I Never Thought I’d Be Sharing This…
This week’s blog is more of a PSA.
It’s come to light this past week that a spiritual teacher I truly respected (and have referenced in my work) is not who I perceived him to be when he’s behind the scenes with the people in his inner circle (four have come forward as whistleblowers on his behavior and I trust what they’ve shared).
Ultimately, I do not think his teachings of the direct path are wrong as they are not his own and I’ve learned them through other sources, so I’m not discounting the teachings I’ve referenced/shared but my eyes have been significantly opened to how this information in the hands of someone without a pure intent to help, sets up some pretty scary teacher-student dynamics (as evidenced in the whistleblowers’ accounts of their time with him).
I’m sharing today that I no longer support or endorse Bentinho Massaro as a teacher or a being who is balanced in love and wisdom.
I personally feel removed from that part of his expression since I was never around him or his community in person. But it still feels weird that something like this hit close to home since I did think he was a balanced being, regarding love and wisdom.
My eyes have been very opened regarding a spiritual teacher’s ability to appear to have pure intent and, from that place, is able to gather well intentioned, good hearted people who want to use their lives in service to others and then abuse that innocence/goodness through power, control and manipulation in the name of making people aware of their personal distortions as a part of waking up to their higher nature.
Throw in tying people to a greater purpose of helping humanity wake up and it’s the perfect way to keep people in line with whatever is needed to go “all in” on this mission. Again, in the wrong hands, this is a recipe for disaster.
I still believe in doing our individual part to wake up and, in doing our inner work, we automatically help humanity.
But I don’t believe in doing this work with someone who does not have yours or humanity’s best interest at heart.
I don’t believe in trying to move yourself down the path at a faster rate than is possible for you by subjecting yourself to someone who continuously says “you’re not there” and in saying that implies a level of unworthiness and lack that seemingly can’t be helped, fixed or healed.
A true teacher who is balanced in love and wisdom has infinite patience for others.
A true teacher of this nature has a deep love for humanity that allows individuals and humanity, in general, to be where they are in their path without becoming frustrated or angry.
A true teacher of this nature knows how to offer exactly what is needed for that person’s next step. Even if it’s a stretch, there’s patience for the student to not move through that particular obstacle.
A true teacher of this nature is not emotionally affected by what their student does or does not do, regarding their progression or lack thereof.
Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the case with Bentinho. It seems that he held a bar that students continuously failed to meet and berated them for not meeting it in his frustration of them individually and humanity, in general.
Then, he held their goodness and willingness to help humanity over their head by saying “they weren’t all in on their shared mission to help the collective” in an attempt to keep them committed to a process where they were subjected to his berating ways.
This sets up a sense of helplessness where someone continuously tries to get it right to no avail. It’s cruel and abusive.
And, yes, I believe in personal responsibility.
But in a situation like this “personal responsibility for one’s victimhood” is also being used to justify the berating (the teacher feels justified in triggering victimhood as a way of getting the student to move through it, but the person is simultaneously caught in victimhood while trusting the person who is triggering it to help them).
You could call this Jedi training for mastery to the one who is fully ready for it, but I call it intentional abuse on the well-intentioned, good hearted, unassuming, innocent soul who is truly not yet ready for that level of training.
And I call bullshit on any teacher who claims to be balanced in love and wisdom who uses this approach on a student who is in no way ready for it.
I’m not even a proponent of using it for “Jedi” training for a soul who is ready for it as that’s just a very tricky thing to even attempt. If a soul is meant to learn the lessons that come with that type of training, I believe it can happen naturally through some other experience in the world. It doesn’t have to be artificially induced, especially when the student has given their trust that this teacher means well.
Again, to me, this is what makes it abusive.
It’s doing a huge disservice to that person’s progress by unnecessarily traumatizing them.
A true teacher would never risk that regression on one’s path as they would care more about that person’s continual progress (even if it’s only incremental) than the debilitating affects this approach can have on a person, which is what scarily classifies this behavior as sociopathic and narcissistic.
There are more elements to what was shared by the whistleblowers (especially accounts shared by two of his ex-girlfriends) that did not set well with me, but this is what I wanted to share here.
This has not deterred me from valuing a commitment to doing the necessary inner work (that resonates with where you are in your individual journey) to wake up. Nor does it deter me from seeing how this does help the collective.
It does make me want to run from any inclination to do this in “physical community with others” with a specific “shared mission” to wake up humanity. I’ve never been drawn to this, but it definitely sticks out as a big, fat NO now.
Three of the whistleblowers shared their story on a podcast called A Little Bit Culty last week. All four of the whistleblowers shared their personal accounts of what happened on blogs you can read here.
I share these sources because they do a great job of outlining how things of this nature (i.e., cults) work and with this hitting somewhat close to home for me (something I never thought I’d ever be near), it’s good to be aware of how this stuff works, especially since it preys on well-intentioned, good hearted people.
To continuing to hold the light,
Shanna
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