The Courage to Teach
I recall the first time years ago when I was invited to explore teaching in the field of spiritual practices by someone I trusted for their clarity of vision.
I couldn’t see myself as a teacher.
I balked at the thought of it.
At least at what I had interpreted and understood to be the role at that time.
In this context, I am only referring to teachers who explore and share the nature of the Self in the field of Spirituality.
To me, spiritual work, or the exploration of recognizing the nature of our Self is the most important and all-encompassing work of all.
Not at all in the mind’s hierarchical way of deeming all other work as menial or unimportant, but because I find this is to be the foundational basis on which all our life experiences emerge and are created.
This is the sacred ground on and from which we grow, build, and live our whole life.
This work is the root that feeds the plant we are on this physical plane.
We are conditioned to see and revere teachers/gurus to be and know it all.
So naturally, even thinking of teaching at that time felt like a leap way beyond my capabilities.
It meant I had to first arrive at “who knows where” before I could even think of attempting to be one.
As the popular narrative goes, this highly regarded destination, after all is deserving of and reserved for the enlightened rare and few.
Attempting this felt like it meant one had years…nah, perhaps lives one had already dedicated to this.
It also meant embarking on a painstaking journey of penance, an utter detachment from one’s world, and an ability to discern and see in ways that pierced through the unimaginable thick maya of the world.
Not to mention a few supernatural experiences and superpower-like capabilities to top it would be the proof that you had actually received some grace and a nod from heavens above to proceed on this path! Ha!
This, as one may imagine, was in no way a short or an easy list to accomplish or even attempt!
This path seemed to require a serious and what felt like a dry level of dedication and responsibility. Being a teacher eventually also meant lining up students to follow the same routine.
It all sounded too dull, dreary, and burdensome for something I otherwise loved to dabble and free rein play in so much.
The perceived requirement of perfection this path seemed to demand was not something I could ever see for me.
While my love and thirst for the quest were paramount in many ways, I was more than happy to be a wet behind the ears beginner at best.
Thus was the conditioning, and so it’s no wonder that I couldn’t even imagine considering the role being offered in spite of my deep love for the subject and desire to deepen into it.
All of course in hindsight a perfect unfolding to where I find this body-mind today.
Last week as I heard from so many who called to wish me as I shared about teaching Pranayama, I realized how this topic too — shimmering underneath it all — has unwittingly been a part of my long time exploration.
As I begin, I was inspired to pen some of the (un)learnings that have touched and continue to grow in me.
Key points that I feel will anchor and serve the unfolding ahead.
Teaching and learning are not optional.
We are teaching and learning all the time.
Whether we realize it in the moment, acknowledge it, and accept it formally as a role or not.
The way we behave, live, meet another are all eventually in some way or another in the context of teaching and learning.
In the myriad of roles we play, as a parent, a friend, a wife, a customer in every moment we are teaching with our ways of being and in turn learning from them. When one asks another a question about something they may have experienced/learned, one automatically in that moment embodies the spirit of a teacher. Or more accurately shares the distillation of their own unique experience what we may recieve as a teaching.
This world’s experience in the physical is all about relationships. We are constantly relating. As we start looking deeper from beyond our limited identity, we may also recognize that we are a relationship itself.
The dynamics of any relationship, set by the ways we engage with each other.
Teaching and learning — two sides of the same coin are an integral part of our experience on this plane.
When done in and as Awareness/true Self, both seem to happen simultaneously.
When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
The awareness we are, or we hold, determines the interpretations we make. Therefore the desires, learnings, understandings, perspectives born from that attract the teaching and the teacher.
Always a perfect match for our level of consciousness at that time.
And our level of consciousness also determines what we will glean from the relationship and the teaching and how well we may assimilate it.
Each relationship and its offering, a gateway for growth and expansion.
Each one’s experience, unique to where they are, how they see, and what they choose.
As the common proverb goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears.
Once we learn and expand into our new ways of being naturally, the teaching/teacher disappears.
In my experience, the form of the teacher may not necessarily disappear but once the teaching is assimilated, the teacher aspect on that particular topic in the relationship disappears as we move on to the next.
Focus on the teaching, not the teacher.
We do a great disservice to ourselves, our journey, and the perceived other when we enter any relationship or learning through our conditioned familiar mind.
The conditioned mind sees through the limited eyes of polarity and hierarchy and holds the possibility to mistake the form of teacher to be the light that shines within.
This is most common where the mind unwittingly puts the form it admires on a pedestal, revering it in its definition of perfection before it is disappointed because it eventually perceives otherwise.
It is not about the teacher but more about the teaching.
It is not about the form; it is about the light of awareness and the message being conveyed through the form.
The more present and aware we are, the more we will discern the presence in a teacher and the teaching.
What eventually matters most is if the teaching being offered resonates in our being.
Does what is being shared help and work for me?
Does it equip me to see and grow more so I can become what I desire and choose?
This is an empowered stance. It places responsibility full and square on our shoulders to take what is taught with confidence and leave what is not required. This one conscious distinction has helped me in ways where things have always undoubtedly served me in all circumstances in life.
We teach what we love
We follow, naturally learn, teach and live what we love and what we desire to deepen into ourselves. This lies at the center of my lived experience. Our curiosity and passion for any topic is the Northstar, leading us to where we dream of going.
Leading us in mysterious ways as the experience brings us all that we could ever need, one magical opening after another.
One of my favorite quotes on this topic is by Rumi.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
Which I like to believe I have consistently and undeniably lived.
The best way to embody all that we explore and love is to teach it. Now to deepening more into this.
A Lighthouse
Every teacher at whatever presumed level is a light that shines bright within and inspires and guides us in their unique way towards moving towards what is more us. Towards freedom. The freedom that helps us recognize how our innate being is beyond the mental concept of freedom itself.
A true teacher’s ultimate goal — that the student is free from what binds them. Ultimately that they know thySelf.
Teachers as Mirrors
Guru — Gu means darkness. Ru means to dispel. Guru or a teacher means the dispeller of the illusion of darkness. Gurus or teachers in form are mirrors that reflect true light. When light is brought into the manifested world, darkness naturally disappears because it has no substance of its own.
The more clean and clear the form of a teacher, the more apparent the truth it reflects as a mirror.
Teachers who are clear mirrors like this many times don’t teach from concepts and beliefs. Some may not even use words. Their mere presence becomes their teaching.
In such relationships, the mind is absent, and the heart is present and connected in devotion to their beloved.
Unminded, the distance between the guru and disciple dissolves allowing for their hearts to connect in the field of the one that is all.
True seeing and unconditional relating then become a natural way of interacting. The more light a body-mind embodies, the more piercingly effective becomes its presence, message, and work in the world.
We each are the same light that shines through all body-minds.
We each are and hold the possibility to recognize and be the inner guru for ourselves and each other.
Life is the ultimate teacher.
The forms in life come and go. Offering the gifts that they are.
All in transit for what feels like a moment in eternity.
What eventually remains are the dreams, aspirations, learnings, teachings, the resulting birthing, assimilating, experiencing, and expression of the new born from the womb of creatrix as we devotedly offer it back to her.
Our body-minds simply miraculous tools for Life’s sacred alchemization.
Each moment, each form, each circumstance, each incident, each trigger, each wound, each gift — all an opportunity for teaching, learning, serving, and living.
When anchored to the pulse of our own truth, Life in every way becomes our ultimate teacher.
Start where you are.
Living the gift that we are and offering it to our world — however, that may look and feel like uniquely for each one of us — is what we are here to experience.
No matter where we find ourselves, we have something we live now that is valuable to another.
Being who we fully are in any given moment and offering from our overflow is the nature of our spirit. It is being in true service.
Have you considered being a teacher?
If not, this is not to prompt you into becoming one.
As mentioned, regardless of what we officially do- we are teaching, learning, being all the time. Our state of being our service in the world.
But if you have considered giving this a try, I share a couple of prompts here that helped me zone into my why as I step further onto this path.
You may find this helpful as well.
What does being a teacher/leader/sharer/guide/mirror mean to you?
What does this role look and feel?
What do you think it may require of you?
What life experience do you have that could be valuable to another/your world?
What space do you feel you can or cannot occupy and why?
What natural gifts do you hold?
What practical skills do you still truly need to learn to embark on this journey?
What practical help do you need to get started?
What can you start teaching/sharing right away?
What could be the first, easiest, and simplest step you could take?
What style of teaching/sharing excites you?
A teacher, mirror, guide, mentor, whatever we may name it are all eventually simply labels.
The true teaching found living in the field between two or multiple perspectives. The awareness, the clarity all happening in the relational field between us that is the birthing place of the new.
The new that serves both the forms — the perceived teacher and the student.
The true teacher is the simmering cauldron of wisdom and possibilities that arises from the fertile ingredients — questions, observations, silence etc of what each brings into the circle in the center.
ॐ नमो गुरु देव् नमो
Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo (The Adi Mantra)
I bow to the Creative Wisdom, I bow to the Divine Teacher within.
Aad Guray Nameh. Jugaad Guray Nameh
Sat Guray Nameh. Siri Guroo Dayvay Nameh
I bow to the Primal Wisdom. I bow to the Wisdom through the Ages.
I bow to the True Wisdom. I bow to the great, unseen Wisdom.
This mantra is the Mangala Charan of the Sukhmani Sahib.
By chanting these Kundalini mantras, we offer our deepest gratitude in reverence to the sacred center of wisdom and the ever-expanding circle of wisdom-keepers as we gather together.
To love is to teach. May the sacredness of our innate being flow forth as the love, joy and peace we are.
P.S : I gratefully borrow the title of the blog from Parker J. Palmer’s book “The Courage to Teach — Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life.” that evoked the heart of the teacher in me.