The Teacher Is A Failure?

The teacher is a failure and just incidental. Very few revisit their alma mater or revive the contact with their teachers in school or colleges. Once they have gone away to their jobs, marriages or calling, they hardly find time to go back. Sometimes they reminiscence and tear up but the scene goes away as soon as it came. The world beckons and they are busy tending to it. The current issues are more pressing than some old memories.
Why has life left these people behind? In the movie “Two States,” the hero tells the heroine that the professor who asked her some question and insulted her for not knowing the answer, will be left far behind and she would have gone way ahead in material success. The old professor will continue to be his old grumpy self, correcting pupils of their mistakes till he retires. Whereas the heroine would have become a successful woman. He called the teacher a failure.
Are the teacher and schools failures? They sure will be called failures if you have not become successful in life. Every student believes that every teacher has a pet student and they pander to them. They feed them more and more, give special favors, give great marks, pass them in good ranks and are unduly partial to them. But what happens after they graduate, do these supposedly pampered students ever are grateful or come back to these teachers? Never!
Everyone in my world is also the same. They took all the teachings that they got, read books after books, learnt word for word and they were naturally pampered. They were given special status and hand held. They sported with me over every little thing. They got wonderful experiences and saw miracles with their own eyes.
Everyone got their look at The Divine. One even had the physical manifestation of looking into the eyes of Kali. One saw herself gamboling into the lanes of Vrindavan. One got the goddess to write through the phone to her. One got her cure of a deathly fever. Some even had the divine bless them. Some saw a manifestation of a great Master with their own eyes. Too many things have happened to them to even become aware of the divine. It’s like living in air and breathing it everyday and not feeling it or becoming even aware of it. They began floating in the ocean of bliss. And then the inevitable happened!
Then they leave the way they have come taking with them the precious teachings. Making themselves adept in the world. Facing every calamity or progress as it comes.
But the worst part is the acknowledgement or goodness which they are filled with never returns back to the place they left. As a teacher I await their coming someday to tell me how they are progressing. I would love to hear their successes. I wouldn’t want to rob them of their success or fame. I would love to just participate in their greatness by honoring them.
After all the disciple or student is a diamond and the teacher is only a diamond cutter. No one knows the diamond cutter but everyone knows the diamond. They shine and the teacher only looks admiringly.
Sacrificing every little happiness, the Master provides them with spiritual weal. Some got a fantastic job, loving family, good money and properties, investments, marriage, peace and everything else. Others got the knowledge of frugal living, some got operated and saved, some were getting unhinged, came back to senses. Some were saved from the clutches of ugly predators. Some lives were steadied and they set sail abroad to make money, name and fame.
Unfortunately, the knowledge which they got was priceless, used it for material gains.
It’s not that these incidents are stray or one off. These are usual day to day ones. The students will keep on coming and going. These will celebrate teachers day and Guru Poornima and bow down to the Guru and touch His feet too. But the moment they spread their wings and have finished the need of the teacher, will leave and go never to return.
The blessings and teachings stay with them even after they go. But the disciples and students hardly care for the diamond cutter. Such is the effect of the teachings, they will achieve success in life but won’t remember their source of knowledge. The teacher or Guru is just some useless stuff or memory from the past, not worth much thinking about. After all like the hero of Two States said, the teacher is a failure!

Image Courtesy by   pixabay