On Teachers and Teaching

Swami Vivekananda on Teachers and Teaching:

It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion; it is an insult to a starving man to teach him metaphysics.

The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave’s work.

I base my teaching on the great Vedantic truth of the sameness and omnipresence of the Soul of the Universe.

We should see that the teacher does not teach with any ulterior motive, for name, or fame, or anything else, but simply for love, pure love for you.

Find the teacher, serve him as a child, open your heart to his influence, see in him God manifested. Our attention should be fixed on the teacher as the highest manifestation of God; and as the power of attention concentrates there, the picture of the teacher as man will melt away; the frame will vanish, and the real God will be left there.

The condition necessary in the teacher is that he must be sinless.

With the teacher of religion we must first and foremost see what he is, and then alone comes the value of the words, because he is the transmitter.

In the teacher of spirituality, purity is the one thing indispensable; we must see first what he is, and then what he says.

You may take up any one of the prophets or teachers as your guide and the object of your special adoration; you are even allowed to think that he whom you have chosen is the greatest of the prophets, greatest of all the Avatâras; there is no harm in that, but you must keep to a firm background of eternally true principles.

In the teacher we must first see that he knows the secret of the scriptures.

That soul from which this impulse comes is called the Guru, the teacher; and the soul to which the impulse is conveyed is called the disciple, the student.

When the sun rises, we instinctively become aware of its rising; and when a teacher of men comes to help us, the soul will instinctively know that it has found the truth.

A man must follow the tendencies peculiar to himself; and if he gets a teacher to help him to advance along his own lines, he will progress.

Without faith, humility, submission, and veneration in our hearts towards our religious teacher, there cannot be any growth of religion in us.

The teacher who deals too much in words and allows the mind to be carried away by the force of words loses the spirit. It is the knowledge of the spirit of the scriptures alone that constitutes the true religious teacher.

The teachers whose wisdom and truth shine like the light of the sun are the very greatest the world has known, and they are worshipped as God by the major portion of mankind.

You will not find the highest knowledge and the highest wisdom anywhere until your heart is ready for receiving it and your teacher has come. And when that divinely appointed teacher comes, serve him with childlike confidence and simplicity, freely open your heart to his influence, and see in him God manifested.

Only those who have attained to spirituality can communicate it to others, can be great teachers of mankind.

None can teach you; none can make a spiritual man of you. You have to teach yourself; your growth must come from inside.

There is no other teacher to you than your own soul. Recognise this.

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