A Teacher – as is see.

dedicated to my teacher Dr. KVSM Krishna.

It’s said that life is a journey from ‘dark’ to the ‘light’. As I understand it – it is moving from ignorance to knowledge, from disillusionment to gratification, from despair to hope, from insecurity to fearlessness, from greed to benevolence, from vanity to humbleness, from craving to belongingness, from lust to love and from wrong to right. As Dr. Krishna used to put it, “Life by itself always gets miserable”. In this movement of ours, life throws in hurdles in the form of cowardice, greed, lust and egotism. I often wonder as to how to overcome these hurdles?, how to resist these advancements of corruption?

Worldly wisdom says qualities like reasoning, intelligence, wisdom, experience and power of imagination are enough to move successfully. These qualities are generally obtained through inheritance or formal learning. But then I have experienced that these are not enough. There is something more which one requires to surge ahead happily and successfully. It is from my teacher that I have learned that one needs to be  ‘aware’, to be aware of one’s own self; one’s own motives and values.  It is self-awareness that helps an individual to cross these hurdles of life.

But from where does this ‘self awareness’ come? From where does the knowledge of self start. At this crucial point what takes an individual above is the devotion of a teacher.  Mahatma Gandhi said, “ Men often become what they believe themselves to be, If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”

The infinite ‘faith’ which a teacher instills in the student is what makes the difference. It is a teacher who can make the student believe in his  own potential. FAITH and tremendous faith in one’s own self is the quality with which an individual can break the barriers of darkness to see light. The source of this faith and self-belief, for me, has been, and is my teacher.

My teacher’s belief and faith in my abilities and potential, is the basis of my knowledge about myself; basis of my ‘self-awareness’. In all the moments of darkness it is he who has kept the flame of faith alive in me. He is the mirror of my conscience. It is this conscience which has abled me to differentiate the ‘right’ from the ‘wrong’. At every point of making a choice it is this ‘faith’ that gives me the confidence to make a decision. It is his vision of me which ignites my faith.

A teacher is the conveyer on which an individual makes his journey from darkness to light.

I feel blessed to have found such a teacher. And I hope to find good amounts of ‘light’ over my life!

Gratefully,

Mihir