Teachers Open the Door, But You Must Enter By Yourself. – Chinese Proverb

My life has been punctuated, by moments of such intense development of understanding, that they cause me to gasp and catch my breath, as though I have been caught in an avalanche or been grazed by a bullet.

Normally, no one standing near me would be, even in the slightest, aware of these astounding transformational moments…and thus there is no outer marking for such a landslide of experience, as is mine, as I go through one of these moments and come out the other side.

This most recent one is vitally important… not because it represents a landslide of shifting understanding, and with it functional clarity, but also because it is the moment at which I truly “became my own Teacher”.

One of the many dictums that are written on my heart, as I continue to develop my capacity to live the light that my Beloved Teacher so selflessly shared with me, is his oft-repeated lesson regarding the development of one’s soul. 

He said, “At some point you, must become your own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.”

I freely admit that I; A. thought that would be an astounding trick indeed – how could one teach/learn/and embody lessons all at the same time, and B, how could you possibly know if you had developed into your own teacher, while you were still in the mindset, behaviors, and adaptations of a student?

Well now I know how…

Last night I was invited to join a small gathering of folk, who are intent on bringing into the world a new level of growth, of an existing business.  I wasn’t entirely sure why I had been invited as I have so little to say on the subject that seemed to be at hand, but liking the people involved, I agreed to participate.

I picked up a young woman, for whom I have considerable affection, who does not have a car and drove her and another friend to the event.

During that ride she began to ask me questions of a spiritual nature regarding the understanding, which I hold as the dearest legacy of my Teacher’s life, and of my time on this planet.

At this stage in my life, there is nothing in the world that captures my attention so cleanly and so committedly, as the spiritual understanding that was bequeathed to me by my Teacher.

I pursue no goals.  I have no interest in the comings and goings that I see all around me.  I attempt no assimilation with the culture at large, or even with the sub-culture of the “spiritual” movement.

I am wholly and completely content to regard the ever unfolding nature of what I have been taught, and much more, to witness its effect upon my life, my peace of mind, my behaviors, my attitudes and my heart…and thus feel no need to acquire any other bright and shiny objects.

So as this lovely young woman expressed her interest in my understanding and thus in my Teacher’s value, I was more than thrilled to engage with her queries.

I am gifted with the ability to describe something in a hundred different ways, using a hundred different analogies, metaphors, similes and examples.  This is born of my attempting to connect with my fully disengaged mother, over breakfast cereal, in a  “what happened the night before on date night” raft of stories.  My mother who was either in a death dealing rage, or mute and absent, like the emptiness left behind by a sudden storm, developed in me, this quite valuable gift as I strove mightily to illicit some change in her dull repose.

So, as Katie peppered me with questions, that skill came to the forefront and married my ever-present-deeply-held-enthusiasm, for the gifts of understanding I have been given…and I was off to the races with my erudition.

The words flowed forth, with the same zeal and joy that they have always rolled out of my mouth with, and my heart and mind hummed with the joy of it.  So much so, that I could not turn it off when I arrived at our destination, there too, I spoke when I probably oughten have.  I waxed poetic about the subject on the table, when I probably should have held my tongue.

So prepared in this manner, I got up today, and gathered myself together to arrive at a job interview that had been scheduled two weeks ago.  As I made my way downtown, with a large time buffer to spare – lest some hindrance appear, I was met with a wreck in the tunnel and trapped for a long time in a scarcely moving line of never ending automobiles.

As it became clear that I was to be there for a good ling while, I began to worry around, in my mind, the problem of what to do with my house that has been bugging me for a long time now…

I say to myself that I want to leave Arizona.  I have said that since the day I came back here, (continuing to be my Teacher’s student was the only reason I could be pushed into returning to this climate).  And thus I am currently thinking about what I need to do to put the house up for sale, and new flooring is at the very top of that list.

As I sat waiting for what seemed hours, I began to work on the only idea that has presented itself that even remotely satisfies.  I want to empty my house…right down to the baseboards.

So as I made mental images of acres of open, but still beautiful space, that idea suddenly got hooked up with last nights verbal expressions, and before you could say Jack Sprat, I had married those two ideas together, and come up with the notion, that perhaps I could teach in my now empty, but still, elegantly beautiful living room. 

Well my dears…that is my oldest and my absolute favorite fantasy… cut to me: teaching…

Gone are the adoring masses, replaced by a small but deeply interested few, who have gathered themselves to hear what it is I have to say.

I cannot begin to describe the physical sensation of pleasure that oiled itself through my innards, as that fantasy took hold of me.

It was excitement layered with fun, pumped up by joy, and dancing electricity, as it spread itself through my veins and caused me to almost call the company I was intended to interview with, to tell them to forget it, that I was going to be occupied elsewhere and ecstatically so.

Just then…I glanced out the window and saw the clouds drifting by, an unusual sight here in the “Valley of the Sun”, and a lone blackbird was slicing his way, through that cerulean blue and fluffy white field.

At that precise moment, filled to the brim with quite delicious excitement, listening to my mind making all manner of plans about how my empty dining/living room would become a sanctuary of holiness, wherein I would pass on the great goodness that has been bequeathed to me, I suddenly and quite profoundly became my own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.

As I sat fidgeting with pulsing electrical zeal, it suddenly dawned upon me that I had traded the “here and now” truth, for the lie of a better tomorrow, without even the hint of understanding that it had occurred.

As the jittery high of my fantasy, began to rapidly empty from my veins, I looked up at that blackbird, and knew in the deepest way possible, that I had just experienced the full tilt power of the impact of the illusions of mind.

The truth was that I was sitting, looking out a window, and seeing clouds, sky and a lone bird.  The lie, of a deeply desired and often hoped for future, was so intense and so enticing that I had almost gotten up and walked away from the opportunity to interview for a job, that I could really use, so caught in the embrace of illusion was I.

This moment knocked me out of my shoelaces.

This is what they all mean…I thought to myself… not just my Beloved Teacher, but all the ones that I have ever respected and looked to for help, sustenance, support, and deeply needed guidance.

This is how we are lost to ourselves, and to the moment in which we are actually living, in favor of some imagined moment in a non-existing future.  Some hope comes into our mind, fills our bodies with lusciousness, and compels us away from the actual and the real.

No doubt, you are that this exact moment, stuttering out a … now-wait-just-a-cotton-picking-minute-here, protest … what if this were the angels, or the gods, or the tarot card readers message, that this is what I am supposed to do, the formulation of some new spiritual guidance wrapped up in a bow, and feeling like a hit off a heroin syringe?  Isn’t that possible?

To which I respond, not a chance.

I am not saying that I may not indeed, empty out my space, get new and more suitable flooring, set up some chairs, and extend an invitation to those around me, to join me in sharing in spiritual understanding. 

That cannot be known by me until the day it arrives.

That potential is one of millions that may or may not occur to me, as the days and weeks of my life unfold.  But for this moment, I am sitting, looking out a window, and seeing a blue and white sky and a black bird.  That is all that can be known, and all that is currently true.

And here is the veil’s width of the difference between living in the lie of illusion, or dealing in the truth of the moment, which is the only place reality exists.

And in this dawning of realization, I became…

“my own Teacher, Teachings, and Student.”

(A note about goals and the setting of such.  My bodies response to the future oriented fantasy of teaching, allows me to know that is still the one activity that I wish to experience and express before the end of my time on this planet.  But the type and quality of teacher I aspire to become, is one who lives fully in the here and now. 

I am not interested in helping anyone to achieve anything. 

I am only interested in helping others to realize their true nature…and here’s the thing, your true nature can only be experienced in the present moment, and will be denied to you, to the degree that you live inside the fantasies of mind.  The realization of one’s true nature, slow as it has been for me, has cured me of ills to horrible to describe.  Gone, or going, is fear, suffering, self-consciousness, embarrassment, comparison, competition and a whole host of other discomforts and dis-eases – in their place – relaxation, ease, peace, and well being.  So forgive me if I do not care that you reach your goals, or acquire your possessions, or achieve your desire for fame, or get what you want, or become rich and acclaimed…what good all of that…if you don’t find out who you are?)

Adayre R. Miller

7/11/13

Photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and "Say Your Piece" to see more of this artist's work please follow this link:

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