Who is a teacher?

The world defines a teacher based on the education system. A teacher is thus a person who instructs, informs and guides students based on a certain curriculum. Even in a spiritual context, this definition seems to be the norm. Most spiritual students believe in this and continue to chain themselves and their teachers to that mold. Because that is what we have been led to be believe spirituality necessitates – sacrifice, pain, suffering, hardship, and a blind following of the teacher. The teacher is elevated to the position of God instead of being a representative of all the qualities we equate God with. The teacher stops being a reminder of our highest possibility of evolution and becomes a tyrant who demands our perfection.

I, thankfully, have a teacher who is not like that.

The last weekly satsang with GD was around the concept of growing up. Over the past week, I transcribed an older call from a session with him which was about the notion of following a teacher. In both the conversations, many important reminders came forth.

1) We all assume growing up means aging, fulfilling responsibilities, etc. But GD brought about a different perspective. Growing up in the spiritual sense, he reminded us, was growing out of the ego and into Spirit/truth/consciousness. It was learning to let-go of our identity as a person in this world and instead sink into the universal identity of Oneness. It is something he has been telling us for years and we have been refusing to listen.

2) When we questioned the belief that we follow a teacher, we realized that
most of us simply follow our own minds. We tend to believe that we follow someone to either feel good about ourselves or have someone to blame for our failing. In truth we are never listening to others. We only listen to our wants, fears and desires.

These conversations made me muse about who a teacher is. I have had many spiritual influences in my life, but with GD, the search seems to have paused. GD has always been a teacher who only interest is to help us remember our connection with the Divine. That we use him as a conduit to do so during satsangs and sessions, is not lost on him. He allows himself to be used thus, but the constant reminder from him has always been to remember that our connection to the Divine is always, ever-present. He reminds us that what we are seeking outside in the world and even in him or via him, is already present. We are already peaceful, whole and complete. We are powerful and capable. We are happy all the time.

As students we expect the teacher to constantly supply peace and joy to us. Then we blame the teacher, we attack his commitment, we blame ourselves, put ourselves down for not being good enough students, we pretend to be earnest, we demand attention and praise, we lose integrity. In all these games, we never take the responsibility for ourselves. We expect a teacher to take the responsibility for our evolution. We become lazy.

Thankfully, GD patiently helps us wade through these ego-games, by helping us not take the stories and tantrums personally. He light-heartedly, with clarity, brings forth the games our mind plays and helps us move past them. His constant reminder is to always look beyond the chaos. He draws us from looking for a special relationship, even with him, and urges us to have a relationship with Truth, Stillness, God instead.

This is something startingly clear to me now. The responsibility for my
spiritual journey can lie only with me. We walk with teachers, friends/ mighty companions on what feels like a looooooooooonng road to finding the peace we seek. But the commitment to walk, the decision to choose peace, is always ours. All a teacher can do is wait patiently for us when we wander, help us remember when we forget, be the GPS when we feel lost. He stands there as a reminder of the truth; radiant in truth, residing in truth.

A teacher is not a lover, a parent or a child. A good teacher does not make
a student dependent but independent. He is not the well where we quench all our worldly desires. He will initially support us in our journey as we try and make sense of the world. He will be patient as we look for peace in this world. But he will always remind us, that what we look for is not in this world.

So, in worldly relatable terms if we do want an understanding of who a
teacher is, we could define a teacher as – someone who walks with you and helps you remember who you really are. A teacher is a gift from the universe, who reveals to you the truth and peace that already exists in you and your potential to realize it.

We do not follow our teachers. We walk with the ones we connect with most. Because the best of teachers are closest to God and will help you return Home.