Honoring our Ancestors – Honoring our Teachers

When we honor our ancestors, our mothers and fathers, grandparents and all of our ancestral lineage, we have freedom and permission to go on with our lives.  We are free because we respect those that came before us and appreciate what we have received from them, giving acclaim to those who have passed life onto us. 
 
In that same vein, when we honor and recognize our teachers, we are free to practice our work in the world.  Teachers are the ones that planted the seeds of knowledge in us, took us under their wings, taught us a way of working and perceiving, then encouraged us to take our next steps.  Like our ancestors standing behind us, our teachers also stand behind us in full support especially when we thank them for caring enough to teach us.

We are offering this teaching from our teacher, Bert Hellinger, in honor of his recent passing.

My Teachers

Where would I be without my teachers?  How generously have they given to me from their treasure box of knowledge and skills that served my life and my competence so that I could grow into what I am now?

Often I forgot what I owe them.  It all became so naturally a part of my life and of myself, of which I was proud, as if it came from me.  Forgetting my teachers sometimes, much that I owe them escapes me.  It becomes less for me and loses strength.

It is different when I have them in my heart, when I remember them with gratitude.  Then I feel richly given to.  They are with me in what I do and in what I pass on to others, when, as they did to me, I give to others what serves their life and achievement.

Do I feel small in comparison to them?  On the contrary. I may stand next to them, in service of life, like them, humble and small before life, and thus all the more completely at one with life and its movements.

When I honour and share what I owe my teachers, others take from me more openly what I give to them for their life.  Their gaze goes beyond me to all those who were by my side, who shared my life with me, as I share it with others.

Then we all look beyond our teachers, to the creative spirit who is equally at work in all life.  As we did before this spirit, we bow to our teachers, and they, together with us, bow before this spirit.  Before this spirit, we remain below, on the ground, all of us, all grateful, all equally alive, and equally in spirit’s service.

~ Bert Hellinger