Next Saturday on 1st September is Teachers’ Day, in the spirit of honouring all teachers in the world, I would like to share the truth about science of teaching in the Vedic Tradition which had inspired me to be a living teacher I am today and how teaching has become my very life.
All of us are teachers in some ways – whether it is telling your child or siblings how to do things or advising people on something or showing the way. All these actions make us a teacher in some situations in life. However, to be a living teacher, one has to make it a conscious decision.
In the Vedic culture, an acharya (teacher) means the man who teaches what he lives. The click will happen only in the students when the teacher is practicing what he or she is teaching every day. Only by living the truth, one becomes a living teacher otherwise one is considered a dead teacher. As a yoga teacher and a spiritual coach, I can only teach what I personally had experienced. Students can easily tell if a teacher is integrated and authentic just by looking at the teacher’s life. Fundamentally, teaching has to teach us first before we can start teaching others.
Here are some deeper truths about teaching which I learned from my spiritual teacher who is also my guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda.
- Teaching brings fulfilment – Teaching is the best profession if you can live it. It is the best lifestyle because the work itself gives tremendous fulfilment. When I was still living my double lives as a corporate executive and a part-time yoga teacher, frankly even one class per week gave me much joy and fulfilment. It took me away from the superficial and consumeristic corporate world of marketing. The fulfilment I experience comes from making an impact in people’s physical health, overall well being and deeper understanding about life. When I looked within my inner space and bio-memory, I could see that fulfilment was the reason why I landed here. I just knew teaching and sharing the science of yoga would be my lifestyle. On the Archarya Day in 2010, Swami Nithyananda once said that “When a teacher is able to bring clicks with the students, it will leave the students complete as well as the teacher fulfilled.” This statement has become my own experience.
- Teaching leads to higher level of verbalization. One sacred secret about science of teaching is – it can lead one into a higher level of verbalization. Personally, whenever I share a truth with my students and if it clicks with them, I would experience a tremendous restful awareness, an empty state where the fresh energy happens leading me to higher awareness and higher level of verbalization. That is why the more we teach, the more our way of teaching becomes solid and strong.
- Teaching transforms your consciousness – All the best things I learned about myself, about life, children, humanity and Existence happened when I started teaching. I discovered that teaching is a sure way to raise one to the highest consciousness because our own consciousness remembers all the great truths and it becomes a part of us. Many great truths are revealed to my own consciousness when I work on my body or my students’ body and start sharing generously. In a high state of awareness, I notice new creative expression of yoga practice and techniques to create different experiences in my students start revealing to me. Honestly, many of my inspirations come from these moments of high awareness and it is almost like downloading from the Cosmic intelligence.
- Teaching brings inner healing. Another important thing about teaching is that you will be able to see your own problems from a distance with clarity. We are exposed to our own cunning mind and patterns. Simply we start healing ourselves from the past wounds and wrong patterns related to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels. Teaching has healed me from ignorance, spiritual poverty, restlessness and materialistic attachment. Teaching also takes me to an altered state of consciousness where I see wholeness in everyone and everything around me without judgment.
I am so grateful that I had the encouragement of my spiritual teacher and wisdom of Vedic science that I am able to make teaching my life breath. Now my driving force is to be a natural inspiration for conscious living by living what I teach and teaching what I live. I sincerely encourage everyone to be a living teacher because when we teach continuously and consciously, we also transform our consciousness to the highest coherence. 🙂