When somebody asked Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, “What would you like to be remembered as? Scientist, missile man, President of India or Bharat Ratna?” His answer was totally unexpected. He said TEACHER. Teacher means Guru. The word “Guru” is derived from Sanskrit language and now a days, the word Guru is being commonly used all over the world. In Sanskrit GU mean darkness and RU mean light. So Guru means who can take you from darkness to light. Darkness is ignorance and light is wisdom.

In our life, our first Guru is our parents. We learn the first lessons from our mother and father. Scientists say that our 85% brain gets developed till the age of 5 and this is the age when we are mostly guided by our parents. We get our second Guru when we start schooling. Kabir – a great poet of 15th century in India has considered Guru as greater than God.

In ancient days, Guru was not allowed to receive and keep money. It was society’s responsibility to take care about needs of Guru. Hence, Guru used to impart knowledge selflessly. But, in present days imparting education has become completely commercialized. This has resulted into lesser respect for teachers. However, digitization and internet has made all the knowledge and information available at a click and that too free of cost. Still, we need teacher in our life that can teach us, enhance our wisdom and make us aware of what is right and what is wrong.

If a man has continuous thirst for knowledge/ learning and he/she is ready to be student than anything or anyone around is a teacher. Because no one knows everything but everyone knows something. To learn, we should keep all our senses alert all the time.

Real Guru is one who is like a candle in dark room and he lights the candle of his student so that when both the candles are lit, one cannot differentiate between sources of the light in the room.

अंधकार में जो हमे, सत्यमार्ग दिखलाय।
चाहे जीव अजीव हो, वही गुरु कहलाय।।

For Hindi Blog: http://nectarofwisdom.in/wig/