Authenticity and Spiritual Teachers:
In certain contexts, at certain times, I am asked to function as a spiritual teacher of sorts. True spiritual teachers, of course, are on duty 24/7; they just can’t help themselves. I once had what I thought was to be a casual lunch with a “Non-Dual” teacher, and before I could take the first bite of my sandwich, he had launched into a Dharma talk on how there really wasn’t a sandwich there, or a “me” to eat the sandwich. Really wrecked my lunch. (I couldn’t help noticing, however, that he had no problem with the “me” that picked up the check!) I once met the late Suzanne Segal at a party, who taught from a similar school of thought. “Hello, how are you?” I asked, a big mistake. “Well,” she responded with her version of Advaita Vedanta cocktail chatter, “There is no ‘you’ and there is no ‘me.’ It’s like vanilla and chocolate: there are 31 flavors, but it’s all ice cream.” How does one respond to that? I scrambled for something to say, and the best I could come up with was, “I guess I am the walnuts.” Coo-coo-ca-choo.
