Is there really much of a difference between a Teacher and a Student?

I feel the new paradigm of teachers, whether it be a teacher in health, education, physic, spirituality, science, whatever the field may be, are people who are dedicated to being a student always. 

I feel there isn't much of a difference between teacher and student. A teacher, true teacher of the art, will always remain a student of that art. There will never be a switch from student to teacher. The “teacher" title may simply be added onto their student way of being (always learning, always experiencing, always discovering). Teaching from a space of continual learning can help us actually grow even more in our art of choice.

A student gets to a certain level of ‘experience’, and the key word here is experience. Yes knowledge is a vital and important aspect but experience is where the magic is. 

Let me ask you a few questions...

- Would you want to learn how to ride a bike from someone who has studied it for 8 years and has multiple degrees in it but hasn’t actually learnt for themselves how to ride a bike? 

- Would you want to learn how to run a business from someone who has read books and learnt the principles but has never experienced the nature of how a business flows and the aspects and uncertainties that lie within the experience?

- Similarly would you want to go to someone for your health who has studied the systems of the body down to the cellular level and knows all the technical terms but does not experience health within their own body?

The answers to these questions seem common sense to me - but when I look out into the world it's often the reverse, people seem to put more emphasis on knowledge than experience. On titles rather than results. 

As I've already said, knowledge, it is a wonderful tool and backing for the experience. It can really help a persons mind receive the transformation but WITHOUT the experience it’s just a bunch of hollow terms created to empower the teacher and disempower the student - these terms and this knowledge does little to empower the student unfortunately. 

So in saying this, my passion at the moment and for the past 7 years has been the body, the health and vibrancy of this machine and how the mind, emotions and energy can either have a positive or negative impact. 

I am gearing up for my 3rd round of Vipassana - 10 day silent mediation. I will sit without moving for around 10 hours per day deeply experiencing my body, my mind, my emotions and my energy. I will not distract myself with pleasures or technology or people - I will be silent, waking at 4:30am each morning to begin my silence and stillness within myself. 

I choose to do this because I am deeply committed to the experience of life, and how I can uncover wisdom that lies deep within all of us to then be able to share it with you. 

I am committed to my own personal transformation because then and only then am I really qualified to talk about the transformation of others. The transformation from fear to peace, from tiredness to energised, from dull to radiant, from confusion to clarity, from anxious to embodied, from uncertainty to trust, from dis-ease to vitality! These leaps are leaps of transformation and they are available to everyone.