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The Gurukula Experience
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It is not easy to write about the Gurukula experience, as it is like trying to describe a river - you can describe the banks, the rocks, the falls, but the river, it flows, on ever the same, ever different. So, in order to convey the experience, one has to talk about the experience. Vinaya Chaitanya shares |
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The "Gurukula Experience", in its essence, has been known from the earliest
days of human aspiration. The silent, youthful teacher seated under a
banyan tree, surrounded by students who are old, is an idiom which is
still very alive in Eastern cultural traditions. The old disciples represent
the age-old questions of humanity while the silent youth stands for the
newness of the answers when they arise as well as the nature of the teaching,
which transcends words. Gurus, as representatives and exemplars of the
perennial wisdom of life have always lived in every time and clime, even
as they do now.
Wisdom refers to our finalised knowledge, thoughts and feelings understood
in living and dynamic terms. A Guru revalues and restates perennial wisdom
to answer the need of his/her time. The wisdom heritage of humanity has
always been upheld by Gurus -- World Teachers -- since their lives and
teachings are constantly reaffirming universal core values of life, such
as love and kindness, equality and justice, in their particular expressions
in the daily life of people. Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Gautama Buddha, Mahavira,
Jesus Christ, the Prophet Mohammed are some of the name of such illustrious
teachers we have had. It is indeed a great pity that we have lost the
names and traditions of the numerous women teachers, even though it is
mostly through the grandmothers that human wisdom has been preserved.
Narayana Guru, (1854-1928) who inspired the founding of the Gurukula was
a wisdom teacher belonging to such a line of Gurus. He emphasised the
need to transcend parochialisms of all kinds- whether in the name of caste
or race, language, sex or faith. This was not to be reached through any
homogenisation, but through recognising the underlying unity of human
aspiration. His teachings could be summarised in the dictum "Humanity
is of one Caste, one faith and one Goal".
His disciple-successor, Nataraja Guru, founded the Narayana Gurukula Foundation,
as an educational institute where the ideals of self-realisation as well
as world-citizenship can be actualised through an open and dynamic way
of plain living and high thinking. While considering all religious/spiritual
traditions as the common heritage of all humanity, it also keeps neutral
between belief and scepticism, as well as between all such bipolarities.
Such a way of seeing "both together" instead of "either/or " is known
as yoga in India. Yoga means union -- union of the wave with the ocean.
Nataraja Guru saw the Gurukulas as "islands of neutrality in an ocean
of insanity". He also called it 'Narayana Gurukula Unlimited', meaning
the liability of each to all and all to each is unlimited. He saw the
whole world as a Gurukula.
This is a general background of the Gurukula. The place in Bangalore where
we live is one of the many centres of the Gurukula. There are 16 others
in India and a few in other parts of the world. Margaret & I have been
living here for the last 27 years. We met in the Gurukula as Nataraja
Guru's students and were married 25 years ago. We have 4 children aged
between 24 and 12 -- three girls and a boy. The eldest, Hypatia Anasuya
has just qualified as an Ayurvedic doctor. The other 3 are in school and
colleges. As far as I know, they are the only children in their schools
whose caste and religion is 'Humanity'.