Helplessness of the Guru || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Acharya Prashant

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00:00In some sense, it is very cruel to be a teacher.

00:20The absolute helplessness one experiences, one feels like asking, why does one have to

00:32inflict daily wounds, rather carnage upon himself.

00:44You know what is it to be a teacher?

00:47To know everything and have power over very little.

00:58You can see, but you cannot act on the other's behalf.

01:06The admission and the action has to come from the other and it is very cruel to know, to

01:18see and yet not have the power to translate the seeing into action.

01:31You can tell someone, kid, this is the path of destruction, leave it.

01:40But you cannot forcefully pick the kid up and take her away.

01:50You see these things happening in front of you all the time and can't stop them.

01:58You can't stop them because fellows have to live their own lives.

02:05You cannot live on their behalf.

02:10You cannot get into their mind, their body, their soul and start living as if you are them.

02:18You cannot give them an ideal script.

02:24Isn't it a bizarre thought to live on somebody's behalf?

02:31Life cannot be outsourced.

02:38The coach can't play on behalf of the player.

02:48It is extremely frustrating.

02:58I was six years old.

03:10My sister Pragya was three and younger brother was being born.

03:22Mother was in the maternity ward.

03:24So we two kids were having good fun.

03:32We had been relieved from school for a month because mother had gone to another city to

03:43be admitted for the delivery and it was a cesarean and all, a little complicated.

03:50So these two kids would be playing and fighting the entire day and I was playing with my sister

04:03and I broke her arm.

04:07Just casual kids play.

04:14I didn't intend to.

04:19I didn't even hit her hard.

04:27She got a fracture in the arm.

04:31She was three and now I was very guilty.

04:42I had not deliberately caused but it happened and it had happened once earlier as well.

04:54I was teasing her.

04:56She entered the kitchen and hot boiling kadhi fell over her and she had burns all over the

05:03body.

05:04She recovered fully but I had that memory as well and now the fracture.

05:11So it was a shock to my consciousness.

05:16Now she had the plaster on her arm from the same hospital and her hand would itch now

05:25under the plaster.

05:26Her hand would itch and since she was just three, so the plaster was not very thick and

05:40I was feeling very guilty.

05:44Now what could she try to do?

05:45She would try to itch herself, scratch herself under the plaster.

05:53She would take a pencil or a pen and try to put it in and slowly she was trying to dismember

06:01the whole thing.

06:03The plaster was coming off, after all it's just plaster.

06:12And as an elder brother and also someone with a guilty conscience, it was now my responsibility

06:17to ensure that she does not fiddle with her plaster.

06:21So I was keeping a watch on her all the time and all the time she was trying to do something

06:29with the plaster.

06:34All the time and I knew the doctor had told and it had been told to me in very clear rather

06:43exaggerated ways that if her plaster comes off or if she keeps fiddling with the arm,

06:50then the arm may not join properly or it can get bad for the entire life.

06:55So I was very concerned.

06:59Now I would be watching her the entire day and the entire day she would be doing something

07:03with the arm.

07:07That is the first memory I have of powerlessness, great powerlessness.

07:15I really wanted her to recover and she was doing self-destructive things and I couldn't

07:26even scold her because somewhere something in me was guilty that I had caused it.

07:38For two months, even as a six-year-old, I was having troubled nights.

07:48She would be troubled because it would itch.

07:50So she would get up and do something and whenever she would get up and do something, I would

07:54get up and try to cajole her, convince her, somehow pacify her into not doing that thing.

08:05Mother was busy with her own physical condition and after some time the younger brother had

08:12arrived and he was extremely sick and both the mother and the kid were sick.

08:16So nobody was looking at her and I was the one trailing her all the time and she was

08:22doing something with her arm.

08:28She recovered fully but I remember that period.

08:35It is a mark on the heart.

08:40You know something is not right for the other person and yet you can't help her from doing

08:47it and you also can't give up and you also can't get angry.

09:12You can't give up.

09:13You can't get angry and you can't stop what is happening.

09:18That's how I felt as a six-year-old.

09:22That's how a teacher feels.

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