Clean Mirror

Student: In your experience, wouldn’t you say that being a clear mirror is one of the most important assets of a good teacher?

Barbara: That’s really the only thing a teacher can give. You can give words, you can give mythologies, you can give wonderful parables, you can try in ways of language and sound, or in ways of touching and loving to communicate yourself as life, as a perceiver of all points of view, and as an unconditional lover. You can do all that, but ultimately your presence is the mirror people are looking for. They are looking into your eyes, and falling into your words, in order to see themselves as perfect. Which they are! What else can we do but mirror that in our behavior and in our manner.

Student: If somebody were interested in finding a teacher how can they know when they have found the teacher for them?

Barbara: I would say, as simply as possible, to feel comforted and to feel whole and emotionally healthy in their presence is a good indication. To feel that they are an extension of the tyrant that you have created yourself over the course of a lifetime, that is an indication that perhaps, that is not the right choice. In my point of view, teachers should be mirroring and comforting, rather than advising.

Student: We, of course, are the ultimate teachers of ourselves, and the ultimate attractors of our teachers. And we do that with our desire and need to grow.

Barbara: Yes. We have created the dream that you call your personal reality. So you are bringing teachers that you are ready for, teachers that you feel are satisfying your particular needs at any point in time.

You may want a teacher that distresses and depresses you at a certain point in your evolution. You may want a teacher that lifts you and inspires you. It is really a matter of choice. There really is no right or wrong.