I can’t remember when I first heard the phrase when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Most likely that sage advice caught my attention in an AA meeting because that’s where I’ve picked up enough tools to live a fairly healthy life. Wherever I heard it is irrelevant, though, because the truth contained in this small but powerful statement has a universal application, well beyond the four walls of any AA meeting room. I know, I know. When the student is ready the teacher will appear sounds like New Age mumbo jumbo, something a Yogi might offer his rapt students, some pearl of wisdom garnered from fasting or religious ecstasy. And I guess it could be any or all of those things, but for me, the saying is a simple and clear statement of fact. Let me explain.
First of all, I am reminded that I have to be ready. What does that mean? Well, I have to be aware that there’s a lesson I need to learn. I can’t tell you how long that has sometimes taken. More times than I care to admit it’s taken years before the proverbial light bulb came on. I guess I’m a slow learner. Next, having obtained at least a scintilla of awareness that there is a problem, I have to be willing to look for a solution. I have discovered that it is far easier to admit I need to learn a lesson than to be willing to do anything about it, particularly when the solution is one outside my limited understanding. And - here comes the hard part - once I’ve become willing to learn the lesson, and have accepted the fact that I personally do not have a magic wand, I have to actually take some sort of action. If I can get that far, the teacher will appear.
I don’t know about you, but I am very resistant to change. It takes me a long time, lots of teeth gnashing, and usually some amount of discomfort or actual pain before I am willing to take a different route in life. I’m much better nowadays at recognizing my intransigence when I’ve gotten myself in a fix of my own making and need help getting out. I know the teacher will appear, but why I can’t remember that 100% of the time remains a mystery to me. Life would be much simpler if I didn’t have to go through hell each time (or my concept of same) before surrendering.
The teacher can come in many forms. For me, most often my teacher has been my therapist. I’ve been blessed to find a gifted healer who has helped me through some very difficult realizations over many years of hard work. Sometimes, however, the teacher has been someone who came into my life in only a peripheral fashion, someone who was the most unlikely looking teacher I could imagine. On more than one occasion, the lesson I needed to learn came from the mouth of a paranoid schizophrenic homeless man who frequented an AA meeting I regularly attended in Jackson, Mississippi. Dan, a man who was certifiably crazy by just about any psychiatric or societal standard, who wore disheveled clothing, and whose long hair stood out around his head like a dirty halo - this man taught me not to be deceived by the appearance of the teacher.
As I bring this essay (for it’s longer than a blog) to an end, I find myself reflecting on all that I’ve written. A part of me hopes I won’t need the teacher anymore, but the higher part of myself knows that’s just wishful thinking. May we all be ready