Chapter 5 - How to Choose the Who

It is dark and damp. You have lost your way in a cave deep underground. There is no light except for the small beam coming from your headlamp. From time to time there is a whiff of fresh air. Is it coming from outside? Or is this perhaps colder air coming from deeper underground? You are utterly lost and helpless.

Have you ever felt so trapped that you had no idea how to get out?

It was precisely at a time like this when I was feeling lost in the adventure of life, wandering here and there with the currents, that the next guide appeared in my life.

When I heard about Prem Baba for the first time, years had already passed since I lost contact with Esti. I worked with several other guides in the interim. It is possible to be guided by more than one guide at any given time. In my case, when I was not being guided by anyone but was ready to be, that is when my next guide appeared.

One of the most important attributes of a good guide is that they know the way out—or at least know the next steps in the right direction. Prem Baba was certainly one of the most efficient guides I've ever met.

Here's why.

As I mentioned, I heard about Prem Baba from a close friend and was instantly drawn to the richness of his teaching. I felt Prem Baba had a detailed map of the human psyche and that he could untangle any life situation I was in and set me free.

I started reading Prem Baba's books and listening to his lectures (called satsangs—sitting with truth). The more I read, the more I felt he knew me. Prem Baba integrated elements from various spiritual traditions and psychology in a way that made sense to me. For the first time in my life, I was introduced to a practical model of me that I could understand. I found a coherent path for spiritual and personal growth that I loved and amazing people to walk this path with me.

Prem Baba's core philosophy consisted of the following principles:

1. Self-Realization: Prem Baba emphasizes the importance of understanding and realizing one's true self. He encourages practices such as introspection and meditation to facilitate this realization.

2. Awakening Love: Prem Baba teaches that love is the fundamental essence of the universe. Awakening to this love and expressing it in everyday life is a central part of his teachings.

3. Personal Responsibility: According to Prem Baba, taking personal responsibility for our actions and spiritual growth is essential. This involves acknowledging and learning from our mistakes and taking steps to make amends and improve.

4. Service to Others: Prem Baba believes that serving others is a key part of spiritual development. He encourages his followers to contribute to the betterment of society in whatever ways they can.

5. Integration of Spirituality and Daily Life: Prem Baba's philosophy holds that spirituality is not separate from everyday life but should be integrated into it. Spiritual practice, for him, is not just about specific activities or rituals but about how we live our lives every day.

6. Universalism: Prem Baba's philosophy is universalist, incorporating teachings from multiple spiritual traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Pathwork teachings of Eva Pierrakos as well as elements of Western psychology.

As time passed, I was increasingly committed to this path. I took intensive group workshops in which the innermost aspects of my psyche were lain bare for all to see.

The human psyche can sometimes be likened to a deep dark cave. While we all have a unique version of the psyche, at the same time the underlying structures are similar in all humans. Those who have insight into this (Freud, Jung, and many others) can lead others to explore their own deepest places and find their way around. There is a "way out" from our psyche, and the guides you choose should be able to show it to you.

The reason Prem Baba was able to help me is because he had already gone down to the deepest places of his own psyche and found a way out. He knew what he was talking about from personal experience. In addition, he had the ability to formulate the principles of operation and demonstrate them. Finally, when I took a step and encountered the next challenge, he was there to continually guide me.

One of the key attributes of an effective guide is their authority to serve in that capacity. This authority is different from authority that is attached to a position in an organization. In the case of the journey inward, authority comes from personal experience. For the most part, a guide has been there and done that. A guide can only take you through territory that is familiar to them. This familiarity is only in part derived from personal experience.

My friend Tomer told me with a delighted smile that Prem Baba had "finished his work." I understood this as an indication that, like all of us, Prem Baba was in his cave, but he did manage to find the way out and has now been sticking around to help us, his disciples, do the same.

While personal experience establishes a guide's authority, there is a deeper fountain of guidance beyond our personal experience. It starts with active listening—in other words, being present while listening intently. While another person speaks, I simply listen. There is no mental activity. I am not trying to think what my answer should be. I am simply there, present, and when a question is asked, I let the answer come from presence. Many times, I am very surprised at what comes out of my mouth! I also often forget what was said. It feels like someone else is speaking.

Every personal experience or skill the guide has acquired comes into play in this interaction with another. Whatever training or knowledge was acquired is important. With time, however, the guide who practices listening with presence and answering from presence finds that this knowledge may become obsolete and that new knowledge will replace it.

Guidance is partly based on the guide's own personal experience and partly (and increasingly) based on their connection with God. The level of familiarity a guide has with the journey inward and the degree to which they allow the transmission of their inner guide to come through determines the people they can serve and the stretch of the journey they can guide them through. The level of the guide's self knowledge will dictate who they can help and how much. One cannot teach what one hasn't experienced and assimilated.

Authority is one thing. Empathy is another.

An efficient guide needs to be able to determine where you are now. Every phase of the journey is different. We encounter different challenges along the way. An empathic guide takes the time and has the ability to get to know the specifics of your situation. What is your present challenge? Where are you on your journey? With that, they will be able to put themselves in your shoes, so to speak, and issue guidance that will take you forward to your next phase.

How the guide does that varies. What is important for you to ensure is that they have the ability to do so. Choose a guide who has demonstrated this ability.

The simplest way to do this is to do some research to form an impression of this person's ability as a guide. Simply put, what is it that they did, and how effective were they as a guide? Find and read their books, watch their videos, go online and join a group on social networks. Ask other people about their own personal experience and listen.

A guide is helping you connect to inner truth. You should access inner truth in the process of selecting your guide.

🧘🏻 Practical Tool: Accessing Inner Truth

How can you evaluate your guide? The simplest method I can recommend is this: internally ask a question such as "does this guide understand where I am right now?" and then be silent as much as you can and listen to your inner truth. The hallmark of a reply that comes from God is peace. If you feel peace after making your decision, that is a good sign!

Your guide must be a wise teacher. Knowing how to play the piano and being able to teach how to play the piano are two very different skills. With all due respect to concert pianists—and they are wonderful artists—I would imagine most of them do not have the patience to sit down with a six-year-old student and teach them scales.

Knowing something from personal experience and having the ability to teach that to another person are two very different skills.

And so it is with guides. It is not enough to take a personal journey inward into one's own uncharted territory. A guide usually has a temperament suitable for teaching (with empathy and patience, at least), has heard a calling to serve others, and has acquired a certain wisdom that allows them to be effective in that capacity.

Choose someone wise who demonstrates the love for teaching. A guide has the wisdom to see you and impart the advice that you need at the right moment.

I am not saying that books, podcasts, or films cannot be wonderful guides. Actually, it is always the person behind the transmission who is guiding you. That person has shared their wisdom with you. You have made yourself ready to receive that transmission by virtue of picking up the book, watching the film, or listening to the podcast. Great. That is a necessary first step.

There is the issue of the personal connection, though. You and your guide are not at the same place at the same time. This is where we trust in the big plan to work its magic. Ask and it shall be given, remember?

A wise guide somewhere has already transmitted a message with the wisdom you need right now. It is up to you to ask and be open to receive. The right message, at the right time, with the right "golden nugget" is always there for you.

Even if the guide you have chosen for this phase of your journey is not personally accessible to you, even if you have never met and never will, their work is awaiting you.

Perhaps you've heard the Yiddish word mensch. In recent years, it has migrated to American English and roughly means a person of integrity and honor.

Well, I suggest that your guide be at least that—a mensch. And why not? You deserve to be guided by someone who really has your best interest in mind. In fact, I would raise the bar. I would recommend that you choose a guide whose motives are pure.

I know that discerning the motives of another is far from an easy thing. What I want to impress on you is that there are charlatans out there you should beware of.

Here are some practical suggestions that will help you form an impression of the motives of a potential guide:

• Google them. Try to find interviews or written materials where the guides talk about themselves and their own journey. See what comes up. If you find yourself reading about weird things related to money, sex, or power, stay away. More on this in a later chapter.

• Ask someone who has followed the guide for a while what their experiences were. Ask open-ended questions.

• If the guide wrote a book, buy it and read it. If they wrote about their own personal journey, read it.

• Listen or watch them speak and see how you feel.

• Send them a letter or email them. Ask them a specific question about a personal challenge you have and see if and what they answer.

Ultimately, choosing a guide is a matter of trust. Choose someone you trust to lead you on your journey inward. You must also trust your intuition when you decide if a particular guide is the right one for you.

Your next guide should be helping you be more connected to your inner truth. In the process of selecting your next guide, I suggest accessing this inner truth by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is this a good guide for me right now?

• If this is the guide, am I ready to follow?

If both answers are yes and you feel peace after this inner truth manifests, I would follow this guidance.

It is possible to meet guides who are not right for you or who have entered your life at the wrong time. I, too, have experienced this. My relationship with the Indian Hindu guru Guruji Rajkumar Baswar highlights some of the challenges I had with the guides who appeared on my journey.

In 2012, I went on a pilgrimage to India to perform a Hindu puja. Puja in Sanskrit means reverence, honor, homage, adoration, and worship. It is the essential ritual of Hinduism. During this trip I met Guruji in person for the first time. By that time, I was practicing mantra meditation with a mantra given to me by Guruji (through one of his principal students). This practice (a Tantric practice, to be exact) was extremely powerful. At the same time, my mind could not make sense of what was happening. I approached my best friend, Ron, and asked him about this. Ron simply said that he did not try to "understand" Guruji or how he works. He simply suggested that I do the practice and see what happens.

I trusted Ron's advice. On faith, I committed to a daily practice of mantra meditation for one full year before going to India. This was Guruji's requirement for participation in the puja.

Once in India, Guruji performed a ritual of Sanskar. It involved spreading an herbal and mineral mixture on our body and reciting mantras. After this ritual, my whole back was covered with big blisters. I felt no pain, but my whole back looked like one big second-degree burn. It took three weeks to heal. During those three weeks, I tried to make sense of all of this and approached Guruji. Frankly, he was not very interested in explaining anything, and I found him distant and aloof.

It was meant to be like that. I had planned in advance a trip to Rishikesh to meet Prem Baba in person and attend the daily satsang. I needed to experience the two gurus side by side to realize that Prem Baba was the one for me at that time. I met Prem Baba again in Rishikesh at the end of the puja, and immediately decided to be initiated by him (take "diksha"). One of the main reasons for this decision was the fact that Prem Baba was much more approachable and understandable to my mind.

The Tantric practices that Guruji taught were extremely beneficial even if I don't understand how they worked. As best as I can understand, the purpose of these practices is to burn karma and allow the practitioner to advance on their spiritual path. This is an intense path, which requires commitment and absolute trust in the guru. When it was time to take the next step and commit to a deeper relationship with Guruji, my inability to communicate with Guruji and my feeling that he was not interested in me personally were indications that I could not trust him completely. I realized Guruji was not the right guide for me. After years of practice with Guruji, I simply decided to move on. Prem Baba was who I chose to guide me for the next phase of my journey.

We are all different people with different dispositions and temperaments. That is a given. We should take this into account when we are deciding how to choose a guide and the actual practices of the inward journey.

I could understand what Prem Baba was saying, and that helped me trust him and his guidance. With this trust, I found the inner resolve to take one more step along the path Prem Baba was laying out in front of me. And then one more step—and another.

With Guruji, the fact that he spoke little English but mainly the fact that he was not interested in explaining why he was suggesting certain practices caused me to lose interest. That is what I mean by "temperament." For example, my own mind needs facts, details, and explanations. Yours may not. Yours may be more inclined to work on emotions and actions.

It is important that we self-reflect and ask ourselves honestly what it is that we expect from a guide. If we do not, we may miss out on opportunities to be guided by someone who is truly suitable for us at that point in time.

Our dispositions and temperaments may change over time and also as we progress on the journey. I can attest to that. I am now much more inclined to simplify my practice.

During the year I spent in intense yoga studies, I immersed myself in a variety of spiritual practices. I wanted to do it all. I wanted to be enlightened and would spare no effort in attaining that goal.

I shared all the practices I was doing with Sahaja, one of my yoga teachers. I spoke for several minutes, through which he remained completely silent. He then looked at me, smiling, and simply said, "It is not about doing. It is about being."

I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over my head. I thanked him in silence and left. I knew even then that this was a deep truth. Frankly, it took me years to realize what he was talking about.

Understanding that truth would require a change in my temperament. His suggestion was to simplify. I was not ready for that yet. So, I kept doing what I was doing. Nevertheless, his suggestion was a seed of truth that would later sprout and take hold.

If I look at the long series of guides I was fortunate enough to enjoy over the years, I can see many interesting patterns. One pattern is a tendency to increasingly simplify my journey.

I recently became acquainted with "the path of unconditional happiness" presented by Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. This is one of the simplest spiritual practices I've encountered along my journey. When I picked up the book, I was ready to recognize the simplicity of this path. The seed that Sahaja had planted years before ("It's not about doing, it's about being") bore fruit. My temperament had changed. Whereas during my yoga adventure I was completely into doing, now I was ready to try a path that required less doing and more being. Once more, I was ready for a new guide and new guidance.

The challenges we face in different phases of the journey vary, and with that we need different guidance. We ourselves also change during the journey inward. The work with the guide becomes an intricate and delicate puzzle of matching our current temperament, maturity on the journey, and challenges to the guidance we receive.

For the longest part of my journey, I was mostly unaware of these changes. I can clearly see a pattern—only now, in hindsight.

The practical takeaway is this: be aware of the different aspects at play during your journey. You will be attracted to more than one guide and perhaps, like me, many different guides. Embrace each in their turn and appreciate what they have to give you.