An aspiring voice..

Within me, lies somewhere - a voice..

All it aspires is to be heard.

To be heard by the breeze -

       the breeze stops by none..

To be heard by the silence -

         the silence leaves on sound..

To be heard by the time -

       the time halts only at death..

The Dhyana Yogi!

Picture credit:http://community.pencils.com/users/mtheuer

     "Dhyan is, exactly, a non-judgmental state of mirror-like consciousness, just seeing and not saying anything." He was quoting from Osho. She was keenly interested in these kind of topics. She had found in him a Guru, who could answer most of her questions. Dhyana Yoga was her favorite topic. It somehow managed to mesmerize her every time the topic was discussed. The bus was crowded but that was no deterrent to their discussion. They were in their own world, in the pursuit of Dhyana, a state of eternal bliss!
     But the little fellow seated in the other seat had caught her attention. His nose was a bit flat, the serene joy on his face seemed unusual to her. His innocent looks were cute and she could not pay total attention to the preachings of her newly found Guru. 

    Sensing her divided attention, the Guru said, "You seem to be worrying about the little dirty fellow out there?"
     "Is he dirty?" she wondered to herself, "the shirt is a bit marred with dust and sweat maybe. But that does not make him dirty." Trying to appear pleasing she replied, "No, I was wondering how he is managing himself in the very little space he is given to sit in."
     "Oh, that is no big thing. When you have nothing, the little you are offered seems hugely rewarding," another pearl of wisdom from the Guru. She was impressed.

    They both again got submerged into their discussion. Her eyes kept looking at the little fellow occasionally. She was surprised. The little fellow was trying to pick something from the pocket of an elderly passenger who had dozed off next to him. "Pick pocketing?" she wondered, "What is it that compels a kid to such a crime? Poverty? Gross inequality?" A lot of questions. She cursed Capitalism which, she thought, had resulted in havoc at grass root levels. 

     Bringing it to the notice of her Guru, she asked him if they had to stop the boy from committing a petty crime. He suggested they should stay quiet and not 'create a scene'. Destiny would take care of itself! "Lack of proper parental upbringing," he asserted, "this is why I advocate moral and ethical education to children. That shall help them learn to face adversities rather than restoring to such cheap activities."

     Though they both were discussing the issue, they were left perplexed with what the boy had done. He had picked the cell phone from the pocket of the elder person, held it in his hands for a while and then replaced it back! Deciphering the logic behind the boy's act, the Guru said, "He seems to have been engulfed by guilt and so has replaced it back." She thought otherwise, "Maybe he had never held a cell phone in his hands and after satisfying his curiosity placed it back."

     Before she could think further, she realized she had to get down as she had arrived at her office. She hurried down and waved bye to her Guru. As she tried to cross over to the other side of the road, she noticed the little fellow was also crossing the road. She caught him by his hand and helped him cross over. Arriving on the other side of the road he smiled at her with gratitude.
    Sensing a chance, she asked him, "How was the uncle's cellphone? Nice? First time you saw a cellphone?"

    "What?"
  "Come on, don't pretend. I saw you picking the cellphone from the Uncle's pocket in the bus. Cellphone - first time, right?"

    "No."

    "Then why did you pick the phone from his pocket and later replace it?"

    "It was vibrating. It could disturb his sleep. So held it in my hands till it stopped vibrating."

    "Weird, if its true! You could have been thrashed if he had felt you were trying to pick pocket."

    "I don't know. Bye!"
    He walked away hoping in joy. She was trying to make sense of what he told her. "Dhyan is, exactly, a non-judgmental state of mirror-like consciousness, just seeing and not saying anything."

A thankless job!?

"The mediocre teacher tells. 

The good teacher explains. 

The superior teacher demonstrates.

The great teacher inspires. 

                  -William Arthur Ward"

         Working as a part time lecturer is giving me newer perspectives about the thoughts in the emerging youths. A thoroughly enjoyable profession, as it has appeared to me over a year. Waiting to engage a class, last week, I was chatting with a Assistant Professor who suggested me to do something else since teaching, he felt, was a thankless job with no scope for achievement!!

          

        With all due respects to the gentlemen who think so, here is an excerpt from an article entitled "Good teaching qualities" authored by Premchand Palety:

Sharu S. Rangnekar, a leading management teacher and consultant, told me how his teacher induced in him an interest for Sanskrit:

In the first period he taught us, we were 40 boys ready to listen. The first sentence he said was, “Boys! You are lucky.”

We asked him in chorus, “Why?”

“Do you know what you are going to learn?” he asked.

“Sanskrit,” we replied.

“What is Sanskrit?” he asked.

Most of us replied, “A language.” One student said, “A scoring subject (in our time there were only three subjects in which one could score 90% or more: mathematics, science and Sanskrit).”

“You are all wrong,” he said. “Sanskrit is not just a language or a scoring subject. It is a key to 3,000 years of culture. With this one key the whole treasury is yours.”

Not everybody believed him—but 10-12 of us did. After matriculation, Sanskrit was of no use to me in chemical engineering or MBA—but I still read Sanskrit. It is a virus that cannot be removed.

When my Sanskrit teacher retired after 35 years of service, I visited him. He started as a Sanskrit teacher and ended as a Sanskrit teacher; did not become even a vice-principal!

“What did you achieve in your life?” I asked him.

“Sanskrit is becoming a dead language; but I got every year a batch of 40 students. I tried to infect them (with interest for Sanskrit)—I know I could not infect everybody, perhaps 10-12 in each batch. After these 35 years, there are 400 former students of mine who must be still reading Sanskrit—this is my achievement.”

   In the same write up, the author cites about a research and says:

       The research on the impact of expectations was done in the 1960s by Robert Rosenthal of Harvard University and Lenore Jacobson of South San Francisco Unified School District. They showed that when a teacher has positive expectations of a student, the student’s performance improves.

            When we teachers look at ourselves as being in an inferior profession, visualizing to have been dumped into this job because we could not pursue our dreams or were pressurized by life to feed ourselves, then we would be deliberately placing ourselves at the bottom of the table of social eminence. 

         Paying attention to a conversation between a post graduate student and a senior lecturer on career options, I ended up listening the student say she would prefer to stay unemployed rather than 'ending up' as a lecturer. To my then shocking disappointment and disbelief, the so called Senior lecturer encouraged this decision of hers!! (Incidents like these do not give me shocks anymore, as I am accustomed to their frequent occurrences.)

         The sorry state of affairs in the domain of education today is clearly a measure of the extent to which education has become a commodity to be sold and bought rather than a life lesson which has to be learnt and cultivated.

Robin Williams playing the character of John Keating in the movie "The Dead Poet's Society"

           Speaking to a friend on this issue, he asked me "Do teachers like Mr. John Keating(The Dead Poet's Society), Ms.Erin Gruwell(Freedom Writers) and Mr.E.R.Braithwaite(To Sir, With Love) exist only in stories and movies?" No, my dear friend, there are a lot of inspiring and extraordinary teachers around us. I take pride in being a student to a few of the great breed and believe all of us have had the privilege of learning from some great masters, at some point of time in our lives. To all those teachers of the great legacy who once existed, who are amidst us today and who shall be born in time -

brahmAnandaM paramasuKadaM kEvalaM j~JAnamUrtiM

dvandvAtItaM gaganasadRuSaM tatvamasyAdilakShyam |

EkaM nityaM vimalamacalaM sarvadhIsAkShiBUtaM

BAvAtItaM trigunarahitaM sadguruM taM namAmi ||

                                                                          - Guru Gita ( from Skanada Purana)

          I prostrate to that Sadguru who is Brahman that is bliss, who conferrs happiness, who is the incarnation of pure consciousness, who is unaffected by the pair of opposites, who is like the sky, who is the implied meaning of mahavakyas like tat tvam asi (thou art that); one and only, eternal, pure, immutable, the witness of all intellects, transcending existence, free from the three gunas(sattva, rajas and thamas.)

Neither are they wrong, nor are we!!

         

       There have been a few experiences over the past couple of weeks, when I got to witness the classic Parents vs Children debate. On one side were parents insisting their son to pursue higher education at the US, which the guy is least interested in. On the other side is another friend who is trying hard to convince her Dad to let her study out of her hometown!! (So sad, how nice it would have been if the cases were vice versa.. Crazy thought, I agree). These are just a couple of the interesting cases I have been an audience to. Both the sides have reasonable logics defending their arguments. Both seem justifiable in their own rights. Being a youngster, I tend to identify myself pitted against parents. Well a bit of introspection reveals neither are they wrong, nor are we!!

     As I wondered over this age old issue, there was an interesting aspect a friend of mine shared with me. In ancient India, it is said, when householders retired from Grihastha to Vanaprastha, they gave away all that they possessed. They left their children with education and experiences of life. The children were asked to shape up their lives from scratch. How contrasting from a lot of today's parents who try to amass all that they can in their lifetime so that their children live in peace. Despite the children not wanting them to do it! But of course, times have changed.

      Another interesting case is here - A friend of mine works as an Engineer at a place where his Dad has considerable acquaintances. The father whenever pays a visit to the son's workplace, addresses him in his pet name, which is embarrassing to the son. Seems silly? Not to the guy who faces it. Here is his argument - "I am his son. To him I may still be a kid. But not in the society we are part of." No offences meant, but this is a simple issue with complicated consequences!!

        As I spoke with Mom about issues like these, she reminded me of the Sanskrit verse -

लालयेत् पञ्च वर्षाणि दश वर्षाणि ताडयेत् | 

प्राप्ते तु षोडशे वर्षे पुत्रं मित्रवदाचरेत् ||

(Indulge a child for the first five years of his life, for the next ten years deal firmly with the child. Once the child is sixteen, treat him as a friend.)

       It is not an easy task of being friends. Sometimes we don't give parents enough space for the friendship to evolve and at times, they are not willing to extend a friendly gesture. But the tragedy of affairs is that usually when they are willing we are not and vice versa!!

         Talking to friends undergoing similar crisis, the most interesting argument I encountered is as follows - What do we youths look for in life that cause tribulations as these? The freedom to explore our paths. Maybe elders have already strode those paths and realize their shortcomings. But some of us are foolish and adamant and wish to discover the truth for ourselves. Such fools(though we tend to call ourselves 'explorers' or the 'makers of our own destiny') would expect to be left to themselves. Nothing teaches better than experience. We might err and falter. But we do not want to die with the guilt of not having tried. Elders with all their care and expertise in life would do good to help us recover from the fall, and keep us inspired for the next exploration;-)

         Maybe this is all necessary. These experiences to us may add up as lessons of life and somewhere down the lane, they may aid us in understanding these lines of Khalil Gibran -

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, 

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.