Why Is the Guru-Disciple Relationship So Special?
Questioner: Pranam Acharya ji. There could be several factors that can prevent an individual from posing the appropriate question. Such as, lack of clarity of the problem at hand, insufficient knowledge of subject matter, apprehension about appearing ignorant in front of others, a language barrier or the complexity of an issue leading to confusion about how do we formulate the correct inquiry.
What we have seen in the verse today, it became quite apparent that Arjuna's query stem from his preconceived notions which Krishna being a teacher immediately discerns to be a result of Arjuna's attachment to escape pain. This leads to biases and prevents him from posing correct questions.
Now it begs the question whether a realized Guru or master can accurately perceive the situation and provide the correct guidance, even when the disciple is unable to ask the relevant question due to any of above-mentioned reasons.
Is it necessary for a teacher to have a personal understanding of a disciple to comprehend the underlying reason behind their question? Or can a perceptive teacher identify it regardless of their familiarity with the disciple’s inquiry into the subject?
Acharya Prashant: It will require a certain intimacy with the student, right? Because even if the student were not to pose his real problem accurately, the student at least comes up with the false problem. For lack of intent or understanding the student cannot come up with the real problem. But is the student intimate enough with the teacher to come up with at least the false problem? It's the description of the false problem in chapter one, that allows Krishna to come up with the greatness of the discourse in chapter two.
Remember an entire chapter is devoted to Arjuna's narration of the problem as he perceives it. It's not without reason chapter one exists. So, the student has to come up with something, if not everything. You may not know what the real problem is, and that is okay. But you in your own world, do know something about your problem or at least you think you know something about your problem, right?
Questioner: Right.
Acharya Prashant: Present that, lay that out. And Arjuna has done that in sufficient detail, that detailing is needed. And that detailing in some sense becomes the eligibility of the student to receive a solution.
I do not know a bit as a student, I am ignorant, right? I do not know a bit about where I am coming from? What my real problem is? What the solution looks like? What the nature of the ego is? What the nature of my inner entanglement says? I know nothing. But still, I have some vague feelings. A nebulous perception of the problem I have at least that much everybody has, right? There's nobody who will say oh, I don't know a bit about my situation.
So, whatever you know, just present it, just present it. Needless, irrespective of how it would look to the teacher. Irrespective of the kind of impression you would cast on the teacher. And that sounds simple, but is quite rare to find.
The student has his own need to look good. So even if it comes to the teacher, he presents a very sanitized and decorated version of the problem or the situation. And even if the teacher, as you said is perceptive enough, and smells a rat and therefore tries to dig deeper into the students' interiors, the students often respond with resistance, right? A bit of resistance you will find in Arjuna as well, correct? But that resistance is limited.
So, there are no absolutes here. It's all a relative thing. Who knows what would have happened had Arjuna offered stiffer resistance? So, the teacher obviously is prepared to somehow bear some kind of resistance but the teacher also honors the very principle of Maya.
The principle of maya is founded on free choice. And that kind of wild card, maya always has. That's the very condition behind her existence, which is that, “I will disappear only when I choose to.” You cannot, she addresses the truth, you cannot just come to me and declare me to be false and ask me to vanish. I will disappear when you lure me, when you convince me, when you lovingly embrace me, when you make me consent in my own free will.
Are you getting it?
So that kind of consent the student has to provide. Otherwise, the teacher is helpless, irrespective of whether you want to call the teacher as realized or illuminated or perceptive or whatever antaryami, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. The point is not the capability of the teacher, the point is the consent of the student. The teacher might be very capable but the consent is not forthcoming, the teacher would not operate.
Questioner: Right sir. Acharya ji, you know love can be seen as a means of acquiring knowledge. When we love a particular topic, we may read books, watch videos and seek out experiences that allow us to deepen our understanding of that topic. In a way knowledge can deepen our experience or love .
When we have knowledge and understanding of something, we are better able to appreciate and love it as love and knowledge leads to the path of freedom. How can we define the true love to acquire knowledge on the subject which is worth acquiring for yourself?
Acharya Prashant: It begins from an inner point. True love just not, does not stretch out its hands to acquire something from the world whether it is knowledge or wealth or person or fame or somebody's body, no.
Love in its right form starts from an inward glance. It's a very, very inner cry, “I do not like the way I am, and hence, I am looking out towards the world. I want to be helped or I want to extend help.” So, there is love that is just desire, and desire is blind towards the self.
Desire says, “I do not want to see where I am coming from. I have no interiority. I just want to look outwards and feel fulfilled. I have no real knowledge of my own constitution. I do not know who I am. But I have some vague idea that if I get that thing there in that market then I'll feel better.” That's desire, that's not love.
We said love starts from a very inner point. Desire does not start from an inner point. Desire from its very inception is looking outwards. If you ask the desirous one, "but why exactly do you want it? Please tell me about your inner state first?” The desirous one will find it awkward.
No good salesman would ever ask a prospective customer this question. If you go to a shop and you say, “I want that particular item.” No salesperson would risk the sale, by asking you, ”but why exactly do you want that?” The chances are if that question is posed, the deal would be lost, right? That's the thing with desire.
It can operate only in an environment of inner ignorance. It does not look at itself. The intent is not there. The very honesty to first of all to know where I’m coming from and who am I , and therefore, why do I want that thing? That is not there.
True love begins by looking at oneself. I'm not alright, I want to be okay. Now I'm looking at all the resources possible to me. How can I be okay? So that's the distinction between love and love. Have I succeeded in?
Questioner: Yes sir, pretty much. Thank you. I was a little bit confused, now it's clear. Thank you so much.
Acharya Prashant: I am glad. Thank you.
Questioner: I have something related to the first part of the previous question, where you said that the thing is about consent, consent from the student side. And I guess this is confusing to me because sometimes I feel like that in some sense my problem is just like that. I just need to give my consent and come to you.
It's not about some particular problem or something like that. But then it's a strange thing because then I just have to do it but I never know what it comes with like in particular?
Acharya Prashant: Then you can just make something up and come. That's how lovers operate. They are great liars, all lovers. Don't you know? The man never goes to the woman quoting a genuine reason. “Why have you come to me today?” “Oh, because it is sunny.” “Why have you come to me today?” “because it is cloudy.” So, fake a reason. How is that a problem?
Questioner: Yeah, Yeah it's true. But it has to do with what you said earlier about like you want to seem like you're on top of things. So, you have a good question and then…
Acharya Prashant: We said that Krishna in some sense kidnaps Arjuna, that implies a lack of consent, does it not? But then you need to grant your consent at least to the degree of allowing yourself to be kidnapped. It's a complicated thing. Had the consent been absolute, you would not need to be kidnapped. You’d come walking on your own, correct? But you need to be kidnapped because the consent is partial. So, it's an in-between thing.
The student has to provide at least as much confidence as the teacher needs to kidnap him. And it's not about the teachers' own well-being, it's about as we said the law of maya, the law of free will. The willingness has to come across at least to a certain extent even if there is not complete consent. At least something otherwise the teacher will say, “No, no, no, no, no. The law of choice forbids me from touching this student.”
Questioner: And I mean when we look at the context of the Gita, I mean in some sense, Arjuna is very... sometimes when I read these verses, I get the feeling that he's just there, you know, but as we have spoken about it, it's not like he's very willing, it's almost like just lucky to be there in some sense. I mean yes, he has chosen creation, but sometimes it seems like, kind of, well, he's lucky to have had that choice.
Acharya Prashant: Right, right. And both these things go together. Please see, irrespective of how daring or how wise your choices, if as a result of choice you get the right teacher, you should still consider yourself lucky. Because none of your choices can be so meritorious that they actually deserve to bring the teacher to you.
So, on one hand, yes, it is extremely important that the student makes the right choices. On the other hand, if he gets the teacher, it is not really because of his choices. There is serendipity and grace involved.
So, we have talked of that a lot of times and it's such a beautiful thing to dwell into. The very, the interplay of Grace and choice. And they are, they do not operate independently of each other. Grace obviously is very far, far, far, far bigger than the choice and the chooser. At the same time if you do not exercise your choices daringly enough and may I say lavishly enough, you have not provided your consent.
So, your choices have to indicate your openness. I often take the example of that little Chap, five years of age, who wants that huge chocolate box. And the chocolate box costs because it's a huge one and imported one and a lot of things. Maybe it has golden foil or something. So, it costs ₹10,000 and the little one can gather at most ₹150. But this ₹150, he has gathered with all the resources he could muster. So, his little piggy bank he broke and he borrowed from this and that and he saved money from whatever little pocket money he used to get and such things.
After two months he was able to accumulate ₹150. And he takes this ₹150 and goes to the shopkeeper and he says, “Here, now give me that box.” Now that shopkeeper is Krishna, he knows very well that the price of the box far exceeds anything that the little one can keep on the table. But what he sees is not the amount on the table but what you have done to bring that amount. The little chap is little, so whatsoever he does, even the biggest thing that he does would be little. But has he done his best, that's the word.
Have you done your best? It's not a matter of an absolute benchmark. have you done the best possible to you? Have you done, have you risked everything that you have? That's what is needed and when that happens, grace descends. So grace, you could say in some sense is something that you can make happen.
Grace is not something that happens coincidentally, randomly. Grace is a function of your own willingness. They say, “it may rain but you have to keep your umbrella aside.” The willingness to at least receive, be a recipient has to be there. Otherwise, you will remain dry and untouched.
Questioner: But that's a strange point also because when we talk about doing as much as we can do, but then there's the other side of it also which is that, in my case for example, I threw myself to the work very blindly and very consistently. And you know it does work but at some point, I realized that I had been very unmindful of the center of working from.
But in some sense that was the whole point because it was working so well that it felt like I didn't have to question it. I thought I was doing the right thing because the partial result was there.
Acharya Prashant: What exactly is your definition of something working well? How do you know that it is really working well? and if it is, then for whom?
Questioner: Well I guess the thing is that it feels like there's no space to doubt anything, you know.
Acharya Prashant: But what if, first of all the doubts have to be scrapped from the bottom. The sticky bottom of consciousness so that they can be cleaned. What if, there are no doubts that only means that the doubts are sticking very closely to the surface of the mind container?
Questioner: Yeah, I get what you mean.
Acharya Prashant: And when you come to the right environment then there is somebody with a scrubber and then there is a lot of motion and friction which involves sometimes a bit of pain, sometimes a bit of fun and the doubts are made to arise.
What if the unavailability of doubts, simply means that the doubts have gone latent or dormant?
Questioner: Well, that's what it probably is in most of the cases. The convincing though…
Acharya Prashant: Yeah, that's a little bit of advice, just because everything feels well, do not turn complacent because we are all without exception, tough nuts and chronic cases. Quick redemption is just too good to last. It just cannot come so quickly and so easily to anybody.
When we were writing the JEE, which is an entrance exam to the institution I did my engineering from. If you could solve a problem too easily, that meant, that we have done it wrongly. This one carries four marks or five marks. It is just inconceivable that I could crack it in three minutes flat! Not possible. If it's happening too easily for you then it's not happening. One has to pass through a lot before even the slightest gain can be made.
Questioner: Yeah, and it feels like that you have to actually, want to know, even when you don't want to know.
Acharya Prashant: You have to have, if I may say, an obsession with detecting Maya. Because she is lurking, she is around. And if she's invisible that's a bigger problem, than having her in plain sight. If the enemy stands right in front of you that's the problem but a manageable one. At least, you can situate the enemy and do something. What if the enemies are around but not visible? That's what.
So, when you feel everything is alright and there is no enemy just because you cannot see her, know that you are in a deeper trouble. And she will be around, let nobody be smug about that. Even those who have dealt with her all their life, have gone on to say, even in their last breath that, “she is, she still is.”
She still is and that's a thing about their proximity with the truth, they will be truthful even about Maya. They will not say that she is no more. Even if they have worshiped the truth all their life, in the last breath they have said, “oh, she is, she's still is.”
Questioner: Yes, I think I can work with this for now.
Acharya Prashant: Wonderful.
Questioner: Yes, we can. We will see you again.
Acharya Prashant: Thank you.
