My understanding of the term mentor has changed over the years. I used to put my teachers and mentors on pedestals. They always fell off. I’ve put myself on a pedestal. I fell off. Then, after getting a graduate degree in education and teaching for 18 years as a professor in college, I learned that ALL learning is personal. The work is done in the student’s head. My insights belong to me. My students’ insights belong to them. Are they the same? There is no way to know other than how we can apply what we know. Teachers are just pointing the way, providing a bit of theory to guide thinking. The experience, the application of the principles, is unique and private to each individual.
This is true of all teaching. It doesn’t matter if you’re teaching web coding or mental science (healing through belief system). The journey to mastery is a personal road taken by the one who wants the experience.
Now I’m less concerned with monikers and labels. I’m more interested in deep intimacy with “the ALL”. The only moniker the All has is the one I give it. Do I call it the Universe? Infinite Intelligence? Consciousness? God? I’m finding that awareness, i.e. my perception of it, is “cleaner” without all the labels. Presence, being, is just that, an experience; a perception. What I call it clouds the experience. I need just enough of a label to tell the difference between “things.” Beyond that, naming things just gets in the way of the intimacy.
What is a mentor? Someone who spends time with someone sharing what they know in a way that is beneficial.