Perfect teaching requires a perfect teacher, as also a perfect student. Vedanta calls it “patrata” (the ability and capacity to absorb and retain). The sun gives light to all, but one receives just as much light as one deserves. If your windows are closed, what can poor sunlight do except reach your door and keep knocking helplessly?
Gurudev once narrated the following to me: “I had to get up early at 3:30 am and heat water for my teacher’s bath. After a bath with that he would go and bathe in the icy cold Ganges water. Then I made tea which kept lying around, unused. I used to wonder why he makes me do all this when he obviously doesn’t need it. Then, while still dark, he took the Upanishad class.
One such morning he chanted the shanti mantra and then closed the book saying “That’s all for today, no class.” I understood that I had done something wrong but didn’t have the nerve to ask him. After some time, I took all my courage in both my hands and asked, “Sir, have I done something wrong?”
He said, “A cat passed from here just now, did you see it?” When I affirmed that I had, he said, “That is all. Your attention has wavered, this is not how one studies the Upanishad. No class today.”
It was not a YouTube class while sipping coffee. The jobs given to him early morning were only to ensure his regularity in rising early, and to secure his alertness in body and mind in the (Brahma Muhurat, 3 am to 5 am) a very peaceful time, unmolested by the thought waves of a materialistic world. This was the discipline and attention demanded by the teacher to chisel out a Swami Chinmayananda, a supreme teacher who chiselled millions.
Prarthna Saran, President Chinmaya Mission Delhi.
