Should my instructor tell me who to marry, where to live, or how to live my life?
We regularly receive questions from students about where they should live, who they should marry, what education or job they should have, what group they should follow, etc.
We also get questions from students whose instructors told them who to marry or not marry, or told them if they leave their group they will be leaving the path and accruing karma, and will be considered traitors... So they write to us to ask what they should do.
In each case, we do not tell them what to do, because we do not know their karma or the will of their Innermost Being. Each of us must know for this for ourselves.
Rely on Your Being
"...we advise our disciples not to follow anyone. Let our disciples follow their own Self. Each of our disciples has to follow their resplendent and luminous Inner Being. Each one has to adore their own “I Am.” We beg, beseech, our disciples not to follow us. We do not want henchmen or followers. We have written this book so that you, our friends, listen to your own Internal Master, your resplendent “I AM.” The Innermost is your master: follow Him." -Samael Aun Weor, The Major Mysteries
Our advise is to not ask any person for advice. When you need to know what to do, ask your inner Being. When you ask other people, it only brings confusion.
What you do with your life is up to you alone. No one knows your karma or the will of your Being, except you, yourself.
No one can tell you what is right for you or wrong for you: only you can know that.
No one can tell you who to marry: only your heart and your Innermost Being know that.
Your inner Being will tell you what you need to do. Your inner Being will not tell your instructor, a so-called "psychic" or any other person.
Here are three reasons this is better than asking your instructor:
- Your Being gives the best advice. (Divinity knows more than any person).
- You become self-reliant, independent, and capable of solving your own problems.
- This is better for instructors too: often when someone asks for advice, it is so when things go badly, they have someone to blame. If the instructor does not give advice, then they cannot be held responsible for the mistakes others make.
Where to Get Accurate Advice
Your Innermost Being and your Divine Mother are always with you. They know your karma, your genuine needs, and your full potential. No one else knows all of that. So why would you go ask someone else what you should do with your life? Why avoid asking those who truly know? Impatience! Fear! Self-doubt... yes, it is the ego that deflects us away from seeking the truth.
The answers you need can be found within you. You simply need to learn how to listen.
The best way to know the will of your Being is through meditation, dream remembrance, and intuition.
Do you want to know what to do, which way to go, which way to act? Then pray, meditate, and remember your dreams.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is what the Gnostic says, because the Gnostic only performs the will of one's Innermost on earth as it is in heaven, in other words, in the superior planes of consciousness. The Gnostic places all of one's longings in the hands of one's Innermost." - Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of Beelzebub
Notice: it does not say that we should do the will of our instructor or adviser: it says we should do the will of our Innermost. Who knows that will? Only the Innermost knows it, and the Innermost will only tell you what that is.
Meditation is the most important part of this process.
Remember: the purpose of meditation is to acquire information. What is the most important information we need? We do not need information about other people, about dusty old books, or cryptic writings. We urgently need to know how to live better today, so that the results of our actions bring benefit for everyone.
If you are not able to acquire information in meditation, then you do not know how to meditate yet. It is time to learn.
Then, when you get your answer, have courage! Oftentimes, what we must do demands that we change, that we break from what we are accustomed to, from tradition or what others have done. You must do what your Being is guiding you to do, even if no one else accepts it or understands. That is the nature of the path!
However: be on guard as well. Your defects, desires, and other harmful influences will try to imitate the voice of your Being. Be watchful, and discriminate. Know that your Being will always guide you to become better: more ethical, more compassionate, more patient, more forgiving, more charitable, more kind. Your Being will never advise you to commit harmful actions or contradict the ethics of the conscience.
The Role of the Instructor
Genuine instructors are not consulting psychics, therapists, matchmakers, or "life coaches." The role of the instructor is to put you on the path: that is all. Once you have the teaching and understand how to practice it, the role of the instructor is concluded.
To learn anything, there are three grades of development. These also apply to learning practical spirituality.
- Apprentice: the new student who needs to be educated and gather experience through practicing
- Worker: the student who has enough education and experience to perform the work for themselves, but still needs practice and improvement
- Master: someone who performs the work effortlessly, is capable of being fully self-reliant, and can teach others to do the same
A genuine instructor guides the student to become self-reliant so they no longer need the instructor. That is, the student relies fully on their own Innermost, not the instructor. Samael Aun Weor explained this repeatedly, especially in Fundamentals of Gnostic Education:
"It is necessary for teachers at school to teach their students how to think for themselves in an independent manner. Teachers must grant all possibilities to their students so that they can stop being mere imitative automatons. Teachers must provide the best available opportunities to their students so that they can develop the power of creativity. It is essential for students to know true freedom so that they can learn how to independently think for themselves and without any fear whatsoever. A mind that lives enslaved to “what people might say,” a mind that imitates because of fear of violating traditions, rules, customs, etc., is not a mind with creativity; it is not a free mind... Students imitate because teachers keep their wretched students terrorized... they threaten them with specific punishments and expulsion, etc. If indeed we want to become creative in the most complete sense of the word, we must then become cognizant of all these series of imitations, which unfortunately keep us trapped." - Samael Aun Weor
"Schools have already given all they have to offer. The centers of knowledge are now converted into business places, each with its own tyrant that forbids its adepts and students to go out in search of knowledge; the prohibitions here, the excommunications and threats there, always leaving things for tomorrow, making a big issue out of the password, the protective amulets, the non-plus-ultra... of the secrets that no other school possesses. We are not looking for flatterers of masters nor are we interested in hardhearted henchmen. We are guiding pillars, so do not become attached to us because our mission is not to gather up followers. We indicate with logical thought and exact concept the path to follow so that each person arrives at his Internal Master (he who lives in silence within you). We inform you that knowledge belongs to the Innermost..." - Samael Aun Weor, Practical Astrology