Unsent Letter #18: Moral and Amoral Behavior

October, 2007

Dear Friend

It seems to happen fairly often that someone who becomes well-known as a spiritual teacher also becomes surrounded by scandal, in which he or she stands accused of inappropriate behavior. How can we understand this?

The first thing I want to say on this subject is that it is a mistake to imagine that one can judge the level of a spiritual teacher. We can judge only up to our own level. This is a law. If someone is realized, and we are not, we will not be able to tell for sure whether that person is realized or otherwise. The mistake that some seekers make is to assume that if a teacher acts in a way that they consider to be immoral, then that teacher cannot be realized. This is incorrect. Your reaction to, and judgement of, someone else's behavior says something about you, but it doesn't say anything about the object of your judgement.

The next common mistake is to assume that a statement like the one in the previous paragraph, to the effect that external actions are not a reflection of a person's spiritual development, amounts to an acceptance of any kind of amoral behavior. This is also incorrect. If I say I am unwilling to judge the actions of others, that does not mean that I cannot and do not judge my own actions. I have acquired my own standards of moral and amoral behavior, just as you have. However, I apply those standards to my own behavior, without expecting others to be programmed in the same way.

Much of the confusion about this subject arises from wrong assumptions about what it means to have Self-knowledge, and from the expectations that we consequently project onto spiritual teachers. Self-knowledge is after all only a change of knowledge—what was not known (Self) is now known. (Or, to put it another way, the ignorance that prevented Self-knowledge has disappeared.) Self-knowledge doesn’t make you a "saint," or even a “better person”—the external behavior continues according to the karmic programming, which is the destiny of the body.

Self-knowledge may occur after a long period of gradual ripening in the context of a traditional teaching or it may occur rather suddenly, after a relatively short period of seeking. After Self-knowledge occurs, that person may go on to become a "saint," with all the qualities of a divine being, or that person may remain attached to worldly objects, to a greater or lesser extent.

The idea of someone "being a saint" has more to do with acceptance by tradition than with any objective set of standards that all spiritual aspirants can agree on. However, many seekers feel that to qualify for the appellation of a saint, a teacher should refrain from activities motivated by desire for sex and desire for money. This expectation is repeated numerous times in the scriptures of various traditions. If a teacher appears to be involved in these kinds of activities, they lose their "saintliness" in our eyes. Of course, we projected that saintly aura onto them in the first place, and so we can withdraw it also.

All this confusion can be seen as part of the play of consciousness that makes up this world. It is useful as a test of our understanding. Can we see past the first, usually strongly negative, reactions that we have to these kinds of events?The ego always becomes hopelessly muddled over the question of "how to act," because it takes its own mechanical point of view to be correct and cannot accept that others do not operate in the same way.

Finally, it all comes down to our personal choice. If we don’t approve of someone’s behavior, we can go somewhere else. Who are we to judge? Did we create this world or these people around us? Really, the best way is to think of yourself and not of others, because, in the end, there is only you there.

A.