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On
Teachers and Teaching MASTERY means to know how to deal with certain
vibrations. If you have the knowledge and can deal with the vibrations, you
have the mastery. The best field for such an experience and experiment is
yourself. First, you must have mastery over yourself and when you have it, you
can transmit its vibrations to others in so far as you are capable of
identifying yourself with them. But if you cannot deal with the vibrations in
yourself, how can you deal with them in others? You can, by word or by
influence, encourage people so that they do what is necessary to master
themselves, but you cannot yourself have direct mastery over them. To master something, a movement, for example,
means, by your simple presence, without any word, any explanation, to replace a
bad vibration by the true one. By means of the word, by means of explanation and
discussion, even a certain emanation of force, you exert an influence upon
another, but you do not master the movement. Mastery over a movement is the
capacity to set against the vibration of the movement a stronger, truer
vibration that can stop the other vibration. An example can be easily given. Two persons are quarrelling in your presence;
not only are they quarrelling, they are about to come to blows. Then you
approach and explain to them that it is not a desirable thing and you give good
reasons so that they refrain from it in the, end. You exercise an influence
over them in this way. But if, on the other hand, you simply stand before them,
look at them and send out a vibration of peace and calm and quietness without
uttering a word, without any explanation whatsoever, and if as a result the
other vibration does not stand but dies down by itself, that is mastery. It is the same
with regard to curing ignorance. If words are necessary to explain a certain
thing, then you do not have the true knowledge. If I have to speak out all that
I mean to say in order to make you understand, then I do not have the mastery,
I simply exercise an influence upon your intelligence and help you understand,
awaken in yourself the desire to know, to discipline yourself, etc., etc. But
if I am not able, simply by looking at you, without saying anything, to make
you enter into the light that will make you understand, well, I have not
mastered the state of ignorance. The problem of teachers is: how to control the classes,
how to bring the students
under discipline? How can you have control over your students
or discipline them unless you have control over yourself? But to learn to have control or mastery over
oneself would take a whole lifetime! It is a pity! But how can you hope for it
otherwise? When you have an undisciplined, disobedient, insolent student, it
means a certain vibration in the atmosphere which is unfortunately very
contagious. If you do not have in yourself the contrary vibration, the
vibration of discipline, order, humility, calmness, peace that nothing
disturbs, how can you hope, I say, to have an influence? You
may tell the student that such a thing should not be done; but the result may
be worse or he may mock at you. And if, on top of it, you do not know how to
control yourself, but get into a temper, well, you may be done for, you may
lose for your whole life all possibility of controlling your students. Teachers who do not possess perfect calm,
endurance that can stand all test, tranquillity that cannot be shaken by anything,
who have not cast off their amour propre, are not the kind that can ever succeed. You must be a saint, a hero in
order to be a good teacher. You must be a great Yogi to be a good teacher. You
must yourself have always the perfect attitude if you demand from your students
a perfect attitude. You cannot ask of any person a thing which you cannot do
yourself. So then look within yourself at the difference
there is between what is and what should be; that will give you the measure of
your lack of success in the class. Now I would like to add one word, since I
have the occasion. We have asked many of our students, when they are grown up
and know something, to teach others. There are some, I believe, who know the
reason why; but there are others who think that it is because it is good to
serve in some-way or other, because teachers are needed after all and that we
are glad to have them. But I tell you, for it is a fact, I have never asked any
of those who were educated here to give lessons unless I saw that that was the
best way for them to acquire self-discipline, to learn what they are to teach,
to attain an inner perfection which they would not do except by being teachers
and having this opportunity, an exceptionally severe one, for self-discipline. They who are successful here as teachers, – I
do not mean an external, artificial and superficial success, – they who become
truly good teachers, are exactly those who are capable of making an inner
progress towards impersonalisation, capable of eliminating their egoism,
becoming masters of their movements, possessing insight, comprehension of
others and a patience, proof against all test and trial. If you have passed through that discipline
and succeeded, then you will not have wasted your time here. I ask everyone who
accepts the work of giving lessons to accept it in that spirit. It is all very
nice to be obliging, to give service, to be useful; it is a very good thing,
certainly. But it is only one side, perhaps the most unimportant side of the
question. The much greater, more important side is this, that you have been
given the Grace so that you may arrive at mastering yourself, at an
understanding of your subject and of other persons which you could not have
done but for this opportunity. And if you have not profited during all these
years that you have been teaching, well, it means you have wasted at least half
of your time. What about the organisation of studies at the Ashram school? If the students are given full freedom, as it is
supposed you have given them, that is to say, if they are permitted to come to the classes or go away from them as they
like or learn or not learn their lessons according to their choice, then how
can a system or organisation work? Page – 161 If you do not want to pursue a certain line
of knowledge, it it is all right, you are not obliged to do so. But if you
decide to do a thing in life, whatever it is, you must do it honestly in a disciplined,
regular and methodical manner, without allowing yourself to be fanciful. I have
never approved of a person being the plaything of his impulses and caprices.
You can never get sanction for that out of me, for you are then no longer a
human being but an animal.
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