Who is a teacher?

Sadhu, Sant, Rishi, Pandit, Acharya, Mahatma, Parmatma are different types of teachers described in literature.

The knowledge you seek, depends on your learning objectives; whether you want to satisfy your indriyas or mind, body and soul or attain ananda.

A teacher is one who takes us to true knowledge, which can be knowledge of self as well as of the subject. The knowledge so gained must be used for the benefit of all and it should not harm anybody. To understand it and discriminate between the knowledge gained, we need the help of a teacher.

A teacher may be different from a Guru.

A true guru can be at the level of Tyagi, Vairagi and Sanyasi…These are at the level of the physical body, mind and the soul respectively.

Tyaga or giving up worldly desires gives us physical happiness and vairagya or giving up desires and attachments, gives us mental happiness. A sanyasi is at the level of the soul and shows the path to achieve ananda.

You can become a scholar or teacher without actually understanding what you are studying or teaching. To prevent this, the answer is suno, samjho, jaano, karo. This is the gist of our Vedas.

We should hear, listen, understand and convert it into wisdom. Hearing means that you hear anything but listening means that you should learn its meaning. Understanding means you should understand its value in your context and wisdom means you should practice it, re-practice it and learn intricacies of its implications. Once knowledge has been converted into wisdom it is of no use unless it is made use of in day-to-day practice.

Dr KK Aggarwal

Padma Shri Awardee

Vice President CMAAO

Group Editor-in-Chief IJCP Publications

President Heart Care Foundation of India

Immediate Past National President IMA