Sunday 26 November 2006

The Guru

“Guru” is a much abused term and has come to connote a person skilled in the art of trickery of some kind. A “Guru” is also an honorific given to god-men and evangelists of all kinds. However in the traditional sense it was a term used for a teacher and it simply meant ‘one who is so weighty or profound that he cannot be shaken’, one who is so deeply established within himself that nothing can affect the complete dedication he has towards his vocation. The dedication the guru-teacher is not to scholarship or to esoteric intellectual pursuits or to promoting an ideology or to personal advancement of any other kind. It is to the process of self-actualization in his ‘shishya’, his student. “A teacher, if he is wise.” Says Gibran, “does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Given this approach real and true scholarship will follow.

Now, everyone who teaches is not a “Guru”. If a sense of personal gain or self-promotion comes in the way of this dedication then one is not a “Guru”; one is only a vendor of the information commodity. Obviously as a vendor his approach is governed by the laws of the market place. If on top of this he happens to be an unethical vendor (and such a breed is not entirely unknown) he sells spurious stuff, he under-weighs, he shortchanges his students. Therefore in the Hindu Scriptures we are, again and again, enjoined to select our Guru very carefully. Just as we cannot be carried away by his personal appearance so we cannot be swayed by his oratory – anyone with a bit of effort can turn a good phrase. We cannot be carried away by his show of scholarship – the hallmark of a true teacher is not the show of scholarship but the ability to absorb and internalize his scholarship in a manner that it functions at the level of his most disadvantaged student. Similarly it cannot be his intellect because unless the intellect is totally focused on the value of the student it can become an instrument to confuse and confound.

So how does one identify the true Guru, the genuine teacher? The significant test is that of ‘authenticity’. Does a teacher’s life accord with what he professes? Is he in the pandering business or the elevating mode? In other words how does he understand and express his function as a teacher. This function is not to enable the student to pass examinations just as it is not to teach him the ways of the world – this the student will learn anyway. The basic function is to ‘sensitize’. Does the study of literature sensitize his student to the importance of human emotions and feelings? Does the study of history sensitize his student to the forces that propel human existence and bring misery of happiness in their wake? Does the study of economics sensitize his student to the importance of material needs required for a meaningful existence? Does the study of science sensitize his student to the rhythms and patterns in nature to so awaken his mind to the need to live in harmony with it and his heart to the great mystery of existence? In short, a teacher becomes a ‘Guru’ if he sensitizes – because in doing so he carries out the most important function of education: to humanize.

And this is what differentiates a teacher who is ‘Guru’ from a teacher who is a vendor of information.

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