A Teacher’s Dilemma

courtesy of stevendepolo

From the Guru’s handout:

Does it matter if you like your student? If you are teaching deeply, it does. If you dislike them, but you are affecting them profoundly, what does this say about your motivations, about how you will act in their best interests?

I can’t yet discuss it as a martial art teacher as it would take me many more years to reach this state but I have enough experiences as a mediation teacher and as an healer to know that I couldn’t love everyone the same. In rare cases there were people that I couldn’t love at all, at the beginning.

I had no instances where I didn’t develop compassion for all my students after a little period of time and started to see them on another level after the first few meetings.

Still I’ve changed my occupation and left the spiritual aspects of my life to the private parts of my life.

The teacher’s dilemma was that if I influenced my students too much I felt that I entered the spaces that they should develop on their own and took power from them that they were happy to give but I didn’t want to receive.

Any teacher has to accept that he has influence over his students lives not just be teaching them new moves and guiding their development in the martial arts but also as a person. Still either one is very sure of himself and his qualities as a person or he hasn’t given it enough attention.

How can someone teach some else to evolve on their own and not depend on his teacher for feeding?

Not really sure yet.