Greg Bogart interviewed by Khafiz Wrobel
Sentient Times, May 1998

There is an old occult axiom: Like attracts like. The first page I read in Dr. Greg Bogart’s latest book, The Nine Stages of Spiritual Apprenticeship, gave me the feeling that he was a true soul brother. Greg is not only widely read in spiritual matters, but has also been a devoted student of some of the most notable spiritual teachers in recent times. Beyond this, Dr. Bogart is also adept at, and has published works on, astrology and is also an accom-plished musician.

I interviewed Dr. Bogart at his home in the Bay Area. Amidst the sheltering oaks and the sound of a small stream, he was kind enough to share his reflections on a number of issues that I believe will be more than interesting to the spiritual seeker.

ST: Greg, there’s an old statement, I think in the Bible, “He speaks with authority and not as of the scribes.” In your book, Spiritual Apprenticeship, you quote many people and spiritual traditions, and you are obviously well read, but there’s more to your book than that. I see it as a spiritual autobiography. Would you agree?

GB: Yes, the book records my own experiences with a number of teachers, especially Swami Muktananda. The book also draws on my experiences counseling others who have had issues about their relationships with spiritual guides. Many of us who have studied with gurus or spiritual teachers have difficulties with the process of separation, learning to become independent even while taking what we honor and value from teachers. We may need to learn to live our own lives without feeling bound to a teacher, or wounded by them, or in any way bound up with conflict around the student-teacher relationship.

Because of my work as a transpersonal psychotherapist and astrologer, I tend to draw clients for whom inner growth and spiritual awakening are major priorities. Alot of them also have had teachers and either were disappointed or they became so focused on the teacher that their own lives lack integration. If the teacher dies then they feel abandoned and alone and pine away for the good old days. Or they’re stuck in feeling ripped off and deceived by teachers. In many cases, the student or seeker was in conflict about the teacher. And others are genuinely sparked into a state of inner freedom catalyzed by the teacher’s presence. So originally I began writing a book to help people navigate the process of separating from spiritual teachers and getting past bitterness or unhealthy merger with teachers. This was discussed in my article, Separating from A Spiritual Teacher, in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

As time went on I realized that I didn’t just want to write about this one part of the process, separation and individuation from teachers. I became fascinated by the whole process of spiritual mentorship and instruction and the ways that it can be transformative. As I reflected on the ways I have been guided throughout my life by wise teachers, I remembered a lot of lessons I learned along the way—including blessings and teachings that I wasn’t able to recognize or understand at the time.
Once I was meditating in Swami Muktananda’s ashram in India, in a room outside his apartment, and as I heard him walking past me I opened my eyes to look at him. A few days later he scolded me, saying that people who open their eyes from meditation to stare at the external, physical guru are nothing but false yogis and don’t have any understanding of the true guru, which is none other than the inner light. At the time I was angry he criticized me for gazing at him with devotion, but later I could see what a loving and playful lesson he was teaching me. His words helped me lesson my attachment to his physical presence so I could focus on going deeper into meditation.

ST: What are the nine stages of spiritual apprenticeship?

GB: In reflecting on the student-teacher relationship I identified nine main themes. First, you want to choose a teacher—someone who inspires you; someone who can guide you on the spiritual path. How do we know that this is someone who can show us freedom? We need to listen to our hearts and our inner experience in the teacher’s company. We need to make distinctions between different kinds of teachers. There are those who are just a few steps ahead of you, but nevertheless embody some quality we emulate, be it serenity, balance, or personal power or magnetism. We might not view them as fully enlightened, but these guides can still be helpful to us. We learn over time how great the stature of the teacher is. We just can’t know that at first. We proceed with as much trust as we’re able to muster, but at the beginning it is reasonable and intelligent to maintain some reserve. It takes time for a teacher to prove his or her greatness and integrity. In some cases we learn a few techniques and then move on. In other cases, our affiliation with a teacher becomes a lifelong relationship. Now that I say this I can think of several teachers I only met once but I learned something essential from them: One yogi taught me bhastrika pranayama, which I still practice, so I consider him an important guru. Manu Chitrabhanu, a Jain yogi, taught me the power of silence and purity of soul. Dr. Rammurti Mishra closed his eyes and meditated with such concentration and inner absorption of being that I knew viscerally the experience of raja yoga and Samadhi. I saw what it meant to practice pratyahara, the inward moving tide of the senses. He embodied it powerfully.

In the Spiritual Apprenticeship book I talk about how we distinguish between false teachers, dangerous charlatans, and true teachers who have an enduring positive influence on other people’s lives. I talk about how spiritual teachers have been viewed in the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. I look at the defining features of gurus, tzaddiks, sheikhs and murshids. I suggest a number of ways of looking at what a teacher represents for us. The teacher might be someone who sits with us, watches us, supervises us as we do rigorous meditation practices and go through various ordeals and crises of psychological turmoil. Or we might experience a teacher as a conduit for the transmission of grace, shakti, and love that transforms us profoundly.

The book describes the process of initiation in spiritual apprenticeship, where we approach a teacher for instruction and become linked not only with the teacher but also with the teacher’s lineage. I describe the types of preparation that are often required of the initiate.

After this is the stage of forming a life around discipleship. This includes receiving personal instruction and having direct contact with the teacher’s awakened mind. Discipleship may involve a greater or lesser degree of commitment on the student’s part and often involves a reordering of priorities in our lives, making more time for doing our spiritual practices (such as meditation and yoga) and spending time in the teacher’s presence. It may also involve involvement in a community of practitioners, which raises many issues about the dynamics of spiritual groups and communities, and the extent to which these remain healthy environments for personal and spiritual growth.

The student often undergoes a process of testing by a spiritual teacher, which usually has the purpose either of exposing the student’s imperfections or of testing the student’s faith in the teacher. Sometimes the tests are very challenging or perplexing and create inner tension, doubt, and faith in the teacher’s good intentions. Indeed, we may need to discern whether our testing by a teacher is a purification that can help move us through some personal obstacle or limitation, or whether it is a form of abusive conduct with no ultimate positive benefit. Ultimately, this is where spiritual apprenticeship requires our deepest inner reflection and discernment.
In the book I recount a story that addresses the issue of how great teachers sometimes give students very fierce tests of faith. This is the story of the Sheikh and the Lamb’s Bladder, recounted to me by my friend and teacher Sangye Drolma. It seems that a great Sufi Sheikh resided in a mosque and he had one student. The student really loved his teacher and thought how wonderful it would be if he had more students who could appreciate his gems of knowledge. The student went home one night and, lo and behold, the next day the Sheikh was surrounded by a huge crowd of people. The student thought, “Wow, this is great. My teacher has become famous.” The problem now was that this student couldn’t get near his teacher anymore. There were too many people!

Some months passed and the student was sitting in the back of the mosque feeling sad that his teacher was no longer accessible. He wished that all the people would go away. Just then something funny happened. The sheikh was sitting in the front of the room, and started ripping some revolting farts. A hubbub started rising up in the crowd and people started complaining that the Sheikh smelled terrible. People were saying, “What’s the matter with this guy? He’s stinking the place up.” The Sheikh was doing his usual thing, meeting people and giving his daily discourse, but every time he moved he made disgusting farting noises. Soon people began hurling tomatoes and papayas at him and the crowd began filing out of the mosque, cursing the Sheikh with disgust. Suddenly the student found himself in the mosque alone with his teacher. The Sheikh walked over to him, gave him a funny look, and lifted his robe. Underneath it was a lamb’s bladder. It stunk abominably. The Sheikh rubbed it and the bladder began to make the revolting sounds that disgusted the now-departed crowd. The Sheikh said, “All those people thought I was crazy and left in a hurry, but you never questioned me or assumed the worst about me. And that is how I know that you are worthy to be my student.”

ST: How would you relate that story to the many instances supposedly “perfectly realized spiritual masters” have become embroiled in scandals because of their sexual relationships with students?

GB: Many renowned and highly respected teachers have been charged with sexual misconduct. In a few cases they have been sued or asked to leave the communities they had founded. There have been widely varied reactions to allegations that these teachers, many of them supposedly celibate monks, have engaged in illicit sexual activities. Some people feel that such teachers, even after a lifetime of austere disciplines, are unable to resist the temptations offered by the presence of starry-eyed devotees, and thus begin to engage in a compulsive pattern of sexually abusing students. Some people protest that such allegations are based on hearsay and are the product of deluded minds; that so-and-so is such a great teacher that he or she could not possibly have committed such acts. Others contend that such teachers are giving secret tantric initiations to their students. Here we’re considering the idea that a teacher may be acting like the sheikh with the lamb’s bladder, testing the student’s faith in the teacher’s unfathomable wisdom. Sexual relationships between spiritual teachers and their students often traumatize the student—who typically is much younger than the teacher, is vulnerable to manipulation because of their love and devotion toward the teacher, and is often told to never tell anybody, possibly even threatened with recrimination if they ever disclose the “affair.” Such a situation can cause the student great emotional pain and confusion and it doesn’t seem to be “skillful means” of instructing the student. I think we have good reason to question the integrity of a teacher who sexually exploits students and then lies about it.

Nonetheless, there are teachers who are worthy of our attention, reverence, and devotion. Sometimes we find ourselves meditating on the teacher, the guru, the sheikh. One discovers that the teacher is not separate from one’s own mind, one’s own awareness, and that there’s, ultimately, no separation. This is the dimension of the student-teacher relationship concerned with what I call grace and guru yoga. Sometimes we experience grace, transmission of light or power through the teacher and this makes us reflect more deeply: What is the mystery of the teacher? How can he or she transmit this love or spiritual power to us? A pure teacher may become a conduit of transpersonal forces. Sometimes we experience enlightenment or illumination through our contact with a teacher, and we may get glimpses of the goal through various awakenings through the influence of teacher. The book recounts many stories of this.

In the seventh stage of spiritual apprenticeship we may need to leave the student-teacher relationship behind. We resolve emotional conflicts we have with the teacher so that our own inner freedom can unfold. We may also need to confront the teacher’s dark side and not engage in “transcendental denial” of the teacher’s impurities. This is a crucial threshold. In the next stage, stage eight, we learn to find the teacher within ourselves through reflecting on our dreams, feeling the presence of invisible or non-physical guides, though study of our personal astrological chart, and a variety of other means. And in stage nine, we begin to share what we know with others. As one begins to teach others, one inevitably faces various tests of character. So I discuss the evolution of teachers and how they learn to influence others through the intensity of their own spiritual practice and also to handle relationships with students responsibly.

ST: Thank you, Greg, for elucidating this important process of growth through the student-teacher relationship.