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Panel Discussions on Ethics and Spiritual Teaching
Rick Archer: We’re out in San Jose, California, in the home of some friends at the moment. But the reason the four of us are sitting here is that tomorrow we’re going to do a panel discussion at the science and non duality conference. And we wanted to generate some video content for the Association of Professional spiritual teachers website. And so we thought we’d record something tonight. I may also add this to the Buddha at the Gas Pump channel, as an addendum to the video of the panel discussion we’re going to do tomorrow. But since this is this may also be a standalone video on a PSD, the PSD website, I should probably briefly introduce the people sitting here My name is Rick Archer, and I was somewhat instrumental in the formation of a PSD, although not nearly as much as the woman to my left Jac O’Keeffe, who has really been the champion of this whole thing and has put in huge amounts of time and effort to bring it together wouldn’t have happened without her. And Jack is a spiritual teacher. I think her bio is all of our vitals are on a PST. To her left is Craig Holliday, who is one of the original Three Musketeers. Getting together the APS tea. And in in the panel discussion we’ll do, we’ll elaborate a bit on how the whole thing was conceived. And to my right is Kevin Lee Morgan, who is from the Portland area these days, and has done some incredible work with teaching mindfulness in schools. And, you know, when the three of us thought, who we would like to have as a fourth, for our panel can’t really came to mind as someone who would be a perfect fit. So we’re really glad to have her here. In our presentation, our panel discussion tomorrow, we have quite a wide range of topics that we’d like to cover, and I’m speaking in the future tense, but by the time you watch this, you may have actually already watched the panel discussion. But we also thought that there there are certain points upon which some people when they first hear about our efforts with this thing, they jumped to the conclusion that it’s going to be some moralistic, judgmental thing where we’re going to where we consider ourselves qualified, to pass judgment on teachers are and their behavior, and so on, we just, we’re going to emphasize from the output from the outset, and probably continue to emphasize that that’s not our orientation. And that we have a very, hopefully a very humble attitude toward this whole project. We all feel in our own ways that it’s something that’s very much needed in the spiritual community, that there have been far too many examples of teacher misbehavior, which has caused a lot of pain and confusion and disillusionment among students. And if if we can contribute in any way to the sort of elevation of understanding of what is or or may or may not be appropriate behavior by a spiritual teacher, we we feel we will have done something significant. But not only are we not sort of adamant about, you know, many of the points that we’re presenting, we feel the whole thing is fluid, a work in progress, something that we welcome and need the input and collaboration of the whole community in because everyone else’s judgment and opinion is as valuable as ours may be. And even amongst ourselves, our judgments differ. There have been certain points which we’ve been bantering back and forth all year and not reaching agreement on. We haven’t argued in a contentious way. It’s been very friendly, but, you know, we just, everyone has their subjective perspective and in trying to evaluate or February or formulate a code of ethics. We’re trying to achieve a balance between, you know, our subjective perspectives, and whatever universal state hundreds there might be that fit our contemporary culture and ought to be, ought to be respected. So one such example of something that we’ve had trouble reaching agreement on is the issue of relationships, romantic relationships, or sexual relationships between teachers and students. And this is probably one of the most important points to consider, because it’s probably the area in which the most egregious violations have occurred, which have caused the most harm and confusion among students, and have gotten teachers in all kinds of hot water. So, we’ve, we’ve discussed among ourselves over the previous months, what would be an appropriate approach to this? How can you regulate such a thing, you know, should there never be any kind of romantic relationships between teachers and students, or should there be a cooling off period in which the teacher student relationship has ended, but the, the romantic relationship has not started for X number of months, or years, or whatever. And, again, there’s been a range of opinions on this, and we’ve sort of each shifted our positions and, and discussed it back and forth. And we thought that with you and watching this video, we’d like to just do a little bit of that in real time, and explain some of the processes we’ve gone through, then you may see even now that we were not in complete agreement, but I think you’ll also see that none of us is rigid or adamant in our opinions, we’re sort of trying to approach this in a thoughtful and sensitive and introspective way. And, you know, to learn as we go, and kind of search our own conscience and, and our own understanding as deep as it may go, to come up with something that’s really going to be useful and helpful for people. So who would like to take it from there?
Craig Holliday: Okay, so I’d be happy to start. And so, you know, as far as if we’re looking at the spectrum of, you know, teachers being able to fully be in relationship with their students, and teachers, having zero relationship with their students romantically. You know, I’m in that that very conservative camp of no relationship? And did you say ever, ever? Well, that, you know, that’s an interesting question, ever. Of course, you know, as a human being, there’s going to be exceptions to all kinds of rules, to any rule, there’s going to be cultural exceptions, there’s going to be different organizations, you know, that have learned how to do that beautifully, like in the Jewish tradition of rabbis, and it’s very common, you know, to have, you know, the rabbi be married and have it to be someone from within the congregation. And that’s, of course, absolutely acceptable. But what I’ve, what I’ve done is, as a therapist, I’ve just taken the rules of traditional psychotherapist and the way you relate to, to clients is you don’t, you know, you don’t become romantically involved. And the idea that that is taught in graduate school is, the idea is it’s never now if you look at the, you know, the exact codes and the rules, it’s, this has gone over many years of great debate. You know, it’s, when I first became a therapist, it was, I would have to wait two years from the last time I saw the client if I was wanting to date them. And so it just made it really simple that that would probably wouldn’t happen. You know, since then, it’s been raised to five years and I, I’m a fan of this approach
Rick Archer: by the governing body that governs by the
Craig Holliday: governing body that
Rick Archer: revokes licenses, grants and
Craig Holliday: revokes license, yes. And see to me, it makes it really simple that as a spiritual teacher, no, I’m here, I’m showing up as a servant for my students. I’m not here looking for a date. Not looking for someone to sleep with. You know, I’m not I’m not mixing those two worlds, and it keeps things radically simple. As a teacher, there’s no, there’s no messiness. And I can even say, you know, from a place of humility, when I first started teaching, my life was It was literally a train wreck, like I had all kinds of busyness going on, outside of my world of teaching. But what I found is, is because the relationships I were, I was in were not fully stable, that that confusion, bled into the world of teaching. And so I would show up and I’d be a little bit confused or stressed or, you know, thinking about, you know, what had just happened with my partner, you know, at that time, and it was a great distraction. And so, you know, if when one has a conservative view, you know, it’s like, you take that confusion, I mean, I think we can all agree that relationships tend to be the most messy place. And most of our lives, it tends to be that evolving edge, you know, I see those people, you know, in the room that are smiling, and when I say is, this tends to be where we struggle. And so it’s nice if that struggle is not mixed with my teaching community with the, with the Sangha. And it’s, you know, it’s like, what are we here for? Are we here, you know, to sit meditation, or we’re here to connect in the truth, we’re here to, you know, to step into these greater realms of consciousness? Or are we here, you know, looking for a date, and there can be a lot of trouble, you know, when we start to start to mix those words, and I know, of course, it’s not that simple that sometimes, like, as a therapist, you know, I may meet someone, I may find, oh, this person, they’re, they’re like, my best friend, they’re, they’re coming to me, I see them fully, they see me fully, there’s this connection that begins to form, there’s this dynamic, I see their beauty and divinity, they see my beauty and divinity. And as a therapist, you could say, oh, well, this makes perfect sense that the two of us should now be an intimate relationship. But as soon as we start going in that direction, you know, all this potential for for growth, and vulnerability, and, and a sense of, you know, having a clean and clear, safe place, you know, all of that really quickly begins to crumble, when those boundaries are crossed. And so, to me, it’s a very simple thing to say, I don’t cross that line. And that keeps my teaching community fairly safe from my, from my desire. And if my students know this, as well, and they say, okay, then I, I’m not going to cross that line with Craig. And then it keeps it at least it keeps that round, intentionally safe. It keeps it safe. And, you know, I could go on and on, but um, of course, you know, don’t want to hug him for my care, be happy to hear Thank you.
Jac O’Keeffe: And then sometimes your spiritual path commands you up to break your golden rule, absolute because it will destroy the controller, it will make you fly in the face of what you believe to be a moral high value. And there is such divine efficiency when our spiritual path just says, Oh, you think you like this? It’s turn you upside down, and we’ll make you be the opposite of who you thought you were.
Rick Archer: So what do you give us an example of, oh, gosh, some
Jac O’Keeffe: of us have had that path. I certainly have have have had that path. When I was doing my spiritual practice, whatever, I held to be a clear value of like, I would never do that. It’s like, Oh, my God, I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it. So So I remember, you know, there was this golden rule with my first husband. Absolutely, absolutely. The one thing we will always keep sacred, is being loyal to each other. And I knew at some point, like, spiritually, I know, I’m going to leave him I know, I know, I will have to choose God, because I’m attached to him. So I’d have to choose God. And at a retreat, it was like, I’m going to, I’m going, this is where it’s going to happen. This is how my marriage is going to break up. I am going to be disloyal to this person, to my husband, with this person. I don’t know how this is going to happen. But this is how it’s going to unfold to get me out of the marriage. So every value system I had had to be destroyed in that process also. And divine efficiency unfolds like that sometimes. And so yeah, I mean, I was just in tears taking off my wedding ring thinking this is horrendous. I feel like 35 Year Old Virgin, like, it was just so nervous, so awful. But I have to do this, I have to do this, and destroy everything that I held a sacred. Now, of course, I was on a retreat as a student, and he was another student. But I can see that same energy of divine compulsion pushing through in other people’s lives. And sometimes it happens to a teacher also, where they’re like, I don’t know how this is gonna happen. I don’t know how we’re gonna get from teacher student to being to equal adults who are consenting to be together. Say Clearly, how are we going to get from here to there? And that’s what I’d like the PST to do is like, how do we map that journey? How do we guide others through that journey? Thankfully, I had a milder version because I was a student and he was a student. It only broke my own marital vows. But when there’s a teacher and a student, sometimes it works like this. And to say, you know, that consciousness will never, you know, make us break a rule like this. It’s like, you know, the soon as you think consciousness won’t work like that consciousness will come up and say, Hmm, you think you know how I work? Try this one. And that’s what happens. So, so I would like us to find a way to navigate in those rare exceptions. And also for, for, you know, our community to know the difference between what Craig is talking about, it’s like, just know when there’s desire and, and Kn O, W, when there is a desire, and that’s when you take the higher ground and don’t follow desire. And there’s
Craig Holliday: a radical difference between a rare exception. And yeah, desire, you know, the difference between me sleeping with, ya know, 35 women in, in my Sangha, yes. And, you know, ended up coming to a point of, okay, it’s one relationship, we moved on into, you know, deep level of commitment. You know, but I think what I see more often than not, as a therapist is I see train wreck after train wreck after train wreck and hear these horrific stories. And so, you know, in, you know, I, I’m willing to put my, you know, my vote or my sense of, you know, how do we go forward, I’d rather protect students than and protect teachers in the path of teachers, and, you know, what, you know, a teacher thinks that they’re going through and they need to do with this one particular student, I would much rather protect the 1001 students than worry about the one in 1000 teachers, who needs to feel like they need to be married to this person or sleep with this person, or invite this person back to their room to look at this special spiritual books, tantric sex and all become enlightened, and this guy raises your vibration, you know, with my Lingam, or whatever silly, silly kind of conversation we’re gonna have, and I’ve heard these stories and, and to see, you know, the tremendous lifelong pain, you know, that that an individual has been open and vulnerable with a teacher, and then left the path for 10 years, or 15 years or 20 years, because of the tremendous, you know, violation of trust that has happened. And so
Rick Archer: I heard of a woman who committed suicide because of a violation of trust. And it wasn’t even that avert a situation it was more like she just got so disillusioned by the behavior. It wasn’t even overtly sexual. But it was, it was wanting to go in that direction. And it shattered her ideal vision of this person who’s a well known and highly respected, spiritual teacher, now deceased. But before we get to Camberley, I just want to your statement confused me a little bit opens up a possible alibi for people doing whatever they want, because they feel like, yeah, I need to this karmic constant thing just driving me and I have no choice about it. I realized it goes against all the conventions, but the devil made me do it. So
Jac O’Keeffe: yeah, I hadn’t finished it. So so the, I think the point the gift that we can open together and share together and grow together on the PSD. Is that what’s the level of maturity of the teacher. So if the teacher has their own needs, if they haven’t transcended desire, if their own loneliness, their own shadow has not been explored at all, they will project this in to their Sangha. And then this is when the teacher will use any bullshit concept in order to justify their behavior. That stinks, that stinks. And that’s the teacher not doing the work for themselves. But there are times when there is a mature, objective scenario, that is a rare exception. And I would like teachers to know the difference for teachers to educate themselves. Is it my shadow what’s going on here? Or is this actually Divine Will in somehow and how can I safely navigate if it’s divine? Well, that’s the area that’s not known that teachers don’t know the difference of when it’s their own shadow. And when there’s absolutely a divine intervention, moving them in a certain way. That’s a tricky one. That’s the trick If you want and that’s the immaturity that I want the PSD to address through education, let’s let’s mature the sector. So that there is more autonomy and transparency in how we work.
Craig Holliday: And even even bringing the conversation into the light, I think is, is greatly helpful. Because what the reason that this has gone on, you know, for probably a couple 1000 years now, is that this is it’s hung out in the shadows. And so the willingness to have this conversation to talk about it, you know, to bring up, you know, these rare exceptions, and to bring up when it’s inappropriate, I think is a helpful conversation and, and, you know, I could stand here and say, Oh, it is never, you know, appropriate ever. And of course, you know, I’m not gonna not go
Jac O’Keeffe: underground, you see, that’s gonna make learning, they’re not
Craig Holliday: wired in that way to hold that kind of stance, but there is, you know, just a real sense of, you know, what are normal expectations if, if a student comes to a sangha, and you know, the teachers, you know, some male teacher needs only answering questions with the beautiful young ladies. And, you know, afterwards he’s inviting them to all hang out with him at the the secret teaching after party. It’s like, come on, like, this is an attack and we laugh, but it happens happens. And it happens again and again. And it happens with with well known teachers, not known teachers. Yeah, it happens with with Catholic priests and monks, and it’s across the board. And it’s unfortunate, yeah,
Rick Archer: I want to give Caverly a chance to speak. I just want to interject one really quick thing before I give you a chance to speak, which is that one thing that’s very confusing is that a teacher can be radiating like a lighthouse, and apparently appear to have an incredibly high level of consciousness have tremendous charisma, and powerful Darshan and all that other stuff, and yet still have major unexamined shadow areas and undeveloped aspects of the personality, immaturity, and so on. That makes them act in ways that seem so completely in Congress with their apparent Enlightenment, that it can be extremely confusing. And sometimes they act out those shadow things in secret. Behind closed doors, well, publicly portraying an aura of saintliness and perfection. Yeah, Caverly.
Caverly Morgan: You know, when one thing that’s yes, I have, I have witnessed that that is the case. But something that’s interested me about the conversation you all have been having is the building of accountability and transparency. So I think a lot of what we’re witnessing these days is scandal that’s happening when there’s a teacher often male, at the top of a pyramid, and is untouchable based on not having models of shared accountability within larger communities. So there’s sort of an island effect that can happen. And I saw recently one case, and I’m sure there’s more than one, but I’m just present to this one where even after a sexual scandal comes to light, this person still they’ve become an island unto themselves and can continue to teach even though the board of directors has left them there, you know, their own community is falling apart. And so I think it seems to me from the little bit I’ve gotten to learn about how this has formed is that what’s powerful about it is that there’s there’s not if one signing on to be part of this shared accountability learning together process. It’s, it’s no longer possible to live in that kind of isolation.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And isolation can be very dangerous for the teacher and for the students. I mean, I know one case of a very popular teacher who just shut down constructive criticism, if anybody offered any they were sent packing and and he just kind of got more and more off into bizarro land of strange thinking with no credit critical feedback, no mirror, no mirror, no mirror. Yeah.
Craig Holliday: One of the one of the beautiful things that happened with me early on is, you know, when my life was, you know, very much what I call an in in train wreck land. Because, well, because I was young and many of my students were also my friends. You know, they sat me down and they said, Craig, you know, things like, we really love you know, you’re up there teaching and we’re wonderful time and you’re class, but, you know, these things are incongruent is basically what they said. And you know, I can remember like, they kind of harassed, I call it harassment, they harassed me a little bit. And I defended myself a little bit. But I, what I realized is like, you know what? You guys are right. And it was, it was really helpful that my students came forward. And they said this to me, they looked me directly in the eyes, you kind of clean your life up, Craig. And it really touched me. And it was it was radically helpful for them to come forward and, and speak to me. And it was funny, because I was talking with one of them today. And there was this third person who came up and they said, well, Craig, how’s your life going? Because the last time I talked to this person was, you know, maybe eight years ago, and it was when my life was pretty messy. And, you know, the good friend of mine said, this, life’s actually really wonderful. And it’s really clear. And it’s simple, and things had calmed down. And there’s peace there. And there’s freedom there. And it’s supportive of the teaching and supportive of the community. And it’s a wonderful thing not to be involved in this train wreck. And it’s a wonderful thing to have students that will come forward and speak to you and say, hey, you know, maybe you need to look at this. And I think this is a really valuable thing, that as a teacher to be to be radically open to feedback, to criticism, to, you know, just constructive feedback is really helpful. And if we’re looking at what, what does it mean to be free and human, okay, so I’m open, I’m willing to hear I’m willing to listen, I’m willing to grow. There’s humility there. These are things that make you know, it’s it makes a very supportive community. But if we play this other game, like Kevin Lee was describing where it’s, you know, it’s the person in their on their on their own island, they’re untouchable, you can’t give feedback to the teacher, there’s this, you know, inner circle of students defending the guru and not letting you speak with him or her. And that’s, that can lead to a very neurotic community. And oftentimes, we, we see that those tend to be the communities that have the most struggle and the greatest shadow, but it’s hard to have a big shadow if, if there is that open feedback within within the community, with the students, and they can come up and say, hey, you know, I think you’re a little off here, or what you said, I don’t know if that’s, you know, really spot on
Jac O’Keeffe: another source for that kind of feedback. That might seem really simplistic, but I think it it’s something that every teacher should think about every spiritual leader should think about, what circle of friends do you have? Are they all your students? Or are you just a regular Joe soap? Are you just a regular Jane, to a group of people who can call you out who can get annoyed with you, and there is no power play at all. And I think if you’re a teacher, or a spiritual leader, who doesn’t have regular normal friends, they then you have to ask why? You have to ask why. Because there is an absence of accountability, there’s an absence of connection with, with the regular value system of, of transparency, and openness, and are you able to have regular relationships, because if you’re not able to have regular relationships, that that dysfunction, if you’re living in a western world, and outside of an ashram, that dysfunction is going to come up and out. And some pain is going to happen as a result, because you’re not taking care of your own humanity, you will need for community and for like, for peers, you’re always on a pedestal and that’s not sustainable. Because you have to have some form of we all have to have some form of a mirror mirror, of how to function in a regular world in regular life. You know?
Craig Holliday: Well, that’s one of the things we’re trying to do with the a PhD is to create this sense of, of community, and, you know, and a willingness to talk with each other. So we’re not, you know, just all these individual teachers hanging out, you know, in our own little communities in our own worlds where everyone’s telling us we’re right all the time. And there’s this perfected state of consciousness that you know, so and so lives and but the this willingness to come together to see each other’s humaneness to see each other’s divinity to support each other and each other in our highest and also it provides supportive for like, hey, like I’m really I’m really struggling in this way or that way or in all these ways. And, you know, I need some friends here and I think it can be a beautiful thing.
Jac O’Keeffe: And we’re coming from a couple of 1000 years of the Guru’s beyond reproach. So look at the change in the culture we’re trying to bring about. So course there’s going to be backlash, of course there because what we’re saying is like, taboo,
Rick Archer: and you say, when you say, we’re trying to bring about this change in the culture, the culture is changing. We’re not doing it,
Jac O’Keeffe: we will change characters.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s and people are universally feeling the need for something of this nature. And we’re just trying to ride away, that’s cresting anyway, and trying to articulate it give a form to give some words to it. So that, you know, can be helpful for people. But we won’t have to keep reminding or using our terminology carefully, to make it perfectly clear that we are not some kind of governing body and have no aspirations to be. And we have neither the wisdom or the authority to pass judgment on anybody. We’re just trying to enliven in the sort of spiritual community of which were a part an appreciation of this stuff and, you know, an articulation of what isn’t is not appropriate that hopefully, we can more or less agree upon all of us, it seems
Caverly Morgan: to me that it’s the creation of another type of sangha. Yeah, it’s another it’s another Sangha that honors the collective that honors what’s larger than maybe your individual Sangha or, or what you call your individual Sangha. Yeah,
Rick Archer: there must be some universal values, you know, and maybe some songs are going to be a little bit more often this end of the spectrum and others off on that, and others won’t want to have anything to do with it, because they really like orgies or something. If that’s what you want to belong to.
Jac O’Keeffe: Yeah, yeah. So it has to be evolving, because because we’ve got learner plates on, you know, that’s an Irish thing. Your first two years of driving car? Yeah, you have to assemble on the car to say that, you know, you’re still learning. And so we have to be learning all the time. If we’re not willing to grow well, then that’s shadow, that shadow. There it is, you know, and if there is more blind spots that you see, or you don’t see in yourself, it doesn’t matter. It’s about having the availability and the transparency to say, Yeah, of course, there can be hidden shadows within me, of course, the work can still continue. And if we can create that, you know, in ourselves and spread that a little bit, so that there’s that openness, that transparency, that willingness to have a genuine effort to walk our talk. And if we can continue to do that, and understand how others talk and walk is very different to us. But where can we meet and where can we support each other so that we don’t get locked into being one type of a, I don’t know, a supportive body, sure, but can be flexible and organic enough to be inclusive. That would be great. I don’t know what that will look like. But it would be great. To try to do that
Rick Archer: if this thing survives and thrives, it’s probably gonna look very different in five years than it does. So this is just a real fledgling little, you know, attempt. And we really hope that with as it grows, there will be this sort of collaboration and ebb and flow of of opinions, opinions, and information and input and so on, among anyone who cares to be involved, and that that sort of mutual collaboration will really enable it to evolve, we hope it never becomes ossified. Yeah. Yeah. And so it’s apparent to me that, you know, we’re not going to resolve in this conversation, whether there should be a two year moratorium on any such thing. Yeah. And that’s, that’s fine. I mean, this is the direction this conversation is taking, we’re just sort of painting with a broad stroke with broad strokes here
Jac O’Keeffe: and giving a sample and I suppose if the kind of dialogue that we have, and resolution comes, but we keep coming back to the joy we keep talking about again,
Craig Holliday: and what the important thing is, is, you know, to study, you know, to study ethics to grapple with them to, to see you know, what’s true, what makes sense. I mean, one of the beautiful things about, about studying ethics before you you step into really messy ethical situations, as you can prove, you can form an idea of okay, how, how will I respond to this? When it comes forward? I mean, one of the things that I see the organization being really helpful for us, is for young students, or, or sorry, young teachers, or new teachers who are coming forward, who maybe have never studied ethics before, who don’t know, but what is the dual relationship and why would that be messy or why? You know, how could I get in trouble with being friends with my students or becoming romantic? involved. And it’d be much better to study that, to understand it, to sit with that these questions for hours and hours, before you find yourself as the head of some community, and then the community falling, you know, under some incredible, messy nightmare with tremendous pain has been caused. Because one didn’t take the time to first study, to examine, you know, how would I respond? How should I respond? What makes sense? You know, how, you know, how do I professionally navigate these things? And I think it’s something that, you know, as we know, it’s just, it’s radically lacking. You know, Rick, you know, as brought this up a lot that you would assume that most spiritual teachers have really strong ethics and have a strong, high moral high ground, you know, the place they live and teach them. But if you look at history, if you look at recent history, you know, even this last summer, our email boxes have filled up with scandal after scandal just like, oh, boy, you know, and these were teachers who had high levels of realization, yeah, it didn’t, it ended, it ended in a really messy way. But this sense of, if we educate ourselves, if we, if we sit with these questions, and deeply inquire, you know, then we can, in a greater sense, serve our communities,
Jac O’Keeffe: and boundary boundaries are learned how to work with power is learned, we need to learn these things, there are skills that we need, and to, you know, acknowledge our humanity. And, sure, these skills don’t just come down the track, it’s very rare that that happens, you know, that the perfection of humanity, you know, is directly in line with the movement of consciousness.
Craig Holliday: Very, very, very, very, very, very rare. Can I say, yeah, a lot of myths, a lot of myths, you know, teach it that way. But in reality, it’s really
Rick Archer: doesn’t. Like, the word Enlightenment has been associated with saintliness, you know, all these enlightened people. And so the this implication is that there’s a tight correlation between a high level of consciousness and moral behavior. But from what I’ve seen, rarely the case, it’s a very stretchy rubber band, there may be some correlation, eventually it gets pulled along, but boy, it can really stretch far.
Caverly Morgan: Well, that doesn’t Yeah, it doesn’t take into account how much practice is involved in being able to have your actions continually be refined such they’re reflections of your deepest and greatest understanding. It doesn’t acknowledge that refining that process. To assume that, you know, it’s just like, oh, the lights came on. So
Craig Holliday: yes, we’re good to go. Yeah, it’s much nicer to do that refinement work, you know, so, so within a space within a supportive community, before the nightmares begin to unfold, or the shadow starts to become unpacked, you know, to be able to do that in a supportive community. To me, that’s a tremendous gift. And that’s what we’re trying to bring forward is this sense of support and community and a willingness to together examine these questions. And again, like what Rick was saying, we’re not, you know, some judging authority. That is the the furthest thing from my nature, our nature is to, to judge, but rather to explore these questions and to see this as, as just a part of the spiritual practice. It’s a part of the path. To me, it’s a beautiful thing.
Rick Archer: So this is a, this will be an ongoing conversation. And we could probably make a video a week and explore different aspects of
Jac O’Keeffe: it and to not come to an agreement.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So I guess we should really conclude and say, stay tuned. I mean, it’s getting late here. It’s quarter of 11. And some of us are on East Coast time or Midwest time. And we have our panel discussion tomorrow and everything. So we want to be fresh for that. But we just wanted to make something and get it out there and put something on the website and stimulate some thought and discussion. So we hope we’ve done that and appreciate you’re watching this. Yes, we can. If we had the energy and perhaps some more refreshments, we could probably go on for a few hours. Don’t get that anyway, thanks for this. Thanks for watching. And please stay tuned and, and get involved in whatever way you like in the Association of Professional spiritual teachers and go to the website,
Jac O’Keeffe: professional, spiritual teachers.org
Rick Archer: dot our professional, spiritual teachers.org and just explore around it’ll be a work in progress and we hope to help you find it very useful over the coming years.
Jac O’Keeffe: Yep. May
Caverly Morgan: the next food have a sangha.