“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear” is often said to be a Buddhist proverb, but there’s no evidence to support this. “For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also” is from Light on the Path (1886) by Mabel Collins, a Theosophist. The saying was also used by New Thought writers and by Freemasons.
“When the pupil is ready the master is at hand” was cited in print in 1907; “When the student is ready to receive the Master is always beside him” was cited in 1909. “When the student is ready the teacher appears!” was cited in 1921.
Wikipedia: Mabel Collins
Mabel Collins (9 September 1851 – 31 March 1927) was a theosophist and author of over 46 books.
Life
Mabel Collins was born in St Peter Port, Guernsey. She was a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner. According to Vittoria Cremers, as related by Aleister Crowley, Collins was at one time being romantically pursued by both Cremers and alleged occultist Robert D’Onston Stephenson. Cremers claimed that during this time she found five bload-soaked ties in a trunk under Stephenson’s bed, corresponding to the five murders committed in Whitechapel by Jack the Ripper. Stephenson is no longer a candidate as being Jack the Ripper due to the efforts of competent, modern researchers. However, Stephenson was a rival with Cremers for Collins’ affections, and this account cannot be independently confirmed.
Google Books
Light on the Path:
A treatise written for the personal use of those who are ignorant of the Eastern wisdom, and who desire to enter within its influence
By Mabel Collins
Boston, MA: Cupples, Upham and Company
1886
Pg. 48:
For when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also.
Google Books
Theosophical Siftings
Volume 4
London: The Theosophical Publishing Society
1892
Pg. 20 (Alchemy in the Nineteenth Century):
“When the disciple is ready, the Master is ready,” says “Light on the Path,’” and therefore the main thing for each of us to do is to use every effort to make the disciple ready — the rest is not our affair at all, it is already provided for.
Papers Past
4 April 1896, Thames (New Zealand) Star, “Theosophy,” pg. 3:
For the same reason that led Jesus to speak in parables in public, and that from no selfish reason, but because it is everlastingly true that “when the disciple is ready the Master is ready also.”—I am, &c,
F. T. S.
Google Books
Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism
By William Walker Atkinson
London: L. N. Fowler
1904
Pg. 95:
For, when the disciple is ready, the Master is ready also.
3 February 1907, Denver (CO) Post, “Everyone Is Right From His Viewpoint: Dr. McIvor-Tyndall, the Learned Student of Human Ethics, Declares That Truth Is Many-Angled.” Magaine, pg. 6, col. 5:
The person of enlarged area of consciousness knows that each one is right, from his own viewpoint, and he also knows that when the “pupil is ready the master is at hand,” as the Hindu philosophy so widely asserts.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
20 July 1909, The American Tyler-Keystone, “Esoteric Masonry” by N. F. de Clifford, pg. 29, col. 2:
When the student is ready to receive the Master is always beside him.
Google Books
The Seven Rays of Development
By Arthur H. Ward
London: Theosophical Pub. Society
1910
Pg. 104:
For when the disciple is ready, the Master is ready also.” — Light on the Path.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
5 November 1910, The American Tyler-Keystone, “Scottish Rite Philosophy” by N. F. de Clifford, pg. 209. col. 2:
But let me say, when the student is ready to receive, the Master is always beside him to give “Further Light” so that he may be enabled to rise to higher planes of development through and by his own Personal Effort.
Google News Archive
27 January 1921, Miami (FL) Herald, pg. 9, col. 5 ad:
JOSEPH PERRY GREEN, D. M., D. D.
Author of the Psychology of Business Success, and President of the College of Divine Metaphysics, Inc.
(...)
WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY THE TEACHER APPEARS! Are you ready?
Google Books
Impressions of a Nomad
By Walter Clemow Lanyon
New York, NY: T. Gaus’ Sons
1930
Pg. 15:
“When the student is ready the Master will appear” — he will not be hidden from view to the student who is ready.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Rosicrucian Manual,
Prepared under the supervision of H. Spencer Lewis
San Jose, CA: Rosicrucian Press, Amore College
1932
Pg. 136:
“WHEN THE STUDENT IS READY”
(...)
There is a very old and well-founded injunction that “when the student is ready the Master will appear!” This has been very greatly misunderstood and is used by thousands for refusing to unite with any school or organization, preferring to “wait until the personal teacher manifests.”
The injunction distinctly says: “When the student is ready, the Master will appear!” What is meant by being ready? Surely it is not merely a matter of time! It must mean precisely what thousands have found it to mean: When the student is ready through preparation and worthiness.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
The Kingdom Within
By Stella Flowers Hastings
Los Angeles, CA: DeVorss & Co.
1937
Pg. 124:
Then this sermon came to me: “When the student is ready the Master appears.”
Google Books
Beyond Conflict
By Robert Lawrence Balzer
Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill
1963
Pg. 209:
“When the student is ready,” according to an ancient proverb, “the teacher will appear.”
OCLC WorldCat record
Developing Teachers : “When the Student Is Ready…” The Developmental “Waves” of Teachers as Learners
Author: Cynthia A Barnes
Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : Distributed by ERIC Clearinghouse, 1992.
Edition/Format: Book Microform : Microfiche : English
OCLC WorldCat record
When the student is ready, the teacher will come: a perspective on health education.
Author: SL Owen
Edition/Format: Article : English
Publication: Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association (1975) 1980 Sep; 76(9) Suppl: 16-20
Database: From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Google Books
The Little Zen Companion
By David Schiller
New York, NY: Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
1994
Pg. 101:
When the student is ready, the Master appears.
BUDDHIST PROVERB
OCLC WorldCat record
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear : if education is broken, this book is the do-it-yourself repair manual
Author: Calvin G Sims
Publisher: Victoria, BC : Trafford, ©2006.
Edition/Format: Book : English
Fake Buddha Quotes
Posted on March 16, 2013
“When the student is ready the teacher will appear”
I was surprised when someone wrote and asked about this one, saying that he doubted it was a genuine quote from the Buddha. It had never occurred to me that anyone would think this was a Buddhist quote and I’d never heard this described even as Buddhist. And yet, seek, and ye shall find (also not one of the Buddha’s). It turns out that it’s all over the internet, including on at least one quotes site, although as a “Buddhist proverb” rather than directly attributed to the Buddha. But the quote is also ascribed to the Buddha, not just on websites, but in several books.
(...)
For example in a 1914 periodical, The Herald of the Star (a publication of a Theosophical organization, “The Order of the Star in the East”), we’re told that “in the various occult Orders which seem always to have existed throughout the world, it has been expressed in the words, ‘When the pupil is ready, the Master will appear.’”
And in Theosophy magazine of 1918, we have “When the disciple is ready, the Master will appear.”