Saturday, July 24, 2010

A Tribute To The Teacher

This post is an irony for those people who needs to revisit their mind's perspective towards what s/he has perceived towards education, teacher and the entire education system. 
Let's look at the following proverb "There is no teacher who can teach anything new, he can just help us to understand the things, we always knew." Each and every word in the above proverb has meaning, if you look straight you'll think the proverb is wrong. But it is not. Now, just realize, how can a teacher teach you new things? S/he will always teach you through the things that you already know. Let's take an example, we all know about alphabets (i.e. A,B,C,D,--Z) A teacher then teaches you 'A for apple', so most of us might think that its new, but realize how can you learn 'Apple' if you don't know 'A' including all the alphabets.











For a clear example let's look at this example to distinguish between the role of teacher and the student; You can never learn how to drive a bicycle or a motorcycle, simply by sitting on a chair and reading all the books of 'driving for dummies', 'mechanical engineering', and so on.. if you really want to learn driving, then firstly you have to leave your chair and take a bicycle and go for a drive yourself. The role of a teacher comes like this, when you go for learning bicycle you can have a teacher to guide you, he is not responsible for anything if you learn driving or not; because he can only guide you how to drive and even walk side by side for few times catching the bicycle for making the balance but at the end it is entirely you, who is responsible for what you'll learn no matter how many teachers you have for your learning.
I'm writing this because in my society, there is a trend that if most of the students passed in  distinction, then every other student will try to study on the institute/college/school from which the earlier students brought distinction. And if the pass percentage of a institute/college/school is low then very few will join such institutes. Even the parents are brainwashed that they will admit their son/daughter's in such college without knowing the internal educational system of those institutes. For them, what matters is marks, that their children will bring. There's a simple fact that, even though the destination of meditation is enlightenment/samadhi/super conscious mind/, if you meditate for being enlightened, then you'll never reach that state. Do not force meditation to happen, let the meditation happen on its own, because its natural and when something happens naturally then there's no side effects. Similarly even though the destination of studying is to get high marks, but if you only study to get high marks then we lose the essence of studying, there is no meaning of studying, you'll never know the worth of the subject that you are studying. Once my English teacher said you can only understand a poem when you can really feel what the poet is feeling while writing the poem; otherwise it's just the collection of worthless words. Every being is special we are also special but we are just ordinary until the moment we know ourselves. Everyone who attains greater education will not succeed, even the illiterate has been succeeding.
We do not need a teacher to learn if we have passion for something. for e.g. if you have a passion for photography then, you will learn about that by any means and you'll know little or even far more greater than what your teacher knows about it. Thats the power of passion, intuition, obsession, inspiration and interest. So, don't study a subject on which you have no interest cause as explain in a Hindi Movie '3 Idiots', if you study a subject which is not of your interest then it becomes pressure and hinderance for your mind and at end it will give you more pain, more tension, depression and various other consequences.
In each blog there I put a proverb, "knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment" and in this world everyone tries to know about other's without even knowing themselves first that's why they suffer, that's why they fail, that's why they are lost in the middle. How can you change the world, if you cannot firstly change yourself, because this universe begins from individual 'you'.
There's a proverb "Even a glass of muddy water becomes clear in time, if the water is allowed to sit undisturbed." If you think too much, study too much in things which you are not interested then you'll never have time to think about your natural specialty and the thing in which you are made for. So, learn to be in silence for at least 10 mins a day to know our existence or to communicate with our source.
I still remember a Buddhist teaching;
Most Rhinoceros live alone, they are gentle and timid but most people think that they are very aggressive, but that may be partly because they get frightened easily. So, the Buddhist teaching says "Wander alone, like Rhinoceros". What this proverb says is 'sangat guna ko fal' (in nepali), 'company multiplied by fruits'(in english). Most of the people lost their way because of bad company so above teaching says that 'It is better to live alone than to live with company of bad people' because it determines your future. So, learn to be alone, but most of us cannot avoid learning to be lonely. In aloneness, we are complete and  connected with our source (i.e that is also meditation) while in loneliness we seek for someone / something we feel we are incomplete.
Finally, I've to say that proudness is a disease each of our teacher and student should leave. So, from next time don't blame a good teacher simply because your child failed in exam because the teacher can only guide s/he is not allowed to give his/her student's exam. The student must ride the bicycle him/herself. How can your hunger be removed if I eat, instead of you. And of course there are bad teachers around, they are the ones who previously studied just for getting higher marks, they don't know the worth of education at all. For them what matters the most is the certificate they get.

I salute each and every good teachers on the auspicious occasion of (helding on 2010, July 25) Teacher's Day in Nepal especially my School Principal whom I respect a lot but artificially and outerly I don't show respect simply because I am less socialized but in my heart I do respect. He is the only teacher whom I consider 'the one' because he always says this "I can only show you the way, the one who walks in that path is the worthful one".  
This is what i feel, I do welcome comments....










ODYSSEY OF ENIGMA 
http://beyondrakesh.blogspot.com
Beyond the invisible (infinity)
"Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment."

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