Reading what you write, a thought strikes me.

Someone who is a teacher has a role in my life. Their role has to do with me - my betterment, my evolution, my learning, my progress. Who they are, what they get out of the exchange, is almost irrelevant to the dynamic.

Someone who is a partner has a role in my life. Their role is to give of themselves and for me to give of myself toward a common goal. That goal, whatever it may be, is the central objective of the relationship. Both my partner and i may learn and grow as a result of working together toward that goal, and doing so can make it easier for the partnership to last, but it's not mandatory to the dynamic.

As long as the primary goal is my own betterment, i am more likely to find a teacher than a partner.

L y d i a, I think one of the aspects of your post is not only true, but is also a condemnation of the way we educate children. As you wrote, "I think I feel inferior when I'm predominantly the student... I feel like a child, like one looked down as immature or misguided." This is exactly the way we normally teach our children....and our adults. Instead of empowering students, many teachers try to bask in their own wisdom and superiority. Sure, they want to educate you, so long as you're not as educated as they. No wonder so many people hate school and hate education. No wonder so many people distrust the educated elite. No wonder so many people feel we don't need educated experts to deal with socioeconomic issues when we can have "Joe the Plumbers" with simplistic non-solutions for complex problems.

According to ancient Tantric tradition--and the Tantra to which I'm referring is an entire spiritual system, not just the sexual neo-Tantra which most Westerners who think of Tantra consider to be the full extent of it--there are blockages (kleshas) to spiritual development. Of the five kleshas, to my mind the most important one to overcome is avidya--ignorance. But overcoming ignorance should NOT mean being made to feel inferior, immature, or misguided. Rather, it should be a time of exploration, discovery, and unfoldment. To my mind, a true teacher leads by pointing the way, no standing about you and lowering himself or herself to lend you a hand. To my mind, the ultimate joy of any teacher should be to see his or her student experience one of those "AHA!" moments of crystal clarity and understanding. Perhaps the only thing better would be when the student expands upon what the teacher has shared and becomes the teacher of the teacher. What an incredible blessing that is!

So I would say there is room for us all to have teacher/partners, as long as that person is not one who lords their knowledge over us and limits our receipt of the information in an attempt--conscious or unconscious--to keep us below him or her. To my mind, a true teacher walks by our side--next to our heart--and not in front of us leaving us to cough on the dust raised by their shoes.

But then...what do I know? YMMV.

The point is not to master the teacher. It is to master the teaching.

There is a book entitled "Snapping." It's actually about getting trapped in cults, but it explains an aspect of something called "catastrophe theory." The claim is that there are two ways you can realize that you are part of a group (or cult). This can be transposed to answer the "when does a student know that s/he has transcended the teacher?" question.

Imagine, if you will, a mountain. On one side is a cliff with a huge drop. Next to the cliff is a gradual downward plane, an easy walk to the bottom. Although it may take longer to get to the bottom of the plane, both the plane and the cliff end up at the same level.

So I would suggest that the student can realize that s/he has transcended the teacher suddenly ("I know that. Why teach it again? In fact, I know and can put into use all that the teacher has shared") or gradually ("This has been such a wonderful experience. But for a time, now, I've been feeling that I'm really not learning much new. Perhaps it's time to move on). The result is the same.

According to the ideal of traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, when a patient comes in, the analyst should quickly understand what the real problem is. However, the analyst doesn't tell the patient because it would have no cathartic release, no "Aha!" moment that can change the life. Instead, by talking about things that come up in the patient's life, the analyst is supposed to slowly direct the patient so that the patient is about to come to the realization himself/herself. This could take many months or years. Then, just before the patient realizes the cause of the problem, the analyst is supposed to reveal it to the patient. This has to be timed just right, so that the patient won't reject it but will still get the cathartic experience. (This is supposed to cure the problem, but considering that so few people actually do psychoanalysis any more, perhaps it wasn't effective.)

On a similar line of thought, a true teacher, IMO, should tell a student that there is nothing more to share and that the student should move on rather than waiting for the student to figure it out. For example, see Maugham's "The Razor's Edge." After teaching the student everything he could, the teacher sends the student away. Eventually, the student has an enlightenment. It's nothing the student didn't have, but the final act by the teacher makes the student aware of it.

The goal of teaching, IMO, should be the empowerment of the student, not the teacher. The teacher should already be self-empowered.

"It took me ages to find inner love, to embrace the light within me. To share in something with which combined energies didn't generate some degree of light and connectivity would be a dishonor to my body, heart, soul and mind. This is why I have chosen celibacy time and time again. This is why the partners I have been with over the last several years all had lessons for me and taught me something on one of the levels. So I could integrate within and know what I was seeking in a lover when I found it.

"I am committed to my work, my writing, my creative projects. Only after that comes a need for another. Just as a musician has his first love of music, so it is with my will and vision. I take these things very seriously. I have had all the pleasure seeking I could want and feel like though I have needs and desires, it is not worth sacrificing my integrity, nor my other energies for something which lacks depth and connection. It takes too much energy to initiate a fling or something fleeting. It is too much of a roller coaster ride of unnecessary mental and emotional expenditure."

What is love? Is it simply commitment? Is it simply time spent together? I would suggest that there is more. It is the formula of 1+1=3. The missing 1 in that formula is the relationship itself. In order to manifest or actualize that relationship, I would contend that one thing is required: complete and total surrender to the other.

For a musician, as you describe, that requires complete and total surrender to the music in her/his soul. There is a story that Wagner, while riding through the Black Forest with some friends, suddenly started shouting that the carriage must stop. Then he ran out of the carriage and said to the others, "Don't you hear it? Can't you hear the music?" But they could not. They had not surrendered to it. He had surrendered to the music.

Michelangelo was asked how he was able to create the Pieta. He said that he found a sculpture that had already been made--poorly--and let out what was inside. He had surrendered to his art. He was able to hear the stone sing. He could help the beauty within be revealed because he loved his art.

But let's be real. A forest cannot return love. Music cannot physically touch your body. A rock feels no pain and cannot love. Therefore, the surrender to their art was one way.

To really get that mysterious extra "1" into the equation of love with another, I would contend that both partners must surrender themselves totally, passionately, intensely to the other--with no expectations. No expectation of returned love. No expectation of returned passion. No expectation of returned intensity. And with every ounce of returned love, passion, and intensity, the value of surrender is made manifest ten-fold, and the growth of that extra "1" becomes stronger, and the 1+1=3 equation becomes an overwhelming reality.

"If I have to continue to be alone, I will do so just as I have for much of my life. My philosophy on sexuality and relationships is outside of the norm in that upon first meeting someone I know whether it has potential or is a waste of time and most are incompatible. I also have had visions of those who were substantial, potent and meaningful, even when they were brief."

Wow. I have so much to say...

I don't know if the following is true, but, for the moment, imagine it is. In our lives, for everything that happens, either we are are totally responsible (call this "at cause") or what happens to us is only the result of things that happen to us (call this "at effect"). We don't have a lot of money because we were born poor, we didn't get a good education, we didn't have the right opportunities, there was prejudice against us because we were too young or too old or too fat or too slim or came from the wrong place or were overqualified or our skin was too white, black, yellow, brown, green, purple, or something else. One of more of these may, in fact, be true. They are all good reasons. Another word for reasons: excuses. They all indicate that we are not in control.

If, on the other hand, we take control of our lives and accept the truth that if someone else did something, so can we, that we are self-actualized, we are in control, we are empowered and at cause.

So where does anyone wish to be? Empowered, self-actualized, having what you want: at cause, or having lots of excuses--I mean reasons--for being disempowered, unhappy, wanting, unactualized: at effect?

IMO, the way to become empowered is to take the attitude that we are moving from being at effect to being at cause. The beginning step is to accept the belief that there is no failure, only feedback. If something didn't work, why? What do we need to do differently in the future to bring what we want to us.

A: "I wish I had a girlfriend."
B: "What do you do in the evenings?"
A: "I stay home and watch TV."
B: "How will you meet anyone that way?"
A: "I dunno. It will just happen when the time is right."

BZZZZZZZZZZ. Oh, A, I'm sorry. You lose. Take a seat on the "I'm a dumb loser train" and thanks for playing Life.

We go out. We try. Our relationships fails. We hurt. We have two choices. The at effect choice: "I'm a loser and I'll hide out for awhile, then I suppose I'll try again and I'll just get hurt again." The at cause choice: "This really hurts. But I know that someday I'll be over it and ready to try again. Now, I'm going to look and see what I did wrong so next time I'll be closer to what I really want."

We try. We get hurt. We try again. We get hurt again. We can make the pain stop by either not trying (avoid being at effect--which actually keeps us at effect) or we look at why the relationship didn't work and bring what we actually need into our lives (being at cause).

By the way, most people realize that they could have something with another person within ten minutes of meeting them. You're not outside the norm in this. Where you are outside the norm is that you acknowledge this fact rather than ignore it. I would say that working with reality is a good thing.

The unconscious mind is a curious thing. It doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination. Imagine...
walking to the refrigerator
opening the door
pulling out a drawer
taking out a lemon
feeling its cold, slightly bumpy skin
smelling its sweet smell
walking with the lemon over to a counter
reaching into a drawer and taking out a very sharp knife
cutting the lemon in half
seeing some of the juice come out
the smell of the lemon becoming more intense
using the knife to slice one of the halves of the lemon
putting down the knife and picking up one of the lemon quarters
bringing the piece of lemon to just below your nose
smelling the intense sweet/tartness of the lemon
feeling some of the juice dripping on your hand
and then...
take a big bite of the lemon...just chew it up.

Chance are, the amount of saliva increased in your mouth. That's not because of anything physical. That's because your imagine worked through your unconscious mind to create a reality that produced an increase in saliva in preparation for eating and digestion.

This means that what you put into your unconscious mind effects every aspect of your being. It also means that although you may technically be alone, YOU'RE NEVER ALONE. You can have all of the incredible psycho/sexual/emotional/biological/spiritual effects of being with another when you are by yourself. This is why the practice of laya yoga (sometimes called kundalini yoga) can be so powerful.

Passion. Surrender. Intensity. Love. Touch. We each need this daily. It keeps us juicy and lubricated. Without it we dry up emotionally and creatively.

</rant>

"but if we are whole, we only need to think of the happiness of another and stop."

Thank you for that, it makes sense.

Lydia

I struggled with this question for 45 years, and only recently met someone who I believe is compatible and with whom I will have a sacred sexual relationship. I do note that I had percieved a lack of support in my life from my father, my extended family, the church, and the community at large. Part of that was due to circumstance (parents divorced and father percieved my support as a chore, church rejected me as a homosexual, etc). Part was due to not knowing or understanding that I could survive without the support of others. I am quite sure that this is not unique to me, and am almost surprised to find out at age 45 that I felt so unsupported all this time. What is clear is that I am learning to escape judgment and to be non-judgmental.