Monday, April 19, 2010

motherly sentient beings

sunrise via water, 19th april 2010
Standing on the road divider, looking at throbbing traffic, the teacher says, "Every one of these people has been your mother in a past life." The idea makes me laugh at first - eyes scan one disgruntled car-sheathed person after another - and then the idea chills me to the marrow. Take every one of these unlikely loutish mustachioed heads into one's lap with gratitude. A very real 'risk' with this vein of thought - you could implode with gentleness, have your eyes permanently transformed.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

One should definitely be very sceptical of people who make such comments while crossing a road. It's liable to lead to accidents through loss of concentration. Especially one should be wary of designating them "teacher". According to His Holiness the Dalai Lama one should spy on prospective teachers for a decade before accepting them. Until that time authentic literature and ones own wisdom are the teacher.
All beings as mother is kind of a novel idea though i must say and deserves some consideration.
And this so-called teacher of yours, what are his/her credentials then? Better check carefully or you get into trouble big-time.

amruta patil said...

'A' teacher, not 'the' teacher. One among others. That there's some learning to be received is irrefutable; spyglass will reveal the longevity and stamina of the teaching over time. Does that put things in perspective?

Also, it isn't the teacher that is raised or reduced by one referring to them as 'teacher'; to designate oneself as a learner is merely an exercise in checking grandiose ego. But you know that already.

Anonymous said...

Mm...guess one was just checking you were not raising someone up to the level where their eventual inevitable fall might put Humpty-Dumpty to shame.

"Kabir says,Listen Friend.My Beloved Master lives inside!"
Kabir-1440-1518.

amruta patil said...

Been predisposed to making heroes, teachers, mentors of mortal men, and then standing back to watch them plummet; or backing off as they succumbed and started to manipulate instead of nurture. Now will take a good thought from 'sufi saint and snoopy the dog alike'. Next up: making coherence out of patchwork.

:)

Anonymous said...

Wise decision my child.
keep it up.

PT the Axis said...

what a great idea - to use the word 'teacher' without actually meaning it i.e. doing practicals like bowing/serving required to recieve anything ... ego is going to just get a boost through its delusions of learning through setting up numerous fraud teacher-student relationships

+

how will you make coherence
when you are a ball of incoherence

amruta patil said...

@ PT: surely interacting with various people doesn't preclude right attitude or humility? about coherence - longterm learning, with ample assistance from the universe. said nothing of making a solo project of it.

Anonymous said...

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.When Life is the greatest teacher, who needs the so called self-proclaimed Gurus ?

PT the Axis said...

changing oneself is what happens when the kundalini runs through all the chakra's upto sahastrar

@ amruta - not even a blade of grass worth of learning (long term or short term - crazy notions) is possible without bowing down to higher/divine
anywhere in this multiverse ...

what is interacting ? is it as equal, lower or higher - can't be anything except the above 3 options -
& there are codes for all 3

PT the Axis said...

@ anonymous - if life by itself was a teacher everyone would be enlightened by now ... every persons family lines have been here on earth for thousands of years

and where in any puranic scripture does learning happen without bowing down to higher rishi's or divine itself ?

@ amruta - so sum total of many incoherences would lead to coherence
-2 + -4 + -8 + ... = a bigger minus
not a smaller minus