Spiritual Mentoring Pt. 3
Posted on Mar 22nd, 2007
by 
Los
Los
From "Holistsic Junction" (edited)
"What does a SPIRITUAL MENTOR do? Spritual Mentors are individuals who use their intutition and spirituality to help and influence others. Spiritual mentors have skills to interpret dreams, help persons determine life's purpose, assist individuals how to use ...methods and tools and can also teach others to meditate for health and overall well being.
Why do I even bring this up as a role for educators to assume? I don't, and would not want anyone not so called to take up this exemplar. But I feel called, have shown some proficiency at it over the years, and find that I can indeed make long-term impacts on certain students who at that pivotal time of senior year have no one else to turn to.
How does a student present? It depends, and I will be describing how I have embedded my senior sociology classes with Integral theory and praxis, and where I introduce topics that qare likely to generate interest and a response from students at that stage of exiting and entering the next.
So what precisely might we be asked, and how much can we or should we even attempt to involve ourselves with?
There is translation and transformation, and the overwhelming number of students approach us for translation, how to fit in better, how to change exterior behaviors that will help them fit in with their target peer group. These are most easily dealt with, and there has been enormous amounts written for the teacher. transformation, however, is a trickier matter.....
Take Victor, who i identified quickly in his freshman year. He was sent by the school paper to talk to me about being a teacher. he was to make up 5 questions. His first one was, "How do you see teaching evolving in the future?"
BINGO!
I told him that I knew something about him that perhaps had never been told to him before...I've done this "reading" on students for well over 10 years, and if witches were still burned at the take, I'd have been dragged off and lit aflame....I told him that he tendss to see things that een adults cannot discern in a situation or argument; that he gets frusstrated when things are so obvious to him but not to others; that he has trouble relating to his peers, not just due to his IQ, but to some other quality that even the kids with higher GPAs can't follow him.
After his jaw dropped, I told him that when he feels alone, that no one can see him or the reality that he sees so clearly, to come see me.
Weeks later he reappeared, and I sat there with the knowing smile of the brilliant savant teacher/guide, and he began to tell me his problem...except i wasn't listening deeply, I was awash in my own egoic special-ness, so i kept interrupting him and telling him what he was thinking, feeling, and about to say...All the while he kept trying to interrupt me, but i just plunged on..."I know what you are going to say, let me say it for you"...until he finally broke thru my own trance and blurted out, "No it has nothing to do with perspectives!! I just want to find out how to get laid!!!"
Brilliant lesson for me....listen deeply first...let the student present and then let him talk about what his presentation means to him before taking up your own desire to discuss what you want to tell him to do!
At this point I want to place my curriculum and explore how each lesson now tracfks to a specific part of AQAL, and I can predict fairly well what that will trigger in the student who is ready to exit his current stage.
A natural query comes up when I begin to explain the evolutionary track of humanity, and I state that we have some inklings as to where that ar might be heading. Those who want to know this specific information will make themselves known to you, so just keep a sharp eye out, and you will connect with them. They are fascinated with understanding the faculties available to a human being (including "higher" faculties.
Another type of inquiry arises when we discuss the similarity between animal/mammalian similarities and humans. The question as to the full depth of the human being (from animal-like to Divine, especially when describing the triune brain, and some of the theories surrounding serial killers.
Those students who are already involved with their religious traditions will ask how the natural (or Divine) laws or principles can be aligned with human functioning.
Still others have begun to experiment with independently acquired information or practices where they have experienced interesting results that they need put into a healthy context, and the mentor is aksed how the heat that arises in the friction between old and new habits is managed or endured.
"Realization is a Transmission. Various apparent efforts can be made to serve it, but no one can Transmit or influence others with anything other than the state of Realization or the limit of existence that is real for that one. Everyone transmits. All of you are transmitters. You reinforce these limitations in one another and you transmit them to one another. Each one of you emits invisible forces that are locked up in limited messages that reinforce the same limitations in others ". This is from Adi Da's website, and reinforces what I wrote earlier, that no educator/guide/teacher can ever fool herself into believing tht she is transmitting mor than she is; the Shadows will flow with her. In a sense, high school might be an ideal time for this, since an extended amount of time with one teacher does not occur any longer, so the amount of transmission received is more than the student would otherwise receive, and unexpectedly so, so that the Shadow is not invested with anything of the magnitude of a guru or spiritual master........
(not done yet)
"What does a SPIRITUAL MENTOR do? Spritual Mentors are individuals who use their intutition and spirituality to help and influence others. Spiritual mentors have skills to interpret dreams, help persons determine life's purpose, assist individuals how to use ...methods and tools and can also teach others to meditate for health and overall well being.
| Spiritual mentors help individuals achieve spiritual growth, heightened awareness, mind clairity, and inner peace. A spiritual mentor can be a personal support and individualized cheerleader of emotions. Spiritual mentors can help persons to find solace, hope and can enhance daily lives of people whom they mentor." |
How does a student present? It depends, and I will be describing how I have embedded my senior sociology classes with Integral theory and praxis, and where I introduce topics that qare likely to generate interest and a response from students at that stage of exiting and entering the next.
So what precisely might we be asked, and how much can we or should we even attempt to involve ourselves with?
There is translation and transformation, and the overwhelming number of students approach us for translation, how to fit in better, how to change exterior behaviors that will help them fit in with their target peer group. These are most easily dealt with, and there has been enormous amounts written for the teacher. transformation, however, is a trickier matter.....
Take Victor, who i identified quickly in his freshman year. He was sent by the school paper to talk to me about being a teacher. he was to make up 5 questions. His first one was, "How do you see teaching evolving in the future?"
BINGO!
I told him that I knew something about him that perhaps had never been told to him before...I've done this "reading" on students for well over 10 years, and if witches were still burned at the take, I'd have been dragged off and lit aflame....I told him that he tendss to see things that een adults cannot discern in a situation or argument; that he gets frusstrated when things are so obvious to him but not to others; that he has trouble relating to his peers, not just due to his IQ, but to some other quality that even the kids with higher GPAs can't follow him.
After his jaw dropped, I told him that when he feels alone, that no one can see him or the reality that he sees so clearly, to come see me.
Weeks later he reappeared, and I sat there with the knowing smile of the brilliant savant teacher/guide, and he began to tell me his problem...except i wasn't listening deeply, I was awash in my own egoic special-ness, so i kept interrupting him and telling him what he was thinking, feeling, and about to say...All the while he kept trying to interrupt me, but i just plunged on..."I know what you are going to say, let me say it for you"...until he finally broke thru my own trance and blurted out, "No it has nothing to do with perspectives!! I just want to find out how to get laid!!!"
Brilliant lesson for me....listen deeply first...let the student present and then let him talk about what his presentation means to him before taking up your own desire to discuss what you want to tell him to do!
At this point I want to place my curriculum and explore how each lesson now tracfks to a specific part of AQAL, and I can predict fairly well what that will trigger in the student who is ready to exit his current stage.
A natural query comes up when I begin to explain the evolutionary track of humanity, and I state that we have some inklings as to where that ar might be heading. Those who want to know this specific information will make themselves known to you, so just keep a sharp eye out, and you will connect with them. They are fascinated with understanding the faculties available to a human being (including "higher" faculties.
Another type of inquiry arises when we discuss the similarity between animal/mammalian similarities and humans. The question as to the full depth of the human being (from animal-like to Divine, especially when describing the triune brain, and some of the theories surrounding serial killers.
Those students who are already involved with their religious traditions will ask how the natural (or Divine) laws or principles can be aligned with human functioning.
Still others have begun to experiment with independently acquired information or practices where they have experienced interesting results that they need put into a healthy context, and the mentor is aksed how the heat that arises in the friction between old and new habits is managed or endured.
Indicating that a path exists is often enough, and then to permit the student to come ack at her own pacre and her own inclination to check in at critical points. Significant spiritual growth can occur only when we have understood and transcended all the primary obstacles, whether they are set by culture, society, biology, psychology, or even conventional religion, and .
"Realization is a Transmission. Various apparent efforts can be made to serve it, but no one can Transmit or influence others with anything other than the state of Realization or the limit of existence that is real for that one. Everyone transmits. All of you are transmitters. You reinforce these limitations in one another and you transmit them to one another. Each one of you emits invisible forces that are locked up in limited messages that reinforce the same limitations in others ". This is from Adi Da's website, and reinforces what I wrote earlier, that no educator/guide/teacher can ever fool herself into believing tht she is transmitting mor than she is; the Shadows will flow with her. In a sense, high school might be an ideal time for this, since an extended amount of time with one teacher does not occur any longer, so the amount of transmission received is more than the student would otherwise receive, and unexpectedly so, so that the Shadow is not invested with anything of the magnitude of a guru or spiritual master........
(not done yet)
Access: Public
integral education
August 2008 