MY RESPONSE TO AN INCIDENT INVOLVING A QUESTION OF IRREVERENCE OF A STUDENT TOWARD A TEACHER [Times of India dated July 7, 2007]The reasons for the "i

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I could have added the following also in my above free-style and spontaneous, unedited response:: Our Vedic injunction is both for the teacher and the taught to begin their routine with a prayer : Let us learn together, Let us both enjoy this delectable routine together, Let us, both the teacher and the taught, seek the vigour of an enlightened personality through a well-directed endeavour of teaching and learning, Let us both, the Acharya and the Sishya, learn the essence of true love totally eschewing any iota of mutual hatred or disregard, May there be Peace that embellishes our Thinking, Speaking and Acting faculties". This is one golden rule that should be imbibed in the teacher and taught. Secularism of education does not mean anything if it follows a blind rule of totally ignoring even such non-denominational teachings of our eternally valid scriptures such as the Upanishads (the latter part of the Vedas which concentrate on 'Vedanta or Veda-anta' (a word which etymologically speaking, is cognate with "wit-end" (what we often use as "wits' end" referring to a state of persisting confusion despite our best to solve a tangled real life problem or just an academic "exercise" to test our grasp and understanding. Vedanta, however, offers reasonably satisfactory answers to our intensely searching questions such as what is the fundamental reality of all that is visible to our naked senses and of what is thus not visible, and so forth. It does not leave you in the confused or at least ever-questioning frame of mind with which you started asking another on these nagging questions. Incidentally, Vedanta is not, as some hasty seekers of knowledge (or otherwise seekers with just a mediocre dose of investigating and understanding power and persistence to enquire) seem to think, a futile mental endeavour, or even just an absurd pastime for idlers. Suffice it to say that some of the most brilliant and real achievers among intellectuals - such as Erwin Schroedinger, a great German physicist and a Nobel Laureate, and Arthur Schopenhauer a great philosopher of eternal fame (also a German) - drew inense and durable inspiration till their very end in their respective intellectual pursuits. They of course pursued their respective intellectual endeavours for the sake of humanity, not for any personal materialistic enrichment, per se.