They say that as you need teachers in your life, they appear. What they forget to mention, though, is that over time your teachers change. When you’re first learning, spotting your teachers can be a lot easier and they tend to be a lot more formal as well. Your grandmother, mother, grandfather… your priest or Sunday school teacher or you dance instructor or football coach. These people teach us a lot of lessons, both big and small, broad and indepth. But after awhile, these teachers move on to other students or tasks and we are left to find new teachers. There comes a time when a teacher just doesn’t show up to tell us where to go from here, and this is when we need to open our eyes.
In the learning process you will reach a point where teaching is no longer a formal and ongoing experience. You may experience moments of formal teaching, but they are not the norm. When this happens, it’s time to open your eyes. Now you know enough to know what you need to learn in order to progress and start shaping your own learning. Now you can seek out your own sources of knowledge. And while most the time our teachers have been people who know more than us and are more experienced, now is the time when everyone becomes a potential teacher. While someone may not know ‘as much’ as we do, they have had different experiences and know different ‘stuff’ than us – and we can learn that from them!
As a dancer I’ve progressed to a place where I feel I can learn from everyone. I love watching the children’s troupe here – while I’ve been dancing longer than most of these girls have been alive, I learn something new every time I watch them, whether or not it’s a new move, a performance strategy, or how beautiful and fun the dance really can be, I learn. When I dance with the other girls in my class, I can look at one girl and, whether or not she’s more experienced than I am, I can notice how beautiful her arm work is and aspire to learn some technique from her – maybe she has a beautiful way of interpreting music, even if her hip work is sloppy – or maybe she’s only been dancing for a month, but she has the most amazing posture. It no longer matters who is better than who or who knows more tricks or has more experience, but instead becomes about throwing all our talents, skills, knowledge, and experience into a giant potluck and sharing it amongst each other.
So, too, does it happen in Spirituality. Some of the most respected spiritual teachers have told allegories wherein animals or small children, beggars, or the otherwise ‘less advanced’ people in their lives have taught them simple yet extremely profound lessons! All it takes is being aware of your world and being open to new ideas, experiences, and concepts and the whole world becomes your teacher.
If you find yourself lacking a teacher, just change your perspective.
