Lessons From the World

- Swamini Shraddhanandji

The many gurus of the Avadhuta:

                                

                                 The Avadhuta said to the Yaadava king that he had learnt several important lessons from the world and that the whole world was his guru. Saying so he introduces 24 such teachers. This is the famous portion of Uddhava Gita popularly called as avadhutopaakhyaana. There is however a mistaken corollary derived from this portion that since one can learn from the world one does not require the teachings of the shaastra or living with a guru and so one can avoid the systematic study of the shaastras from a guru. There are people who even go to the extent of saying that there are invisible masters wandering in this world and even they can teach many lessons. So where is the need of shaastric study or for surrendering to a live guru? Dattaatraya avadhuta handles this misconception by saying that these gurus from the world owe their capacity to teach to the learner's capacity to learn. The world's capacity to be a guru depends upon the learner's maturity to interpret properly and learn the right lesson from the right guru. An event can teach you a lesson only if the event is interpreted correctly. An alcoholic was admitted into a rehabilitation center and was given a demonstration of how the worms put into a glass of alcohol died in a few minutes. The demonstration was meant to withdraw the alcoholic from his craving for alcohol. But the alcoholic ended up interpreting that if alcohol is put into one's stomach it will kill the bacteria and save the person from getting a disease. The intellect is very tricky. Unless the intellect is refined properly it cannot learn an appropriate lesson.  The intellect however can be refined only by a regular and a systematic study of the shaastras. For the world to be a guru one has to be well versed in the shaastras. In fact the study of shaastra alone helps one to interpret the worldly situations correctly. The worldly elements are all inert in nature. They cannot teach a person verbally nor can they correct a person when there are misinterpretations. It must be clearly understood that the lessons from the world are not a replacement of the shaastric study. They can become useful only when aided by a systematic study of the shaastra from a competent guru. The avadhuta was a gyani who had interpreted the lessons well and had gathered wisdom to become a liberated one moving freely in the world.

(To be continued for the next post...)