The Teacher Within

When you sit alone in silence, ask yourself - "How do I know anything?"  Where does the answer appear within you? Does it appear in your mind, in your heart or somewhere else. Is it a feeling or a knowing?

The knowledge we have exists within us from a variety of sources. The ones that stay with us over the long haul can be called powerful teachers. They may be friends, relatives, teachers, authors, artists or books we have read. Some of the most powerful teachers are personal experiences - experiences that are so strong they will be ingrained in us for the rest of our life.

The Teacher Within, surprisingly, may come from people and experiences we have never met and have never had in this lifetime.  The Teacher Within may arise in us from past relatives that lived thousands and even millions of years ago.  The knowing that each one of us has within us may be, in part, a melange of all kinds of different teachers past as well as present. And they may even be part of the future.

Perhaps part of the teacher within you is the training you have had as a professional. You are so proficient and knowledgeable on a subject you can move smoothly and confidently through it without hesitation. What you know is so profound it seems like the absolute truth and you know it well. The truth within you is an authority that you know so well you could talk about it for hours or even write a book about it. The teacher within you has been learned and is so deeply-rooted it has become a very deep knowing.  This is your Teacher Within.   

The Teacher Within can come out at unexpected times and feel like intuition, a sixth sense or divination. I had to visit a sick relative one time who was so weak he could barely breathe. In preparing to pack my bags I accidentally came across an old American Indian flute that someone gave me several years back. I thought that maybe the flute would be a good gift to take him.  Knowing that he liked American Indian stuff, I thought it might cheer him up. I picked the flute up and began blowing out a tune and realized it wasn't easy to play. It took more breath to blow than most of my regular flutes. And then something told me to give it to him as a gift with the instructions to learn one simple tune, one note at a time. It became a healing device for his lungs.  His lungs got stronger and he got well.