Revisiting ‘Guru- Sishya Parampara’: The Modern Indian Context

Probably the first thought that comes to our mind when we think of the Guru-Sishya Parampara is the picturesque scenes of old Gurukuls, where the sacred art of warfare and education was taught by the sages (Gurus) to the extremely talented young students (Sishyas). Remember, this is the same tradition which has produced legends like Lord Ram, Arjun, Bheem, Mira Bai, the great Emperor Akbar and Eklavya, to name a few. The word Guru is derived from Sanskrit, where ‘Gu’, means darkness (Ignorance) and ‘Ru’ means the one who removes darkness. So, Guru is someone who removes the darkness of ignorance. The beginning of Guru-Sisya Parampara in India dates back to 2000 BC, starting with the oral teaching of the Upanishads.

In ancient world the Guru-Sishya Parampara was considered the most sacred and purest form of relationship which was firmly based on the foundation of ‘Trust’, ‘Devotion’ and ‘Respect’. The Sishya would literally surrender himself to his Guru to let him mold his life the way he deemed fit. If we broadly disintegrate the process of this tradition, we will notice the first step was the careful selection of the disciples by the Guru based on their will, potential and qualification. The second step was the rigorous training, the selected few would undergo, away from their homes and all materialistic comforts, in trying conditions, in the Gurukul under the watchful eyes of their Guru. The onus of setting the goals (Lakshya Nirdesa), teaching the basics, be it of the traditional warfare or of sacred scriptures, and of showing the right path when the disciple is in confusion, was on the Guru. Rest everything was the implicit responsibility of the Sishya. The amount of knowledge and skills to be imparted to each Sishya also varied based on the pre-assessment of the Sishya by the Guru, the deciding factor being the ability of the Sishya to grasp that knowledge and put it to good use. For example, although both Arjuna and Karna were the disciples of Guru Dronacharya but the art of obtaining and using Brahmastra was taught only to Arjuna, because he was better apt at controlling his anger and hence was less likely to misuse the power of Brahmastra. In return for his teachings, as Guru Dakshina, the Guru would only ask for a promise from the disciple that he will put the knowledge to good use and spread it when required.

 From then, the Guru-Sishya Parampara has travelled ages and changed various forms.  The first step of selection has now been replaced by entrance exams/tests and interviews. The Gurukuls themselves have been substituted by state of art humongous structures called schools and colleges where teachers (Gurus) impart knowledge to students (Sishya) in a much more comfortable environment, with mostly luxurious in-house facilities. Huge monetary fees’ being charged from students in return for the teachings has displaced the precious concept of Guru Dakshina. Although the basics of the tradition have remained almost unchanged but the real purpose of it seems to be lost somewhere in between. Nevertheless when the practice is followed strictly keeping in mind the originating basics, the outcome has been scintillating --eminent personalities like Ratan Tata, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Madhuri Dikshit and Sachin Tendulkar, have time and again openly attributed the credit of their success to their mentors JRD Tata, Mahatma Gandhi, Saroj Khan and Ramakant Achrekar respectively. Modern Guru-Sishya parampara as Teacher-Student tradition has incorporated some positives also, like in ancient times Sishyas didn’t had the authority to question the teachings of Guru in any sense. As a result the Gurus were devoid of the opportunity to receive feedback and refine their teachings further. Going forward, another constructive development has been the transition from Student-Teacher relationship towards a more enabling Mentor-Mentee relationship. In this, as the role of the Mentor or Guru is modeled as more of a facilitator, in turn providing the Mentees or the Sishyas a better opportunity to evolve with much more freedom and openness, giving ample space to toy with budding creative ideas within the mind of the Mentees or the Sishyas. Although the presumption being that the zeal and self drive for continuous development and knowledge should come from within the Mentee. Hence, the learning so obtained through Mentor-Mentee relationship is much more valued both in proportion and quality as compared to any other earlier form.

Although still today there is no dearth of Sishya’s like Arjuna or Guru’s like Dronacharya but the delicate thread tying both of them together, of trust, devotion and respect needs to be carefully taken care of. At the same time the complete surrender of the Sishya needs to be appropriately balanced with the inherent curiosity to question and evolve the very basics which are being taught. Nevertheless the respect for Guru should never diminish. The transition towards a Mentor-Mentee relationship in this regard is quite promising but appears to be still in its nascent stage and needs to develop a lot further through experimentation and practice, before being universally accepted through out India. Till that time comes we are left with the present but unstable stage which amalgamates some concepts of the Guru-Sishya Parampara and some of the Teacher-Student tradition.

In the end it is important to reiterate the central idea with which we begun, that states a strong ‘bond’ between the Guru and the Sishya is indispensable as it enables the Guru to become a mentor who leads the Sishya from ignorance to wisdom, and enlightenment.

"Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnuh, Guru Dev, Maheswarah, Guru SakshatParabrahma, Tasmay Sree GuraveNamah"

Guru is Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha, in fact Guru is, Prabrahma himself, the Brahman, the Absolute. Salutations to such Guru.

The Source of HAPPINESS

There is a small stretch of about 14 Kilometers that I cover daily twice to reach my office from my present residence and the other way round. Although most of my colleagues and co-travelers in the vehicle during this time are half asleep owing to the early morning laziness and the evening tiredness but still I try my best to keep my eyes wide open and grasp as much of the exquisite phenomenon which all of us are so frantically trying to capture, a glimpse of ‘HAPPINESS’.

There are huts on both side of the miserably damaged road that we cover, in addition, population living there has their own set of typical issues like water logging during rainy season (which has an extended presence in this part of the world), a dearth of good school and colleges, cutoff from the amenities one can enjoy in the luxury of places like Delhi or Mumbai. To add to their woes the mighty Brahmaputra at the exhibition of its peak anger through a small tributary of its sweeps away or partially submerges the area, forcing the residents to rebuild their humble abode and start over and over again. Despite all this, a look into the populaces’ eyes and a simple examination of their faces reveal a sense of real happiness. So, the next set of questions which crosses your mind is--- how can they be so happy with all the miseries of this life?, Why despite having access to more resources in comparison to these ‘poor’ chaps, we are still not able to match their sense of self-gratification? And the biggest of them all is--- what is the source or drive behind this happiness?

Bit of thinking and observation pointed towards few of the following:

1.       The beautiful weather of this Place- might have made these people more pleasing, I am saying this applying the same logic as given for the extreme summer heats which are blamed for the soaring temperaments of the northern cities and a resultant increase in its crime rates.

2.      Penchant for music & festivals- North eastern Indian regions are known for the fondness they display for music and celebration, may be this is the reason that many of the festivals are celebrated more than once in this area with so much of fanfare. Consider the flagship festival of Assam called ‘Bihu’, it is celebrated four times a year and most of these revelries goes on for a fortnight to a month. May be the positivity they develop out of these kind of extended celebrations drags on for the whole year and make sure the inhabitants learns to unveil the same behavior of calmness and happiness even in the wake of extreme hardships.

3.      Slow pace of life- Another simple argument was to write this happiness off in the same manner as one dismisses the joy on the faces of children, knowing pretty well through experience that with an increasing maturity the happiness will be replaced by tension. Hence, one can say maybe because the area is underdeveloped as compared to the bigwigs so the city has not experienced the real pace of life, which when comes will obviously take away the sheen of its happy faces.

Sadly a further investigation into the above made me realize this cannot be the real source of happiness for these people. Weather in northeast India doesn’t show the same characteristics uniformly throughout the seven sister states, whereas, certain places like Shillong remains comfortably pleasing during the whole year, in certain regions like Assam the mood swings of weather are extreme, however the general trend of happiness remains the same. Similarly, the other two points can be discharged if one makes a deep enquiry into these trends. So, one can safely conclude the non-uniformity in certain physiognomies cannot account for the uniformity in behavior or mood. So the question remained unanswered what is the REAL SOURCE OF THIS HAPPINESS??

Sometimes when you don’t understand a phenomenon from one side then it is advisable to probe the other side to progress and therefore for the time being I left my fundamental pursuit. Instead, I tried enquiring- what happiness is? How do we get it? Or to put forth this simply--- when in recent times was I happy??

Starting off with what is ‘Happiness’ I moved to the widely acknowledged Oxford dictionary, it says ‘HAPPINESS’ is ‘state of being happy’, and further defines happy as ‘Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment’. Even the popular Wikipedia says something on the similar lines, it defines ‘Happiness’ as a ‘mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy’. Most of the definitions I found revolved around this concept of ‘Pleasure’ and therefore one can safely assume that this is the keyword to happiness. Wait a minute, does this points to the fact that Happiness and pleasure are both correlated. For me this was confusing and hence to put this argument to test I went back and took out my moments of happiness and pleasure from the past.

There were two distinguished set of happy moments I could categories my past memorable positive feelings into-

(i)                 Happy Moments One- reminded me of events like when I brought my first car, when I got my first salary, when I got my higher education degree, when I brought my own house. Etc…

(ii)               Happy Moments two- pointed towards happenings on the lines of -when I went on the trips with my friends, when I challenged my limits and achieved something which I never thought of, when I again met my loved ones after some time of parting.. etc.

The commonality in ‘Happy Moments One’ is that the feeling was extreme in the beginning but when I go back and think about it now, it doesn’t give me the same kick or pleasure it once gave. For example when I got my first brand new car I used to look at it again and again without getting tired of admiring its beauty, it used to give me extreme sense of gratification and contentment, my heart beat used to increase even if a vehicle tried to get past from close, I could not afford any stranger touching it, the first scratch on it made my heart sank too deep, but years later now I am least bothered about its wellbeing, I don’t mind anyone touching it now or even taking it away from my eyes for days, the feeling of attachment has almost subsided.

Whereas, the shared feeling in ‘Happy Moments Two’ is that the intensity of those feelings have withstood the test of time. Thinking about the memories from the trip made to the northern part of India in extreme weather conditions still gives me same thrill and kick it gave me years earlier when the trip was made.  The thought of meeting my loved near and dear ones still gives me same amount of joy and happiness which I feel on every such meeting. All these feelings are long lasting and time independent.

And that is why I feel pleasure can never be the feeling attached to real happiness. Based on the common set of features I can easily bundle ‘Happy Moments One’ under the bracket of ‘Pleasure’ but cannot do the same for ‘Happy Moments Two’.

So, going back to my fundamental question of ‘What is the source of happiness’ I infer it is something which ‘gives one a LONG LASTING feeling of contentment and joy coming out of attachment to a non-materialistic thing, which hardly fades away with time’. And pleasure on contrary is something which gives one a feeling of extreme happiness at first but the joy certainly and exponentially declines with time, it is the feeling attached usually to materialistic things.

Now, going back to my fundamental question of ‘what is the source of Happiness’ of my subject, I conclude maybe the basic definition of Happiness has been misunderstood in its real sense, although we the educated, sophisticated, modern class failed to make a distinction between the thin line that separates pleasure and happiness which these so called class ‘C’ city people have been surprisingly able to make. Maybe our approach towards the source needs to divert into the other direction the right direction i.e. from materialistic to non-materialistic, from short term to the everlasting, from PLEASURE to HAPPINESS.

Although the search for me continues but I get a sense of feeling that may be I am on the right path now and pretty close to finding my source of happiness. Are you?? J

ढूँढ ना उसे तू जहा तहा,

शायद ज़ो तू चाहता है वो तो छुपा है यहा वाहा,

आँखें खोल और उसे तू जान,

अर्रे याहि तो पड़ा है उसे पहचान ||

Content

Who can be an entrepreneur? - The HR perspective

A lot has been said and written about the real life entrepreneurs- revolving around the life’s of Dhirubhai Ambani, the Tatas, Birlas, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates to name a few. Reading about their biographies motivates everyone to be like one of them, have name, fame, money, thrills and chills. But is it practically possible for everyone to be an entrepreneur? Moreover think of a picture sketched where everyone has become an entrepreneur has opened his/her small businesses aiming to embark on a path that no one has followed previously and achieve the unthinkable. Wait a minute from where will now one get the employees or support staff required to run the businesses, isn’t it in such kind of a scenario there will be more employers than employees (if any). To maintain this balance nature has not provided everyone with same kind of ability and social environment which has a direct impact on his/her attitude. However hard we may try one cannot become a successful entrepreneur until and unless he has certain abilities and has developed minimum basic necessary skills. Some of these skills have been discussed in the next section.

The first and foremost is the leadership skill. Apart from developing the vision for his venture, a successful entrepreneur needs to imbibe that vision into his subordinates, colleagues and the society he is going to serve. He should take up the mantle of providing the guidance and direction required to be shown when one goes on such kind of unseen nascent voyages. Networking skills are also very important to engage people in the venture, garner political and financial support for the initiative. Creativity and innovative skills are again very important in the sense that they lay the foundation for the distinctive feature required to be embedded in your product or services if it has to survive the brutal competition of the modern business world. Last but not the least an entrepreneur needs to have pressure handling skills and the skills to absorb and learn from failures. He should be able to remain calm as cucumber during the time of crisis. Only god can be correct each and every time he does something new. There are bound to have failures at times simply because we are following a path that has not been taken before. Rather than getting disheartened and lose motivation he should see it as an opportunity to learn something new. In the next section we will describe the level of motivation required to be an entrepreneur taking a cue from the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model.

A person at physiological and Safety level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will simply be too engrossed in fulfilling his day to day needs that he will hardly have any time to wake and listen to his creative side of mind. In addition to it his risk appetite will be very low. At Social level of the model a person will be busy building social relations to have a sense of security. He will be in the process of exploring himself and the society hence again not much can be counted upon him to go on a path rarely taken. Maximum expectations can be put on a person having motivation level sky high depicted by being present at either Esteem level or Self Actualization level of the model. Either out of the curiosity to explore and redefine own limits or out of utter selfishness to prove himself better than his fellow human beings, a person is expected to display great hunger and will power required to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Creative Links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9SWNLZvA8g - Intel Making of a chip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo  - United Breaks Guitar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1NnyE6DDnQ  - Coca Cola assembly line operations explained in creative manner

https://www.google.com/  -most creative links when it comes to celebrating some great personality’s birthday or some special occasion. Cheerful, creative and link is informative. Right now the theme is London Olympics.

http://ignitioncreative.net/ - the most creative stories I have ever heard of

My definition of an Entrepreneur

As per my observation a person needs to have at least three basic qualities to qualify being as an entrepreneur:

1)      Vision- An entrepreneur needs to have a clear, well defined and achievable vision for his future course of actions. In addition to that he/she needs to have the hunger and ability to convert the vision into reality.

2)      Ability to take ‘Big Decisions’- To define ‘Big Decision’ in short they are the course of action an individual takes that have the capability of changing the way things happened or are happening in his personal ‘environment’. All of us don’t have this ability or mindset because there is a fair chance the decision might produce result quite opposite to what was desired.

3)      Penchant towards serving the society at large- The initiatives that an entrepreneur takes affects not just him/her but others as well. His activities provide employment to scores as well as the outcomes serve many others. Although the primary purpose might be monetary profits but directly or indirectly he serves society as well.

Introspection- An Idea for a better world

All the problems in the world could be solved or could at least be minimized to their ineffective best if we all start focusing on making ourselves better. The root cause of the problem is that we don’t have enough time for ourselves or that is how we project it to be. Sometimes we don’t know what we are good at or can do best simply because we have never talked to ourselves. A little bit of introspection (may be half an hour daily will do) about our day’s activities, how it affected ourselves and others can give a lot of insights and scope for further improvements. After all, the entire world is like a big organization made up of different individuals with different personal goals and in the process of achieving these goals they do different activities which define the overall well-being of the ‘organization’ -our mother earth.