The Seven Qualities of a Minister

The Seven Qualities of a minister (teacher/leader/counsellor) of the Tradition is ancient code that we hold to. The text has been reworked in the English language to reflect current terminology.

1.1. Devotion & Dedication

Mystic conference and association comes from devotion and dedication. Always uplift your soul, and enter through the veil to receive the nurture, refuelling, regeneration and deliver your gratitude, lay before the feet of the great ones your dreads before doing one more day.

1.2. Remain True

True to Tradition, true to teacher, true to self is how we flow. We cannot know all that we should know to be all things to all people. Speak only to what you know, what you have been taught. Seek to learn more, to remain true at all times. True to self, is true to the Way because it is in the Way that we flow.

1.3. Servitude

As a servant of living beings, one is a servant of the Teacher+, servant of the Lord, servant of the One Most High. It is the Master’s children that we serve. If they are impolite, bite the hand that feeds them or wastes the food, the Master’s karma will discipline them, it is no concern of ours. Children do grow up.Compassion dictates that we take care, by utilizing upaya, to not encourage the young who disparage servants, it is to their detriment and we don’t want that for them. 

1.4. Group facilitation skills

As a group leader, you need to cultivate the skills to do it well, and do it well is what you want.

1.5. Listening Skills

Teachers of souls listen more than speak. Encourage introspective speaking and you encourage introspective communication.

1.6. Charisma

From the Greek kharis, the word means, filled with favor and divine grace. This gives the word two senses, one is perceived as a cultivated characteristic and the other perceived as a divine gift of a pleasing personality. Charisma is obtained through cultivated conduct, mannerisms, that inspires people. Also said to be charm, it is a learned way of dealing with people that makes them want to be around you, hear more of what you have to say, and believe in what you believe in. Forever the tool of choice for conmen, charisma is a sought after quality for those who fund candidates in democratic elections to get control of things beyond their reach. Jesus did not draw crowds of thousands because he spoke truths, but because of upaya—he fed their souls the good food prepared in a way most pleasing to the palate of the local people. Upaya is a learned skill. For a teacher to have knowledge but no skill, is a path to failure. Acquiring charisma starts with believing in your ordination, your being called and prepared by the Divine, in your being assisted and surrounded by spiritual beings—believing in your authority, your humility and simplicity.Being most humble, you cannot be embarrassed, therefore the devil of doubt cannot manipulate you. Being skilled in upaya, having walked a mile in the other’s shoes, you speak simplicity and with the confidence of your divine entourage. Listen to the evening air, the morrow and the noon, how creatures and our planet herself rejoice in the Presence of the Divine, and let that joy imbue you, emanate from you—and others will sense a longing in their hearts for what you have. That sensuous confidence of the joy of life itself is what charisma is for us. Pleasing and useful for ourselves, true, but upaya at its best too, is what charisma is. Fortunately, nothing kills charisma as dead as arrogance.

1.7. Spiritual skills (listening and observation)

We do not work alone. True, we ‘sense’ things in our advanced souls and developing spirits but is it us, or our spiritual co-workers that brought that ‘sense’? Does it matter? No, what matters is that we learn to discriminate. Discrimination is the teacher’s highest skill.Discriminate whether what you sense is true. Sometimes we sense what some term “an evil spirit” cohabiting with the soul you want to help. Sometimes we sense our own projected thing (often caused by a slip in arrogance or sloth). Sometimes we sense what is true but we doubt. Trust, without arrogance, in the team and always remaining open to correction.Never stop developing this skill, it is endlessly deep.