The myth floating around the spiritual community is that when the student is ready a teacher will come. That teacher will be carrying the magical map to “Enlightenment,” all the supplies necessary for the student to identify and follow their path, and the key to a community who is everything their family has never been and never will be. When this teacher comes all the student’s problems will fade away, their life will have purpose, their questions will be answered and they will live happily ever after. Like all myths there is a kernel of truth in it, but the reality is usually far different.
Like the myth of the “Perfect 1” person we’ll find some day that will meet all of our emotional needs, understand us perfectly without our having to communicate, never argue or have needs of their own or do anything that disrupts us, this mythical Teacher doesn’t exist. There is no one path, one perspective, one way of being in the world that is a perfect fit for anyone. That’s kinda the point. Any one path the purports to be the entirety of the answer, to take away all doubts, or to solve all problems is not a spiritual path at all, but a cult. Paths, be they religious, spiritual, or secular require us to walk them and they all have difficult terrain, long stretches which test our endurance, various geographies requiring ever increasing skills, as well as immense beauty, the promotion of health and well-being, and the meeting of many amazing people on the road. The point of travelling the path is our becoming and any baby will tell you that the process is at times amazingly blissful, but the difficult bits are a doozy.
So will you ever find the right teacher? Yes, probably more than one. The question is, are you going to ask them to be the mythical teacher that doesn’t exist or are you going to see them for who they truly are, accept the teachings and the blessings they have for you, and let them support you on the portion of your journey they are best suited to? I have talked with people who go through teachers like tissues. They meet handfuls of them in trip after trip, never stopping to work with them for more than a few hours, never recognizing the wealth of riches that is being offered, just seeing the event as an answer to a current request or issue, then wondering why they can’t find “The Right Teacher” for them. I have talked with others who have tried to work with teachers but each time they find that a teacher has a flaw, that what they teach is incomplete, or that the dynamics of the community isn’t what they expected or need. They can never settle in to be part of the group and their questioning leads them away. If we’re unable to see the teacher, then it doesn’t matter whether they are right or not, we’ll never find them. At the same time, it’s good to realize that our path may not follow the same track as any one teacher or we may be walking it so quickly that we end up not staying for any length of time with one.
When the student is ready, the teacher will come. The question to ask is, what is the student actually ready for?
