“Guru Govind dono khade,
Kaake lagu paaye,
Balihari guru aapno,
Govind diyo bataye.”

By the above lines, Sant Kabirdas wants to tell us that when faced with once’s guru and one’s Lord, whose blessings should I seek first? The teacher truly is great, for he showed me that God is greater.

Guru doesn’t mean only a spiritual teacher but any person (living or dead) who can teach your life lessons, he makes you realize the ultimate goal of your life.

Like Sant Meerabai’s guru was Sant Ravidas, Sant Ramananda was guru of Sant Kabir. Narhari das was the guru of Goswami Tulsidas. Yogi Ramakrishna Paramhansa was the guru of Swami Vivekananda. All these gurus and shishyas when they met each other were immensely dedicated and devotional to each other.

In today’s world also we have many gurus, but you are always in doubt about who is genuine and who is a fraud. It seems even if a guru is a fraud, and if he has managed to transform some lives to the right path then for those people, their guru has changed their life. For the gurus’ wrong deeds he would pay for it as Krishna says in Bhagwad Gita that everyone is served according to their karma.

What is Guru Purnima?

According to the Hindu mythology, on this day Lord Shiva, the Adi Guru of the universe, gave the knowledge of Yoga to Saptarishis (the Seven Sages) for the betterment of humanity. This day is celebrated with fervor in North India as it also marks the birth anniversary of Ved Vyas, the author of the Mahabharata.

Teachers’ Day

How did Teachers Day come into this world?

The Day is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of India’s first Vice President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. He was also the second President of India. A symbol of academics and education, Radhakrishnan was a renowned philosopher, statesman as well as a teacher. Dr. Radhakrishnan is remembered for being one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century as well as for introducing western philosophies into Indian society.

When Dr. Radhakrishnan became the President of India, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, on 5 September. He replied,

Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September 5th is observed as Teachers’ Day. His birthday has since been celebrated as Teachers’ Day in India.

Guru-Shishya Parampara

We can say that today’s knowledge is bookish knowledge. If all the books and study material disappear then we are hardly left with anything to educate the next generation. But on the other hand, think about all the invasions on Bharat. So many invaders who wanted to rule Bharat wanted to destroy our culture and that’s why destroyed hundreds and thousands of our ancient scriptures which were there in Nalanda and Taxila Universities. And killed so many sages and destroyed so many ashrams. But did they succeed in destroying our culture completely? NO. They might have been damaged but the knowledge is still passed on to generations by guru shishya parampara.

Guru-Shishya Parampara is the teacher-disciple tradition. It is the lineage of passing knowledge from a succession of gurus to students through ORAL tradition. So even if the source is destroyed the real knowledge is stored in the guru’s mind.

-> If we try to compare it to today’s time then every year we get a new teacher for different subjects and they stick to the syllabus. They won’t teach us out of the syllabus and if some do try to teach them students might not be interested in that.

-> Guru would always be in search of that one perfect disciple whom he can teach (bless with) all his knowledge. And the disciple will also be in search of his guru. It is a very dedicated and loyal relationship. Whereas nowadays with the emerging tech teachers would always be seen with doubt by the students. Students would want to believe more on google than a teacher. But many things are there that google cannot teach.

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Every tradition has some positive and negative points. So definitely there have to be more positive points in Guru-Shishya parampara for us to cherish the knowledge even after thousands of years. We have been benefitted from yoga, traditional classical music and dance, Ayurveda, and much other ancient knowledge which would have been otherwise destroyed and disappeared.

So can we rely on google completely? No, we need teachers. Teachers and gurus are equally important to us. Teachers help us achieve our goals and enhance our knowledge and gurus to learn life lessons.

Hence, we should celebrate both days with enthusiasm.