Choosing a Great Teacher

As well as the teaching and courses I run, I can also personally recommend a number of excellent meditation teachers throughout the UK for those of you who don't live in London and the South East.
Now when it comes to finding a meditation teacher or guide, there are no hard and fast rules. However having been taught by many people since the nineties, I will share with you those things that I've found most useful to consider:

- Mark

Regular contact

Naturally it is important that you can meet face to face with your teacher, especially when you are starting out. This is why many people choose to come on a course or book a number of one-to-one sessions. Once you are meditating regularly then, from my experience the quality of communication and guidance is much more important than the quantity. Everyone has different needs. As a rough guide I speak to the people I guide every two weeks and I run fortnightly meditation sessions where we can get together and meditate. They can also contact me by phone, letter or email at any time if they have something they need guidance on or simply want to discuss.

What are they teaching?

Put simply - meditation is a process by which a person expands their awareness and consciousness, and so naturally a good teachers 'job' is to give you practical relevant advice to help you expand your own awareness. If their teaching is based on regurgitating information from books or what someone else says or has experienced, then they simply are not teaching from their own experience, and so you would do better to find someone who has actually realized these states of awareness for themselves.

It's your journey

Meditation is amazing. you can use it for personal development, healing and, importantly, spiritual growth and ultimate realization. How far you take it is your choice and a good teacher will have the experience and wisdom to teach you what is appropriate for where you are and what you need. You are the one who takes responsibility for your meditation - the teachers job is to give you advice and it's always your choice to listen. The reason is that meditation is about realizing ultimately that everything is just one thing everywhere - and it's you! Pretty amazing really!

Personality

Some people have the belief that a meditator must act a certain way. Well, like any teacher, there should be a level of professional conduct, however it's nice to know that people are just people, and spirituality is inclusive, making it possible for every kind of personality to meditate. If you find your personality doesn't get on with a particular teacher's - then remember personality is just personality and "what" they are teaching is much bigger than the limits of how their personality teaches so remember it's all about you.