*Chapter 1 - Introduction*
*Day 2*
Om saha navavatu saha nau bhunaktu saha viryam karvavahai tejasvina mavidvisavahai
Om shanti, shanti, shantihi
This prayer is saying, “let the Divine protect us both. Let us be together. Let us develop our ability together. Let us be effulgent, brilliant. Let us not hate each other”.
The master lives on his own level and the student is on another level. How can there be communication when the levels are so different? Either the student has to come up or the teacher has to come down, otherwise communication is impossible.
So, the Master says," I am with you. Let us learn together". He does not say, “I am teaching you. You better learn. I know and you don't know”. He says, “Let us explore”.
The entire knowledge of Upanishads is from being together. A teacher or a professor, however intelligent he/she is, should not go on showing his intelligence in front of the student and make the student feel small.
So the way of teaching itself starts empowering the student right from the very first step. Otherwise, when students become aware of the magnitude of knowledge or the being, they get scared.
They say, “Oh my God, I can't do this. I don't want to do this.
Confidence has to come. How?
When the master holds the student by the hand and says, “Hey, come on. I am like you. You are like me. Come let's sit together”.
“Let us explore and discover what is here. Let us pray for the divinity to protect us both". You can pray, ‘Oh god protect me’. But when you say, God protect us", right there that individual starts expanding.
“From "me, me, to "us" is the first step in moving from the narrow, limited individual identity to the universal spirit. 'Sahaviryam' - Let us be powerful together”.
The world is a place where everyone has different abilities, but to reach the divine self, ability doesn't count. Someone can lift ten pounds, another can lift only five pounds, and someone else will hardly be able to lift one pound.
So the abilities are different, but will it stop us from attaining the ultimate? No. You can all attain the ultimate. Here again give that encouragement - “We will grow in our ability”.
That doesn't mean that you don't have to improve your skills or that you don't have to know things. You will improve. You have to know skills. Yet its not a criterion.
A mother loves her children not because of their abilities, but because they are her children. In course of life, our abilities improve. Let us grow and improve our abilities.
Let the divine develop us all, and in this course of studies let us absorb this brilliance, give us the capability to live this brilliance.
