the spiritual game. If you do ever get to that point you might investigate something I?ve noticed for years: there really are beings out there a lot higher on the scale of being than you and me. Should you chance to meet one, how, if at all, are you going to use that opportunity?

Back when I first got into the spiritual game, I didn?t yet know I was in it. After all, I had been reading books for years and turning concepts around in my mind. Even though the books suggested that self-development?evolution?might be possible, I figured I must in my own way have already been doing that work and didn?t need to break out of my mold. After all, look at me. Wasn?t I talented, intuitive, tapped into something beyond the surface views fed to me by television advertising, manifesting my desires without even trying? I was reading in these books about all those exercises, all that travel, all those exposures to great beings?well, other great beings. Surely those would be nice ways of showcasing my evolutionary prowess, but not strictly necessary.

Now please, if you are reading this, take a step back from what I?m saying and let the silliness of my attitude sink in. I was the spiritual equivalent of a couch potato who used to shoot hoops on the playground and figures he could challenge Michael Jordan one-on-one. I was the spiritual equivalent of woman who thinks, ?One day I might go to Hollywood and become a star,? despite the fact that she chickened out of auditioning for high school plays and won?t ask anyone about her appearance or ability for fear of criticism. I was the pale shadow of the guy Koyote the Blind told me about who actually had worked on himself for years, had competed, was a black belt in karate?the karate champion of El Salvador in fact!?who challenged Bruce Lee to a fight. He took his fighting stance, bowed, and that?s the last thing he remembered. At least he actually found out: Bruce Lee is way, way, way better than him.

At some point, maybe, if you?re anything like me, you?ll consider that maybe you really do have a potential greatness and maybe you?ll come face to face with the fact that you?re light years away from realizing it. Maybe you?ll decide to get off your duff and actually realize your potential?dare I say it?no matter how many lifetimes it takes. After all, you?ve got nothing better to do.

And if, at some point, you decide to test what you?re really made of and to work on yourself, you may want to find a teacher. The funny thing about loss of illusions is that it often coincides with the search for a teacher. But almost instantly, the would-be student is faced with a new problem: how in the world can the spiritual equivalent of a three year old make a good choice on the spiritual equivalent of the Las Vegas strip even assuming they can somehow hitch a ride there? You?re helpless. You?re clueless. All you have at first is a bunch of ideas about how a real teacher would behave. Wouldn?t a really spiritual person be selfless, happy, asexual, able and willing to do all kinds of tricks whenever you have doubts or just need encouragement? Thinking here of Yoda I am or someone really wise like that.

All I can tell you is this?and you can choose to believe me or not: the two beings I have truly seen over and over again under pressure, able to behave as they will, never swayed by external pressure, able to open up and navigate extraordinary spaces, willing to give all of themselves to the spiritual work, are none of the above. Now, admittedly, two is a small sample size. But what it does show me is that displaying particular personality traits are not what counts in the spiritual game, any more than it is in the games of basketball, Hollywood stardom, or karate. Performance counts. Skills count. The personality is what it is.

If you are lucky enough to find someone who seems to have mastered themselves, see that being as an aspect of your own consciousness and don?t worry right now about whether they are genuine (they?re not), because you lack discernment and you have no idea what you?re talking about. Hold your inadequacy. Work with it. That?s enough.

 Eric N. Peterson is a Toltec priest and member of The Tequihua Foundation, a Riverside, Southern CA nonprofit whose mission is to continue the ancient consciousness-transforming arts of the Toltecs. The Aka Dua is an energy prepared by a particular Toltec line. The Aka Dua assists in the alchemical process of transformation by which an ordinary human becomes the shaman.

www.tequihuafoundation.org