THE PRECEPTOR AND THE PUPIL ... 1
It is best to have a literate Guru of an exalted intellectual order with spirituality of like proportion. Ignorance of any kind is reprehensible and ought not to be accorded special status in one's life.
The history of the world is the procession of humanity through the dark night of ignorance. Keeping this in mind, one must ever adhere to knowing more and associating with one of literate luminosity instead of mere rustic assumptions bound in ignorance.
The peerless Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar was a notable exception to this golden rule, in my mind, but there also, so much stress on education was laid on by his protégé that the tradition has been to go for the widest intellectual attainment in addition to the deepest spiritual realisation. For, in the absence of the intellectual accomplishment of a race along with spiritual uplift, culture declines, ruining civilisation.
What is, thus, true for an entire people is, necessarily, true for an individual, too. And, so, the preceptor-pupil relation best flourishes when both seek fulfilment in the fertilisation of the spirit and the mind through equal accomplishment in both secular and sacred studies.
Written by Sugata Bose
P.S. :
1. Sri Ramakrishna was almost unfettered, true, but highly literate yet through his prodigious aural learning and his immense observation of life around. His was a garnering of facts direct from Nature internal and Nature external. In that sense he was profoundly literate as opposed to the common conception that he was an illiterate man of masterful spiritual attainments merely. Spiritual master he sure was but he was of exalted intellectuality, too, and this has been testified by no less than his most outstanding disciple, Swami Vivekananda about whose intellectual strengths the world has ever been wondering since its mighty manifestation on earth. Both preceptor and pupil held academic accomplishment subordinate to spiritual realisation, though, as is the age-old tradition of India, but neither showed any disregard for learning. Sri Ramakrishna is on record having said, "যাবৎ বাঁচি, তাবৎ শিখি |" ("As long as I live, so long do I learn.") This is a mighty utterance and must be given full weightage in the current dispensation of the divine duo, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda.
It is best to have a literate Guru of an exalted intellectual order with spirituality of like proportion. Ignorance of any kind is reprehensible and ought not to be accorded special status in one's life.
The history of the world is the procession of humanity through the dark night of ignorance. Keeping this in mind, one must ever adhere to knowing more and associating with one of literate luminosity instead of mere rustic assumptions bound in ignorance.
The peerless Paramahamsa of Dakshineshwar was a notable exception to this golden rule, in my mind, but there also, so much stress on education was laid on by his protégé that the tradition has been to go for the widest intellectual attainment in addition to the deepest spiritual realisation. For, in the absence of the intellectual accomplishment of a race along with spiritual uplift, culture declines, ruining civilisation.
What is, thus, true for an entire people is, necessarily, true for an individual, too. And, so, the preceptor-pupil relation best flourishes when both seek fulfilment in the fertilisation of the spirit and the mind through equal accomplishment in both secular and sacred studies.
Written by Sugata Bose
P.S. :
1. Sri Ramakrishna was almost unfettered, true, but highly literate yet through his prodigious aural learning and his immense observation of life around. His was a garnering of facts direct from Nature internal and Nature external. In that sense he was profoundly literate as opposed to the common conception that he was an illiterate man of masterful spiritual attainments merely. Spiritual master he sure was but he was of exalted intellectuality, too, and this has been testified by no less than his most outstanding disciple, Swami Vivekananda about whose intellectual strengths the world has ever been wondering since its mighty manifestation on earth. Both preceptor and pupil held academic accomplishment subordinate to spiritual realisation, though, as is the age-old tradition of India, but neither showed any disregard for learning. Sri Ramakrishna is on record having said, "যাবৎ বাঁচি, তাবৎ শিখি |" ("As long as I live, so long do I learn.") This is a mighty utterance and must be given full weightage in the current dispensation of the divine duo, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda.
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