What does this mean? Who is the teacher? How does the teacher know to appear?
This is actually much simpler than it appears. It only takes awareness to understand, and a concept of psychology to comprehend fully. This saying is a metaphor for an amazing process that happens to everyone and that happens in surgical precision based on our own individual pace.
When I started to learn about things that always eluded me I started to hear all kinds of sayings like this. The brilliance of this statement is that it is absolutely true. I spent years quoting it knowing only that it was true but never took it apart to really define it.
I have come to learn what it means exactly and it's more scientific than you'd think! The simple truth is it means when your ready for something you will be presented with "teachers" or resources to show you the path! The truth is the path was always their but now your awareness is fertile and ready to absorb the information to make it more real to you. Now you can take advantage of and use this information. It's appearance (the teacher) is ironically not something that happens outside of you, it is more like you happen to it.
Think of this event, teacher, opportunity etc.. as being their invisibly the whole time but you didn't see it. Then you become open to the awareness and now you can see it, define it, use it.
The teacher appearing is in reality a block dissappearing, your mind opening to the possibility of its existence. When your in alignment with something you start to see it everywhere, you start to align with what you need to grow. When your ready to become a writer you start to become of writing jobs because now your looking for them, they were their the whole time but you didn't see a writing job you saw a service you didn't need.
To put this concept into perspective, when you have a friend who is obsessing over a model of car you never really noticed before, although their everywhere you never gave it a second thought but now that they have talked about it and you've been to the dealership with them looking at this car in detail you will notice that their area ctually ALOT of these all over town.
You will see them and realize you never really noticed them before, as if all of a sudden they are everywhere you go. They were always their but now your open to seeing them more clearly, focus is sharpened and now you almost feel like your actively looking for them.
When the student is ready. This basically means when your open to the information, or growth. The teacher will appear: This means that you will be able to accept and actively seek out the people, places, and information that will help you towards enlightenment.
When you're not ready to learn something you're closed off to the information. Your mind is closed, and you don't correctly perceive it. You don't accept the truth about it and anything someone tries to teach you about it will not really count because you won't accept it as truth.
When the student is ready the teacher will appear