The Teacher is the Teaching
Instead of simply chasing wise teachers, discover the wise teaching. There is a known saying that roughly goes like this: if you find a sage walking in the desert, don’t follow them; follow their footprints back to the source from where they came from. That is where it all comes from. It is the source of the source and the fountain of living waters.
This is not to say do away with teachers or become your own guru. Becoming your own guru can be a precarious, nefarious, and naive undertaking. If we are paying attention, we are comfortable learning. If we are learning, we are developing insight. If we are doing all of this, it is because we are a sincere and devout student.
For studentship to be upheld, teachers are to be cherished, recognised, and acknowledged. We must endeavour to be an eternal student at all moments, while at the same time having the humility to recognise that wisdom and teachings are realised through us not by us.
Being humble enough is about going slow and not getting too far ahead of ourselves. I love to say: if you get too far ahead of yourself, you’ll have a hard time catching up. If you become your own guru, you might have a hard time navigating without a compass.
There is a teaching from the peyote ways of the Native American Church that was shared with me in ceremony that warns not to get in front of the medicine. To always get behind it. To get under the wing that is carving the wind, so to speak. To get behind the arrow. If you are in front of the arrow, you could get hit. If you think you know better, you may get a severe lesson.
It is a lesson in humility. If you do not learn humility, you will be humbled along the way. If you move too much too soon on the path, your progression errs in circles. It could send you backwards. You could start to feed your demons with the same medicine you took to find healing. That is how the path is. The higher you rise, the lower you must bow your head. If you think you have it all figured out—watch out!
Rather than thinking we know it all or have all the answers, the wise surrender themselves to the great unknown. They seek themselves in the Great Mystery, in the non-dual unity of all things manifested as one thing.
Because as soon as there is a knower, there is duality. Don’t just seek knowledge; look to know the unknown. To become intimate with the ineffable, to make love to the mystery. This is where the teaching comes from. Do you understand that? If we come close to the ultimate then we could rightly say that ultimately that is the teacher that is teaching us, guiding us, revealing itself through us.
When Bashō said, “Don’t look to teachers, look to where they look” he means to look at the teaching itself and find that the teacher is the teaching. If that insight is born inside of you, then you recognise the teaching everywhere. Not just from one person, but from all people and from all things and circumstances.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear everywhere and in everything. Once this studentship is realised, then the path extends in all directions and to all moments. Then there is nowhere to hide, and self-deception becomes evident. But we have to be wise and we have to look to the wise because it is so easy to be deceived.
Seek all teachings as one teaching. See all masters as one master. Know the world as one unbroken, indivisible, and unspeakable essence that you are not separate from. Know yourself as the Great Mystery itself.
It is like a barometer that guides and directs you along the way, which sometimes brings a storm just when you thought it would be calm sailing. Sometimes it hits a wave to give your feet more stability. Sometimes it pulls the rug out to show there is no floor beneath you.
This is the Satguru, the true guru. It is the remembrance of the One reflected in all things of which you cannot be subtracted from the equation. In other words it is not to be your own guru, but to discover the true teacher inside of yourself.
Here is the task for you: for one day, see everything as enlightened, as the master, as the teaching in plain sight. Look around, empty yourself of preconceptions, become like a child. All of the masters taught to listen more and speak less. Let’s do that now, for the master is here with us.
