Is Teaching All About The Teacher?

The student has to open the windows

In Open Mind I have covered subjects like thoughts, awareness, meditation, perspectives, paradigms, memory and reading skills. The attempt has been to guide my readers into ‘thinking’. However does it really translate into learning at your end?

Who is more important? A good teacher or a good student? Ideally a combination of both! Besides, no teacher can meet every expectation of every student. And no teacher can be perfect.Though it may be important to know whether he or she is authorized to teach, credentials are not necessarily a measure of wisdom. Nor is charisma necessarily another parameter.

In this context, it is worth recounting the story of Eklavya in Mahabharata.The son of Hiranyadhanus (king of Nishadas), Eklavya wanted to become a famous warrior and in order to fulfill this ambition he approached the most qualified teacher of his time, Dronacharya. When Drona had become the teacher of the princes of the Kuru dynasty, his fame spread far and wide with that of his pupils. Kings from all over the country sent their young princes to get training from the famous Drona and Drona would graciously accept them as his students.

However Drona refused to accept Eklavya as a student explaining that he only accepted Kshatriya princes as his students. A much disappointed Eklavya returned but undaunted, he made an idol of Drona and began to practice very rigorously. He would also observe Drona instructing his disciples and would later practice the same moves. So fixed was he in his practice that soon he became extremely skillful.

When challenged in archery, Eklavya defeated every one including Arjuna, the Pandava prince who was an expert archer and Drona’s favourite student.

As the story goes, Drona then demanded his guru-dakshina or the traditional payment given by the student to his teacher as a token of gratitude. What he wanted the right thumb of Eklavya. Knowing Well that without his right thumb his prowess as an archer would be greatly diminished, Eklavya without hesitation sliced off his right thumb and presented it to Drona.

Drona returned to Hasthinapura content that he had disabled an opponent of Arjuna leaving behind Eklavya the most faithful disciple of all times.

What are our lessons to be learned from this? Superficially it seems that Drona, in order to preserve the supremacy of his favorite disciple Arjuna acted in selfish interest. However that is only the partial truth. The beauty of Mahabharata is that its characters are not entirely black or white, but very much like its readers, they have shades of gray.

A bona-fide teacher instructs a pupil according to the capability of the pupil to handle the knowledge. Drona did not consider Eklavya, a Nishada, qualified to handle the immense power he was imparting to his other students, and therefore he had refused to instruct him. He punished Eklavya because he considered Drona as his teacher without having been given permission to do so.

Eklavya is worthy of admiration because he persisted against the odds to become an exceptional archer via his own hard work, dedication and devotion to Drona - his “virtual teacher”. Unfortunately, Drona forsake him as a potential disciple, to protect the rights of his own favorite disciple Arjuna. Drona was great, as a teacher and a warrior, but Eklavya had undeterred determination and qualities that any teacher ought to be proud of.

I respect any student who is courageous enough to accept the fact that “I don’t know, so I am ready to learn. Then from wherever the light comes, I am open to it. I will not close my windows and doors. I will allow the wind and the sun and the rain to come in. I am ready to go on this voyage of the unknown, uncharted territory.” 

This is what Open Mind seeks to impart and imbibe.

.
Thought for the Week

“A teacher is one who makes himself
progressively unnecessary”
Thomas Carruthers
(Scottish sprinting champion 1840-1924)
.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times