Anchoring

   When you find a teacher who inspires you a lot, it's best to go to that teacher periodically to renew your faith. Sometimes, the teacher's presence is more inspiring than what you are able to do yourself, so going back to that teacher to replenish your faith is important and vital. 

    The reason I write this remark is that I am harkening back to my previous entry about spiritual anchoring. The anchor has always been a symbolically rich metaphor for how I took spiritual practice, especially in the beginning, when I first started to learn and facilitate meditation practices. I would even use this term when I was a timekeeper as well. It always brought me back to something I know the most, which is my present lived experience--and which, I might add, could not be taken away from me. Any time a person feels insecure or jealous about anything--afraid of losing their reputation or status--chances are that they are confusing something out there for their true identity, or true mind. If one has truly found their truest mind, they will find that this true mind is what can never be taken away, since it has no object to begin with! And so, in order to find what is true, one must always go back to what is most fundamental, most simple and most immediate to their lived in-the-moment experience.

    So, the teacher that inspires one the most, is the teacher that brings a person back to their most peaceful self. And that is the teacher that one wants to take refuge in, rather than taking refuge in a teacher who is taking you all over the place and confusing you! After all, that wouldn't necessarily be a teacher who would lead you to find your best qualities.