One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the Messiah?" "No," answered Buddha. "Then are you a healer?" "No," Buddha replied. "Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted. "No, I am not a teacher." "Then what are you?" asked the student exasperated. "I am awake," Buddha replied.
What I think it really means is: I'm a teacher. I am a teacher. I teach all the time, as you do and as all of you do-whether we know it or not, whether we take responsibility for it or not. I hold nothing back because I want to see that light go off. I like to see the children say, 'I never thought of that before.' And I think, 'I've got them!'
No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves - but what the teachers are themselves.
Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.
Whenever a mind is simple and receives an old wisdom, old things pass away,--means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,--one as much as another.
You see, no one can teach anybody. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Thus Vedanta says that within man is all knowledge-even in a boy it is so-and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of a teacher.
Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small
Imagine that every person in the world is enlightened but you. They are all your teachers, each doing just the right things to help you learn perfect patience, perfect wisdom, perfect compassion.
Every piece of marble has a statue in it waiting to be released by a person of sufficient skill to chip away the unnecessary parts. Just as the sculptor is to the marble, so is education to the soul. It releases it. For only educated people are free people. You cannot create a statue by smashing the marble with a hammer, and you cannot by the force of arms release the spirit or the soul of people.
If religion and life depend upon books or upon the existence of any prophet whatsoever, then perish all religion and books! Religion is in us. No books or teachers can do more than help us to find it, and even without them we can get all truth within. You have gratitude for books and teachers without bondage to them; and worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly; love him all you will, but think for yourself. No blind belief can save you, work out your own salvation. Have only one idea of God - that He is an eternal help.
A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students, can only load their minds, he cannot quicken them.
Unless we are holding ourselves accountable day in, day out, not just when there's a crisis for folks who have power and influence and can hire lobbyists, but for the nurse, the teacher, the police officer, who, frankly, at the end of each month, they've got a little financial crisis going on. They're having to take out extra debt just to make their mortgage payments. We haven't been paying attention to them. And if you look at our tax policies in America, it's a classic example.