Teachers bet
When my graduate studies in the classical humanties were completed, I began teaching at several community colleges. I also joined the faculty at Prescott College as a graduate advisor to masters degree students. And in Phoenix, I operated a private counseling practice.
Over a decade or so, I worked with probably a thousand students and clients, and then began doing keynote public speaking. My teaching and counseling career only paid about a quarter of what I made in real estate, but the rewards were invaluable as I became rich in connections, relationships, the exchange of ideas, and the natural high from serving others.
As an educator, I was trying my best to expand people's cultural understanding of each other by exploring diverse primary sources from around the globe. My ultimate goal was to help students realize the mystery and power of the human spirit, no matter their religious or spiritual interpretations. Here's an old flyer I found in my archives which gives you a taste of a typical month's events at the Mindful Medicine Center, a educational venue I created in Scottsdale, AZ. . .
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My educational materials and methods were structured around four gateways to self-discovery: academic study, meditation training, real world risk-taking, and devotion to creativity and the arts. I consider each of these disciplines to be an original form. Studying and practicing original forms allows you to build a broad-minded worldview that in turn leads to a calmer, observant, even fearless approach to life, no matter where you roam.
As a teacher, I never presumed to have some specific truth or answer necessary to achieve spiritual awakening or enlightenment. Rather, my job was to introduce students to a variety of primary source materials that have stood the test of time, so they could then develop their own interpretations.
The Perennial Philosophers taught that to reach a certifiable level of wisdom, you have to let go beliefs in sacred laws and almighty gods, which are only useful in the earlier stages of your spiritual journey. Ironically, they turn out to be final obstacles on the road to true awakening.
So let go the rules and regs of your tribe. Release all gods and devils, all heavens and hells. Recognize they simply serve as mythic images for mysteries that can never be known. If you insist on retaining your chosen deity and religion, learn to read its sacred texts with sense of wonder as poetry, not factually as prose.
My teaching model formed a practical system that allowed you to develop self-knowledge in a way that best suited you, based on your history, current circumstances, and internal wiring. I was not a guru but an educator, whose Latin root educere means “to draw out.” When as a student you are genuinely caught by something the teacher elucidates, your sense of wonder has now become activated. It is then possible for something new to be drawn out of you that was inside all along.
"Richard, since I attended your presentations, I have been reading a few of my old self-help books. And what do you know? It’s like I’d never read them before. I get them on a whole other level now. Thanks for helping me take my awareness to a new level!"
—Karen M., attorney
"Richard has a gentle and compelling way of communicating the wisdom and wonder of spiritual inquiry, nondual teachings, and myth. His teaching methods challenge you to wake up to your own inner brilliance, to accept and work with the often difficult nature of the modern world."
—Angela B., engineer
"You said your goal was to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable, and you have been true to your word! I am so pumped about what is already happening in my
thought processes, and the timing of everything has been so perfect."
—Theresa B., counselor
Pretty much everything I taught is covered in my four BOOKS.
I still mentor serious seekers.
If you're ready, reach out.
