Today’s blog post is a two-for-one. I’m going to explore who are spiritual masters–the qualities, rather than naming names. I’ll discuss when you should want to be taught by one of them.
Secondly, I’m going to interweave thoughts about the path to your own sense of spiritual mastery.
What Is a Spiritual Master?
A spiritual master is someone who has stepped out of the attachments of this world and has realized their interconnection with life.
Their interests in common concerns like romance, making money, collecting things, etc. are few to non-existent, but they can still pursue them. The difference is that they’re not attached to the pursuits and the outcomes.
Generally, their interests and the interests of any truly spiritually-free person tend to focus on
- what is nourishing,
- what is healing, and
- what is real.
If you ever run into a spiritual master staring for long periods of time at a field of unfolding sunflowers, this may not make sense to you because social conditioning has taught you that this is unimportant; you should overlook it; and you should assume that this blooming always happens.
But the spiritual master assumes nothing and embraces every moment as a beautiful unfolding, which will never happen quite like it ever again.
Deepening Into Stillness and Inner Peace
The Profundity of Spiritual Mastery
In the space of spiritual mastery, there are all types of masters. I cannot give you categories. To categorize those who have transcended categories is ridiculous.
If they ever wear a category like “spiritual teacher,” it is only because they choose to do so.
If at some point they prefer to wear the vestments of a fool, then they’ll do that.
The next day, they may practice the artful movements of a turtle.
Or an investment banker.
It does not matter, which is part of why society has no place for spiritual masters.
This too is part of why many spiritual masters have little to do with the social world beyond what is necessary for survival; it’s because the social world has little to do with them.
Some masters may retire to places where they can be in tune with the natural world. I say “may” because ultimately everything is connected. A spiritual master resides in the place where peace is all things and all things are embraced by peace. So the noisy traffic jam is part of the spiritual master’s peace, but it doesn’t mean that the master will want to spend lots of time around noisy traffic jams.
It’s better to think of peace as neutrality.
Masters are fully feeling people, not robots stuck in one experiential state.
A master can still feel happiness, sadness, fear, anger, etc. They are simply not attached to those feeling-states that their human bodies still produce.
Additionally, many images and ideas of spiritual masters are those of men. This level of awareness is not a gender or sex-preferred awareness. How ridiculous would that be? Could you imagine if the supreme oneness of divinity within all of us suddenly created a limit to say, “This is a men only parking spot?!”
How absurd.
People of all sexual, ethnic, gender, and other identities can be spiritual masters. With that said, spiritual masters have no attachment to any expression.
Losing Your Gender and Sexual Identities
Not All Masters Are Teachers
Being a spiritual master doesn’t mean that the master will choose to be a spiritual teacher.
To be a spiritual master teacher is a choice.
The master is free to make any possible choice that they can possibly make.
That’s what it means to realize spiritual freedom.
Most people don’t really go beyond what they have to. It is choice to go beyond basic spiritual freedom and to consciously root out attachments beyond the obvious and most present. It’s an intentional choice to not get confined in social ideologies or systems while still living within them.
That’s a lot of rebirthing, which requires repatterning of countless behaviors.
In the repatterning, there is still non-attachment. The new social, emotional, and intellectual patterns are tools, not a new sense of self.
Some of you may melt your ego and dissolve into beingness aka spiritual mastery, and you may have no interest in teaching. And no desire to learn the behavioral patterns to teach.
A spiritual master can be a crappy teacher because they haven’t learned how to teach.
That’s fine.
For those on their individual path and who want to arrive at mastery:
Don’t let the idea of needing to serve in any specific way trip you up on your way to spiritual self-mastery/to embracing that which YOU ARE.
Mastery and the Vastness of Possibility
In truth, being a spiritual master is saying you can act in any way that is possible for that person.
It’s not saying that you are perfect, all-knowing, feeling blissful all the time, a savior, or any of the other spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
You’re not attached. You know this, and you live it in your daily life.
Additionally, a spiritual master doesn’t try to shift consciousness. He or she is one with it.
Or rather, they’ve realized that they’re one with it.
We all are.
All the time.
In terms of “shifting consciousness,” the master doesn’t do this. Shifting consciousness isn’t created by acting in a specific way.
Rather, human beings are mimicks. We copy each other.
If you get mad, other people tend to get mad. Or if everyone around you is happy, you tend to feel happier.
What happens when someone is deeply peaceful in themselves, your body (mirror neurons or something else neurological and biological) responds. It says, “This person seems really safe. This must be a safe moment. I can be safe too.” Your body shifts to mimick the peaceful person, master or not.
There’s a lot to be said about the positive pressure of community when it is focused on being peaceful. Some of you who have been to spiritual retreats or meditations have likely experienced this.
When you are deeply attached, unconscious, and upset, you may feel conflicted when are around a spiritual master. In which case, you would most likely not enjoy the spiritual master. Your internal conflict would ignite the ego to create scenarios and stories about him or her to justify the upset emotions that are being drawn forth from you. The juxtaposition of a very peaceful person against your own discontent, suffering, and trauma naturally creates a sense of conflict inside of you. The part that wants to harmonize towards peace is at war with your desire to stay in suffering or even hypervigilance.
Spiritual Awakening Confusion and Internal Conflict
The juxtaposition is a powerful gift, but few people see the opportunity. Most run away from the spiritual master or any other deeply peaceful person.
BTW, you might enjoy my spiritual allegory about “The Coming of the Great Master.”
Finding a Teaching Master
This begets the question that some of you have, which is “Where can I find a spiritual master who is teaching and who will teach me?”
I will not go down the path of saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. It’s not true, and you probably still won’t do a great job at identifying a spiritual master.
Your ego ideas and wanting for certain outcomes will blind you to the reality of a spiritual master.
Rather I will ask you quite pointedly, Why do you think you need a spiritual master?
How is another spiritual teacher not appropriate for you?”
There are more than a few spiritual teachers who have more than a few helpful things to teach to help you turn towards your own oneness.
Oftentimes, there’s this idea of finding the best thing out there. It’s the transactional thinking of Western Society. It is as if a spiritual master is a product to be bought over the counter and spread liberally over unconscious wounds.
Yes, yes, let’s take one spiritual master with water at night to heal all that ails you by the morning.
Mentorship with Jim Tolles
So immediately, I question the interests people have for a spiritual master. Rather I would say, go find all the spiritual teachers you possibly can. Learn as much as you can from all of them, and then when you no longer have any interest in being taught anything, see where you are.
See what arises inside.
Is something still hanging on to the quest?
Is there something that still thinks it needs an external answer or needs to heal another wound?
Have you truly learned anything and shed any attachments?
Do you really want to be stripped of all fears AND desires?
It’s when you honestly and genuinely engage with these questions that you are closer to being ready to even be in a room with a spiritual master much less taught.
When you choose the fire of transformation and to feel your ego burn, you better understand that you will be undergoing a radical ego death and rebirth.
The Many Types of Spiritual Teachers
Some time ago, I wrote a blog called, “What Is a Spiritual Teacher?”
It’s still a good one for many of you to reference as you consider what type of spiritual teacher will best be able to serve you on your spiritual path.
I like to emphasize that every type of spiritual teacher has a sacred role to play. Some students need someone to give them a structure to cultivate a regular discipline. Others need spiritual teachers who can help them to open up their hearts. Still others need someone who has a strong grounding in the physical world and is able to help the body be strong in an integrative way.
Do You Need a Spiritual Teacher?
And let’s please put aside worrying about the con artists, child-molesters, and other spiritual teachers who have abused their power for a moment.
Yes, they are out there.
But most spiritual teachers who come to this work generally come with a sense of love and interest in serving others. I encourage you to appreciate this vast array of teachers, to which in this digital age, we now have so much more access than ever before.
7 Signs of a False Spiritual Teacher
Spiritual Mastery and Wisdom
Spiritual mastery doesn’t mean you stop learning. In spiritual mastery, we understand that life is so vast that we will hardly ever know anything except ourselves.
The spiritual master stays curious.
The spiritual master also has no concerns about perfection.
Spiritual mastery is not about perfecting. For a spiritual master, it is a delight to simply discover. So like Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, the spiritual master sits by the river of life listening to the sounds and seeing all the different sights woven into this rushing current of consciousness.
Again and again, the spiritual master finds joy in the space of being and observing being around him or her. In this way, the spiritual master is the marriage of the child’s innocence with the experience and understanding of adulthood.
This creates wisdom.
Resting in Your Spiritual Wisdom
Trying to draw the spiritual master into the games of your life (self-aggrandizement, reassurance, romance, etc.) will be disappointing and more than a little upsetting if you are not ready to hear the truth about the illusions you have immersed yourself in. He or she will not engage with others out of any need to be seen, be validated, or be heard. The spiritual master goes where he or she wills almost vicariously, almost deliberately, seemingly blindly, but still very clearly in tune with reality.
To others it may seem quite maddening to try and understand this individual, so stop. Don’t bring definitions if you happen to find a master. Those ego definitions are a cage, not for the master, but you. Your ego definitions show your limitations of understanding, and as such, the spiritual master (at least one who teaches) will see this very clearly.
And yet, if the master is moved to, he or she may teach you regardless. Sometimes a chord strikes true, and the spiritual master says, “Ah, Here….there is something here. What is it?”
With that curiosity, the master may invite you a little closer.
Dissolving Into Pure Consciousness
Shifts in the Master’s Presence
Then, perhaps, one day you are invited into the master’s presence. Maybe it even happens randomly so you do not even know that this has arrived in your life. Suddenly, there’s all this intensity. Or maybe it is pure quiet and stillness within or around you. All kinds of shifts may happen depending on the nature of the spiritual master and your own true nature.
Or nothing at all may happen.
Nothing to Show for Your Spiritual Work
Each master is unto him or herself, but teaching masters may exude a certain quality that calls to the consciousness in all things. It is like the voice of the Mother calling to the little buds all around her to sprout:
“Wake up! Wake up silly lilies! Come, come my lovely daffodils! Will you hide in your buds all day and all night? Will you not come out into the glory of your own light?”
It’s pretty sounding.
It’s terrifying to the ego that clings to the familiar.
And again, a lot of it is biology. Your biology wants to be at peace, and the peaceful nature of another invites you to copy them, to be part of the social herd.
The transition to cracking out of the old shell and the entangling threads of social madness is unsettling. This is why I said some of you really don’t want a spiritual master. Those who are not accustomed to this cracking open and don’t know they’re in the presence of a master may suddenly decide that this person is quite obnoxious, rude, mean, or altogether upsetting.
Maybe the master is!
The spiritual master can use any emotion, idea, or physical ability to teach if he or she chooses.
The whole of consciousness is available to the spiritual master, so why would s/he limit her/himself?
The master would not and does not. The spiritual master teacher only cares about liberation.
The spiritual master doesn’t care about improving your love life, helping you get better jobs, getting you more spiritual friends, or any of that. Ironically, these can also be used as teacher tools.
Only spiritual freedom matters. Any teaching tool is possible if it is relevant for the student.
Spiritual Self-Mastery
I hope this post offers some insights about spiritual masters, and if you are interested in the path to spiritual self-mastery, let’s drop the “spiritual” word.
For most people, spiritual means “I’ll get everything I want; everyone will like me; I’ll feel bliss all the time; all my wounds will be healed; I’ll attract all the money and resources I want.”
This is nonsense.
So now, let’s talk about self-mastery.
Let’s subtract the concept of control.
The ego thinks “mastery” is a better state of control. True self-mastery is giving up of control to engage fully with the reality of the present moment.
It really isn’t about being better at things. It takes you towards that deep realization that you know nothing and need to learn how to transform to meet the moment.
There’s so much more to say, but this whole blog is dedicated to self-mastery in a way.
I encourage you to ask questions in the comments and keep reading other posts. You can check out my YouTube channel
My ebook can help you as well:
Everyday Spirituality: Cultivating an Awakening
For those who want direct, real-person, Non-AI help, I offer sessions:
For those interested in becoming a spiritual teacher and one day a spiritual master, you can check out this blog post:
The Process of Becoming a Spiritual Teacher
Updated 5/4/2026
