Is It a Good Thing to Be a Spiritual Teacher?

I came across the writings of a well-known Indian guru in my early twenties and thus began a twenty-five-year odyssey that would uproot me from my normal life and see me living in ashrams and committed spiritual communities around the world. The answers I sought were not easy to find, however, and the promises made by the teachers in whom I placed my trust were rarely kept. Exhausted and disillusioned I left my last teacher and abandoned spiritual life in 2004, and during the intense and all-consuming crisis that followed I finally realized the truth of my own unchanging nature beyond the personal identity. The questions that had haunted me for so long dissolved and I was astonished to find that all seeking had ceased. Over time the shift of identity stabilized and became normalized and permanent. Grateful and content with what I saw as a private internal matter I rarely spoke or thought about spirituality and for the next fifteen or so years focused instead on my long-neglected art career. I began to establish myself as a visual artist exhibiting firstly in the UK and later internationally. I now collaborate with my partner, scientist Dr. Jesse Shore, producing artworks as Sweet+Shore, as well as my individual work as Anne Penman Sweet. About eighteen months ago I confided in my friend, author, and researcher Amir Freimann about what had happened, and he immediately invited me to participate in his research project Living Transcendence: a Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Exemplars. I was very surprised as I had no sense of knowing anything or of having arrived anywhere in particular. However, over the course of a dozen or more formal interviews skillfully conducted by him, I experienced an outpouring of spiritual insights and understandings that I had no idea I contained. It was revelatory and transformative and since then I have spoken freely and publicly about these matters. Not long after, I started to feel a deep inner prompting to begin sharing what I had learned and understood, not as a teacher but as a friend and advisor. I created the End of Seeking website as a free resource to help simplify and demystify the spiritual search for others and to give seekers the tools and knowledge they may need to independently navigate the often confusing and at times hazardous terrain of the contemporary spiritual marketplace. I am currently working on a book of spiritual insights illustrated with Sweet+Shore artworks which I hope to publish by the end of the year. Website: theendofseeking.org Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Summary and Transcript of this interview. Recorded February 12, 2022 YouTube Video Chapters: 00:04:46 - The Beginning 00:16:42 - Cautionary Note on Opening Ourselves Up 00:20:53 - Severe Consequences of Authenticity 00:24:55 - Leaving the Scene and Moving On 00:29:28 - Finding Stability through Meditation 00:34:10 - Choosing Transformation over Seeking 00:38:02 - Rediscovering Spiritual Truths 00:42:01 - Discovering My Understanding 00:46:22 - The Awakening 00:50:19 - The Importance of Enlightenment and Self-Examination 00:54:58 - Responsibility and Vulnerability in the Teacher Role 00:59:24 - The Emergence of Peer-to-Peer Spirituality 01:03:34 - New Approaches to Enlightenment and Psychoactive Drugs 01:20:25 - The Contextualization of Experience and the Limitations of Vedanta 01:24:45 - The Definition and Evolution of Enlightenment 01:29:27 - Exploring Further Dimensions 01:33:51 - Equanimity and Inner Fullness 01:37:53 - Dissolution of the Self 01:42:31 - Embracing Pain and Suffering 01:46:59 - The Writing Process and Learning through Expression 01:50:51 - Still Learning and Discovering 01:54:53 - Understanding Creation and Divinity 01:59:08 - The Importance of Ethics in Spiritual Teaching 02:02:56 - Contacting Anne Sweet and Getting in Touch for Questions