An Omnibus Tapas – the Pupil

What does a modern yet traditional teacher instruct his pupils to do in the midst of the rush and complexity of present-day life? I will give you a formula which can be adapted to meet so many needs that it might well be called an ‘omnibus tapas’, although I did not realise its value when I obtained it.

After I had been a student for some little time my Teacher told me that he was giving me a pupil. Half deafened by the uproar of delighted acceptance which arose in my mind, and busily engaged in wondering who the lucky candidate was to be, I heard him say: “Yes, a pupil— yourself. From now on you will take up the position of teacher, and your mind the position of pupil”. Of course I was highly disappointed, for I did not know then that he was giving me a practice which would start me on a long pursuit, one which would, if done faithfully, at last unmask egoity and cut at the root of self-pity and remorse. To be dis-identified is a pre-requisite to clear vision. In affairs of the world, you can always advise someone else, because you are not involved in their difficulties, indeed your success in this role is in ratio to your detachment. But your own affairs are an eternal puzzle, simply because you are so deeply involved in them. This is the law on which this practice is based. A teacher is secure in his own freedom. He can see through pretence, he has compassion with the frailties of his pupils but he is untouched by them. On the other hand, when the pupil begins the struggle with his mind, he becomes deeply involved and often feels contaminated by the faults he is discovering and trying to cure. This impedes his progress and often produces apathy and remorse— remorse which our Teacher has called ‘the Devil’s most powerful weapon’.

Now, when you place your so-called pupil before you under this discipline and he stands, protesting that he is weak, that he is no good, that he will never make a Yogi, and above all, that he is in great distress, it is a heartening experience to hear yourself saying: “This isn’t grief— its resistance! No remorse— inner change!” When he laments to you that the world is so worldly, and everyone so unyogic— you find yourself saying: “This is a mere waste of energy. Are you their pupil or mine?” and he is put to confusion.

Under this practice you learn, in time, to recognise— I don’t say to correct, but to recognise— the twistings and turnings of your pupil’s mind, due to egoity. Efforts to break egoity in yourself, by saying at every turn, “that is egoism— I must not be egoistic” often have the effect of making egoity twine, cobra-like, tighter and tighter round your mind, until you are completely ego-bound. On the other hand, some come to believe, at a certain stage, that they have grown almost selfless, only to find that they have merely produced an interiorly held picture of their personality which is stronger than any manifestation of egoity which preceded it. This form of discipline guards against these two calamities; but if they should happen, the practice has not been carried out correctly.