Guru- Chela

- Dr. Jayadeva Yogendra

The Guru Chela relationship is a very interesting and important relationship. It is important in yoga and also in all learning processes. It may not be put forward as Guru and Chela, but in any situation where learning has to occur, certain kinds of attitudes are necessary. A learner has to remain a learner. But that is where the crucial difficulty occurs. The learner is intelligent and can think ahead and he is not in a receptive mood to absorb. He is challenging, thinking, rationalizing and arguing. These are considered as normal and desirable traits. But if you see it critically, in a learning situation, the learner should not put up any resistance. If the teacher says go this way and the learner challenges why this way,  wrong, irrational, but then this very fine arrangement gets destroyed if the learner puts up a resistance.

Sometimes, in the early Upanishads, the teacher just wanted to see whether the learner is really eager and willing to follow. This itself started the learning why not that way, the learning will not start. Occasionally, instructions appear as unreasonable, process, and in some cases this ended the learning process. An