Then a teacher said, Speak to us of Teaching.
And he said:
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

Kahlil Gibran again rises high in the sky, very close to the stars. Whatever he is saying in these statements is so profound that it is unbelievable that he was only a poet; even mystics have not been able to say the things which he is saying. His intelligence is unparalleled.

Perhaps, just as sometimes blessings come in disguise, sometimes curses also come in disguise. Because his intelligence is so profound, he forgets that there are even more profound truths. Because his flight toward the stars is so high, he forgets that there are skies beyond skies – and there is no limit.

If Kahlil Gibran were a lesser poet, less intelligent, less articulate, perhaps he would have tried to find the deeper meaning hidden in life, the significance of which is not visible. But his being such a great poet has prevented him from seeing that there can be anything higher than this. His intelligence has become a barrier, not a bridge. It is a strange case.

But even without any experience of the ultimate, his words are so beautiful that I can give the meaning and content to his beautiful, but empty, words. I can see where he has missed and why he has missed – he has missed because of his great intelligence. He has missed because of his great creativity, his sensibility, his art of playing with beautiful words and arranging them in such a way that they carry at least some semblance, some similarity to the real, awakened consciousness.

Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching.
And he said:
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

All that is great, magnificent, absolutely true, nobody can give to you because it is not a commodity. You cannot purchase it in the market, nor can you be taught it in the universities. It lies already half asleep within your own self.

So what you are seeking is not somewhere else. The seeker himself is the sought. The archer himself is the target. All that you need is not more knowledge but more awareness, so that which is asleep in you is no longer asleep. God is nothing but another name of your awakening.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. Why does he say half asleep? – because the question is coming from a teacher: Speak to us of Teaching. It is coming out of sincerity; otherwise the teacher would not ask, “Teach us about teaching,” because that shows that he does not know what teaching is, and yet he has been pretending to be a teacher.