Helplessness of the Guru || Acharya Prashant (2018)
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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.