Make Sure You're A Perfect Student :- Guru Pournima Special

Pranam Readers,

Just 3 days ago was Guru Pournima. This festival is observed on the full moon night of the Ashadha month (June-July) of Hindu calendar as a tribute to one's guru or teacher.

In India, the relationship between a master and his disciple i.e guru and shishya is considered the holiest one because it is not a relation between a person and a person. It is a relation between a person and a direct medium of knowledge that he can find, which can be his mother, father, a street dog, a stone and literally everything. A guru is a that person, place, event, animal etc which taught you some or the other thing and gave you knowledge. A guru is more like a universal force rather than a particular person or something, because learning something totally depends on US. Hence, a true seeker does not have any one person as his guru, but he develops such a perspective that he becomes able to learn something perhaps from the most idiotic man. He learns something from everything that sees, for his mere sight has become so pure that he automatically becomes the student of the entire universe, where this whole universe becomes his university, an eternal place of learning!

Therefore, now we can say that the real guru of ours is just within us. Developing studenthood we can learn from the stupidest man and world's most terrible person too can be our guru. According to Ancient Scriptures, Lord Dattatreya had 24 gurus - not like one maths teacher, one science teacher and so on! His 24 gurus included animals, birds and literally the simplest thing we find on this earth. Thus, it is the student that is more responsible for his progress than any guru. It is studenthood that is the nucleus of everything.

So in our today's blog we will focus more on how to be good students. Yes, everyone wants to have a guru like Ramkrishna but none dares to be like Vivekananda. Everyone desires to have a guru like Brahmarshi Vashishta but none dares to be like Shri Ram. You see, the ability to be a proper student is more important than having a perfect guru. Hence, this is the very subject we all should dig into.. Before crying that there is no yogi left in Kali Yuga to be my guru and all that nonsense. Universe never neglects the yearning of a true seeker. People these days go up and down all over India finding a perfect guru, none attempts to gain the humility of a student.

Now, what are the elements a student should develop in order to be a perfect student?

1. Yearning

Intense desire for knowledge and constant restlessness for truth is the primary element every student must have. Once a disciple of Shri Ramkrishna asked, " Why is it that some people like me find the grace of a guru like you and some do not? Is god unfair? Why doesn't je shower equal grace to everyone?" Listening this, Shri Ramkrishna calmly replied, " My child, a sailboat can move only when it opens its huge flaps of wings. The winds are always present but the speed of the sailboat entirely depends on hoe wide the flaps are opened. Likewise, open your heart, yearn for truth, desire your goal the same way as you would desire oxygen when you get drowned in water. Do you know child, I would cry like a baby to get the vision of Maa Bhavtarini. Do the same. Open your flaps. "

2. Humility.

You can never learn or seek anything with a mountain-like ego. When you learn to put the whole universe above you and consider its tiniest speck of dust as far bigger than you, then you actually perceive the reality as the way it actually is. Considering something higher than you allows that thing to teach you something. You wouldn't miss the chance to learn something right? Then surrender yourself in front of this universe. Every moment repeat, " My teacher a dog, My teacher a stone, My teacher a wicked man, My teacher the most abject sinner and the poorest of poor too. My teacher the whole universe. "

You see, water always flows downwards. It always flows from a higher land to a lower one, like a slope. See rivers. It cannot flow if the bed under the river is a flat ground. The more the difference of height, the more will be the speed of the flow. See waterfalls. How fast water flows down from waterfalls!

My dear friends, knowledge too, can only flow when you position yourself in the place of the lowliest level. The more lowly you'll be, the more will be the knowledge you'll gain. Can you learn from a teacher if you consider yourself more learned than them? Can you learn from anything if you consider yourself higher than that?

Thus, bend a bit. Be the lower than the lowest. That is humility. That is selflessness. This is how you open the gates of your heart. This is how you allow yourself for the god dwelling in every atom of this universe to be your guru.

Thanks, my gurus,

I beg to be your eternal student,

Daksh Parekh.