Lessons In The Classroom Of Life

Dear Satchi,

Is it a surprise that we learn most when we are teaching? I don't know about you, I for one growing up never worried about exams and that used to frustrate not only parents but my friends even. Oh I can recall so many instances - a cousin calls to wish me the best for my II PU exams and was appalled that I was fast asleep instead of studying. The diligent one that I was, I always used to walk out of exam halls after sitting in and doing my best for the mandated half hour. On the other hand I sat through every lab I ever took and it was never for marks. I loved the dissections and the experiments. On the rare occasion I have studied, I have walked into the exam hall to find out that I had studied the wrong paper. I had given up on exams even before I started! and my exam taking was exactly this.....

While I used be shocked when my son as a toddler would say "Why should my teachers know that I know something!" at a deeper level, I understood it too and I am grateful for the genes he has inherited from his dad's side. My DD, we are still working on that side of the gene to show itself! As a teacher, I still struggle to teach the same to my students - to learn for the love of learning but to do well in exams as well!

This my friend is the power of now!! You are more fortunate than me us to have understood it well.

Contemplative Satchi? Well, we get snippets out of you! Enjoyed it.

 

Dear Satchitananda,

I enjoyed reading your introspective snippet about the Classroom of life.
It just does not click to many to do what they really want to do.They are pushed to the level of liking what they are ordained to do.Reading for knowledge sake or for the mere joy of it is what we want.
We may not write exam;we may not be awarded marks.

But can we avoid the exams totally?
Every human being, without his/her knowledge undertakes exams and becomes a participant of a 'quiz' programme conducted by Destiny or God day in and day out.
Entrance to the'quiz' is mandatory.His scores are not revealed.He does not know whether he wins or loses.Automatically he is taken to the next level. He is never dismissed from the Quiz.
There are different levels-the innocent childhood when we cry denote our wants;the boyhood when we convey by talks;our wants are sometimes fulfilled and not fulfilled on other occasions;There are breezy happy sessions as well as stormy and tornado sessions--the happy love making period, the confusions relating to choosing a course of study, job or life partner;begetting kids and enjoying innocent smiles; struggle in dealing with teen age children;building a happy home,have handsome investments,have minor and major ailments;incurring heavy expenditure for treatment, parting with dear and near ones-whether old or young.

We have to get along with this exam of life, the scorer being the Destiny.Once you are born ,you can never escape being examined.Only thing-there is no success or failure.We are never considered disqualified.Our scores in the form of papas and punyas are directly taken into account during our next birth( if one believes in reincarnations)and the quiz continues in the next birth also.

What I am arriving to say is you may avoid going to exam hall, avoid writing an answer paper and avoid being assessed or ranked.But can you avoid being examined by Destiny
and avoid undergoing all anxieties and agonies, trials and tribulations which are nothing but the scores of the real tests?
Life is an exam without question paper, answer paper, pen and ink and unrevealed marks.

Jayasala42

 

Satchi,

As I read the snippet, my mind kept jumping up to say, that's pricisely what I think and feel You know, a year ago I read a book 'I am another you' by Priya Kumar. The philosophy of universal oneness she talks about is amazing. As I read @Srama, I almost screamed, that's me! I guess, irrespective of the path and the journeys we take, most of us arrive at the same universal feelings and understandings some day.(Let us not include those born geniuses who knew their purpose in life the moment they slid out of their mother's womb.)

As I read @Gauri03, I said, here again, the sameness! My poetry The Slippery Present expressed the same thoughts!

I loved the following lines, "What is the use of living if one has to find a purpose to justify it? Living for a purpose and not finding a purpose to live for should be how it is, I think. Suddenly it dawned - that time is here. I hung on there and now I am living for some purpose. What a blessing to be at that stage of life where there is so much to be involved in!" What a nice article by you, Satchi, that reaffirms we are all one: I AM ANOTHER YOU! It is so reassuring.

 

Dear Satchi,

In my view, there is only one major purpose. Understanding that I am not here by accident and I am here for a reason. Many learned people say "You are born to learn not to be born again". Setting aside highly complex theories, I have to realize I have come here to fulfill some unfulfilled thoughts, enjoy the fruits of good actions and suffer the consequences of bad actions. While pursuing the unfulfilled desire, we also need to make an effort to study how to eliminate our desires in the process of purifying ourselves. Living in the present moment accepting things as it happens is one of the right living techniques.

Developing good character, purifying our soul from the encryption, developing a mind that would receive pleasure and pain the same way, detachment to the world, hold all possession in trust, see all that manifests in front of our eyes as one and the same, express gratitude for the opportunity to refine and transform ourselves and eliminate all our bad qualities are some of the purposes. We have come here to gain ultimate knowledge that would remove all our sufferings once and for all. The urge to be one with the Lord never diminishes until it happens.

If I had to say one word as purpose, I would say "Cleansing".

Viswa