When Good Spiritual Teachers Go Bad

      It’s a pattern, and it doesn’t seem to matter which religion or spiritual teaching or denomination is involved, where a spiritual teacher, pastor, or priest begins very well intentioned and able to teach effectively, appears to be enlightened and can lead others to their own spiritual awakening, enlightenment, or salvation as it were, and then further on down the road veers off, beginning to see himself or herself as the only one with the answers and discouraging anyone from listening to anyone else, even sometimes taking advantage of their positions of leadership or power and seducing their followers sexually. This happens frequently among New Age teachers, but it also happens more frequently among Christian pastors from all denominations than those denominations will care to legally admit. One can only look to all of the scandals which have popped up over the last thirty years to see this.
     And this begs the question, “Why?” How could someone who started off so well and so well intentioned end up going so far off course, sometimes even leading their followers into debauchery or, God forbid, suicide. Fingers are often pointed at the spiritual beliefs in question, the doctrines taught, and “If they were only following the truth (i.e. the way I believe), then this wouldn’t have happened.” Except this happens across the theological and doctrinal spectrum. There really isn’t a religion or spiritual teaching which isn’t affected by it.
     The path to spiritual growth begins with the disengagement from, as R.J. Spina calls it, the ego/mind/identity. St. Paul calls it the “old man” or literally, the “old human being,” or “old Adam.” In Buddhism, it would begin with the realization of the “self” as an illusion, and thus dissociating from or disengaging from it. No matter which spiritual path is followed, it is absolutely necessary to identify one’s own ego or self-identity and remove it from the driver’s seat. St. Paul talks about being joined to Christ in His death so that we may also be joined to Him with His resurrection, and makes this the foundation of all Christian spiritual practice that the Saint writes about in the New Testament.
     But what St. Paul is also clear about in his writings is that this is an ongoing discipline. One does not disengage from the old man, the self, the ego once and done. There has to be an ongoing disengagement, and an ongoing cooperation and submission to the Spirit of Christ, a constantly maintained connection to the Head of the Body in order to continue to be able to receive signal and ability from that Head.
     The ego/mind/identity is a product of the malfunctioning human survival responses as I have written about before, being formed from what pleases or displeases one after the connection between the brain and the Source is blocked by that constant, overreactive survival response. This deviant or malfunctioning response system has to do with physical changes in the human brain from our more animal-like, “innocent” ancestors, and, from what I’ve been able to track down, has to do with the differences between the human amygdala and hypothalamus and those of our primate cousins. Regardless, it is physical and it is hardwired into our brains, and it is there until the brain dies and decomposes. It is, in some ways, like any other neurological disorder that affects behavior, except that it is located in the deepest and most essential parts of the brain and cannot be corrected surgically. It is something we have to be aware of at all times even if we are not engaged with it but in cooperation with the Spirit, because it can and will exert itself without warning if we allow it to become triggered by engaging with our fear, aggression, feeding, or sexual responses.
     Spiritual teachers and pastors, more than anyone else, have to keep themselves aware of the hardwired nature of this malfunction, of this ego/mind/identity. It’s not something that they can do away with, but only bypass with the Spirit of Christ. It’s when they believe themselves to be fully free of error, of “sin,” of the ego and believe it cannot return because of their spiritual enlightenment or progress that this malfunction generated ego, this “old man” quietly resumes control away from the Source.
     From my observation, the biggest error anyone, especially spiritual teachers, can make is not respecting the existence and perniciousness of the human malfunction. Because it is physical in nature, it will be there attempting to exert control until the body dies. We don't grow past it. It's hardwired, and this fact has to be respected with humility at all times. This is where just about every spiritual teacher trips up believing they no longer have an ego when it is their ego that has slipped back into control unawares.
     St. Paul understood this very, very well. He understood the danger posed by his own flesh, the soft tissues of his own body, his malfunctioning brain and “heart.” He writes about disciplining and “beating” his body like an athlete training for the games, a runner running a race, a boxer in a bout. He understood that the problem was a malfunctioning organ which wouldn’t go away until he died, and so he had to put up with it. He didn’t have to like it, but like a person with a broken arm, he did have to be aware of it and take care of it without using it. There were a few times when he let his ego get away, and he felt like he paid for it dearly every time. It was enough to teach him to be constantly on guard against this adversary which he carried everywhere with him.
      Everyone walking the Path, but spiritual teachers all the more because of their office and position, must be aware they will carry their adversary with them until the day they die. They do not have to engage with it, they do not have to submit to it, but they can never risk fooling themselves into believing it is no longer there or that it can no longer exert control over them.