Education: for a Transformation

The Boy and the King

There was, once upon a time, a young boy from a remote village, who came to the city to earn his living. He found himself employed in a small hotel situated in a lonely location at a side of a big highway, where, the owner of the hotel had provision to offer lodging to only a single boarder. The owner used to stay in the city and used to visit the hotel once in every month. The young boy had to take care of the hotel as well as cater to the needs of the guest whoever used to stay there. When the owner used to visit the hotel at the beginning of the month, he had to report all the happenings to him.

In his first week of service, the young boy has to serve a business man who was on his way to a remote city. The businessman was tired and had to spend the night there. The young boy offered him food, water to take bath and looked after his well beings. However, the businessman behaved very rudely with him in spite of all the hospitalities the boy offered to him. The poor boy withstood all the insult, did his best to do his duties until next day morning when the businessman checked out of the hotel and threw some money to his face.

The next guest was a saint. He was on his way towards a sacred place and in between he decided to take rest . He did not want any room or luxurious bed, simply satisfied by whatever was offered by the boy and , in the next morning, he also left. He did not have anything to offer, but a ring which looked very much different from usual.

Next week he was horrified. The guest to the hotel was a wounded dacoit. Horrified, he tried to do his best this time also to do his duties. He protected all the arms and the other belongings of the dacoit, offered him good food , treated his wound which was bleeding. The dacoit slept well and next day he offered the young boy a gold coin as gift before he left.

In the fourth week, he received a strange guest. A well built man, handsome, with saintly looks , well dressed and a sign of big wound in his arm. The boy offered a warm welcome treat to him also. By this time the young boy was habituated to treat with equal responsibility and care all types of people, he has offered the same care for the saint, the businessman and the dacoit. Each time he used to serve a guest, he was dedicated in his duties, regardless of who it was. But in the fourth week of this month, this guest resembled none of the previous guests in attitude. In fact he was a mixture; the serene and blissful eyes and smile like the saint, the expensive cloths like the businessman wore and the wound exactly in the same location as the dacoit had.

The strange guest understood that the boy was perplexed. He ordered him to come back to his room after half an hour. The boy, extremely puzzled, came back to the guest’s room after half an hour and found the businessman whom he catered to in the first week. The only difference was now he was smiling, the rudeness was never seen any more. He offered the boy some money again.

Next, he asked him to go back and come back again in another half an hour. When he returned, with utter surprise, he discovered the saint there, the businessman was no longer seen. The saint, again with a serene smile, showed him the similar ring, which the boy got in the second week.

Upon asked again, the young boy, puzzled and amazed, came out and re entered the room after another half an hour. This time, as he guessed, the dacoit was there. He asked the boy to apply some more medicine to his wound which was nearly cured by the time. The boy did and the dacoit laughed heavily. Finally he offered him another gold coin.

The young boy was asked to vacate the room and re enter after ten minutes.

He re entered. With bulged eyes, he saw the same strange guest, with saintly eyes, rich cloths and wounded hand was sitting there. He said, ‘my boy. Its me , the same person, who accepted your offering in the past three weeks as a businessman, as a saint and as a dacoit. I am the king of this kingdom.’

The boy was shocked! He has treated the king for the last one month! The king requested the boy not to tell about his royal presence to the owner when he comes back in the next month. He may tell the owner about the businessman, the saint and the dacoit. Finally, the king offered the boy lots of gold coins and left the hotel.

In the next month, the owner came. The young boy narrated him everything , except the incident of the king. He handed over all the money he earned that month. The owner was astonished and gifted the boy with a gold ring.

The owner used to invest the money to improve the hotel. It was more decorated, more luxurious, was still single roomed to cater to a single guest only. In the next week also, the king came to see and offered him more gold coins.

In the third week, the king asked the boy “ Who are you ?”
The boy thought….what a question to ask…. He had been seeing me since last couple of months. He replied “ I am your servant , your Excellency”.

The king smiled.

Every month the king used to visit and the boy used to treat him with the same care. The king used to ask him the same question, “Who are you ?” to receive the same answer “ I am your servant , your Excellency”.

However, there was a change in the boy also. The young boy, who came from the village to earn his living, now became more confident, fearless and royal in his attitude with remarkable aristocracy , yet gentle and polite. The owner seemed to be surprised by his aristocracy, yet, he did not tell anything. The income of the hotel shot up with voluminous money offered by the king.

The boy felt a big change in him. He used to listen from the king about his kingdom, the politics, the responsibilities of a good leader etc.. He used to give his opinions also to the king. The king also used to discuss several matters of his kingdom with the boy. The boy was wise enough to answer the king , many times the king implemented the decision of the boy. The boy felt a tremendous importance bestowed to him and he was trying to shoulder it with the confidence he gathered during the last year.

After one year, the king asked him “Who are you ?”
The boy replied “When I don’t see you, I feel that I am your part. When I sit with you, talk to you, I feel that you and me are inseparable. I am You.”

The king smiled and replied “Yes, my boy, you are the king….. you and me are inseparable !”

The boy was offered to go to the capital of the kingdom to participate in the royal work, but he gently replied “ My employer has entrusted me the work of looking after this hotel. If I go with you, sir, it will be a breech of trust. I should be here to look after his hotel and report to him in the next month.”

Then the king laughed and asked the boy to go out for a while. After some time , he was called in.

The boy was surprised to see his owner sitting there. He was laughing “My boy, am I not your owner ? “

The boy was speechless. The gentleman continued “ I am the king of this kingdom. I was the owner who employed you. I was the businessman, saint and dacoit. I love taking different make-ups while I look after my kingdom.”

The boy was bewildered ! He was employed by the king himself ! That ‘owner’ was the king in disguise !

The king told “You be here, my boy ! Remember, you are the ‘king’ , my own reflection. Be a king of your ‘self’, let the royal aristocracy be reflected in all the works you do. Work like a king with your head held high. Your livings will be taken care by the royal stores.”

Vedanta : An Approach to the Wholeness

The boy in our story, in his first month of service, served all the guests with equal care. While some of the guests resembled ‘Satwaguna’ (like the saint), some resembled ‘Rajoguna’ (like the businessman) , some resembled ‘Tamoguna’ (like the dacoit). It also resembles different forms of Gods being worshipped by mankind; Shiva, Vishnu, Durga, Kali, etc.. Mankind worships all with equal veneration, like the boy who served all the guests with equal care. That is called Bahubad (the sense of worshipping different forms of God).

Next, when the boy came to know about the one-ness of all the guests, he got acquainted with the king, he felt himself to be the servant of the king. Similarly, mankind, at some point of time, feels the one-ness of all the apparently different entities and considers that unique entity as the Supreme power, the Almighty. Almighty is considered as the master, mankind being the servant of that Supreme. That is called Dwaitabad.

Next, the boy coexisted with the king for long and acquired kingly gestures. It is common in mankind also. If one spends time with strongs and braves , he acquires strength. The boy’s attitude became royal. He started , in his gradual transformation, to feel himself as a part of the king himself , and not a simple servant. Mankind, after the feeling of Dwaita (or duality, me and you the Almighty) starts feeling himself as a part of the ultimate. That is Bishita-Advaitabad.


The presence of the king helped him to nurture the confidence which was already present within himself. The king did not ‘inject’ any confidence or aristocracy externally to the boy; he only helped him to grow those qualities inherent in him. The small village boy, became the King ! He attained the ‘state’ of royal hood . Mankind, after attaining the state of Bishishta-Advaitabad, at some point of time, realizes the one-ness of himself with the Ultimate. He is no longer a part of the Ultimate, he becomes the whole through realization. This is Advaitabad.

Promotion from Bahubad to Advaita is a transformation which one experiences as the canopy of darkness is made to remove from his eyes. It comes through education, the process of discovering one’s own treasures within himself and discovering, in course of time his own presence pervading throughout the Universe.

The Vedas, our old texts, are divided into two parts, Karmakanda and Jnankanda. The former discusses about different rituals and processes, while the latter is dedicated to the intellectual probing of the Ultimate. The précis of the Jnanakanda , forming the last part of the Vedas, constitutes Vedanta. The Vedanta tells about one-ness and describes how the formless uniqueness has divided itself at lower dimensions to apparently different forms.


Education and the Oneness of the Whole

All our ancient texts have advocated the lesson of searching for the undercurrent of unity in diversity. Like all the rivers flow through different paths and find their confluence in the same ocean of infinity, the lessons taught by our texts focus on the fundamental truth of the oneness. Education, as perceived by the intellect, is the realization of and the appreciation for the deeper communion in apparently different streams leading to the same ultimate.

Education, therefore, is not an entity to be injected externally; rather, it unveils what is deeply stained in the mind of mankind. That is intellect. Man, as son of eternity, bliss and joy (Amritashya Putra) is gifted with intellect, regardless of his materialistic status. Education removes the obstacles that subdue the inner spirit, thereby making one realize the joy of enlightenment. Once enlightened, the lotus of intellect blooms to completeness and stretches its petals facing towards the eternal light.


The Individual Self

There won’t be any room for darkness, once one can see the light of bliss wherever he looks at. There can neither be sorrow, nor joy when one’s ‘self’ extends beyond the bodily boundaries and embraces the universe. That state of unruffled-ness is a manifestation of immense potential energy, parts of which are manifested kinetically in the form of dynamism in every corners of the Universe. My small bodily ‘self’ starts feeling its existence even in the distant galaxies light years away, my ‘self’ is felt as the dance of the ocean waves, eruptions of volcanoes, tremble of the leaves , in every atoms and every star-constellations. ‘I’ become the Universe, when I am educated.

If one can split his brain in two parts, a part which is the observer (Drashta) and the latter the observed (Drishya), he can perform an experiment every time he goes to sleep. One can monitor with the Drashta part how does his sense (Drishya) gets gradually diluted to make him sleep. Gradually, this dilution of sense happens to the Drashta part as well, in the process of which he can feel how does the bodily self gets absorbed to infinity. This is like a ball of salt getting dissolved in water; form becoming formless. This experiment requires some practice, but once mastered, one can enjoy the sense of becoming as vast as the Universe.

When a block of glass is as clear as a crystal, it does not reveal itself. If, on the other hand, there be any optical inhomogeneity in the glass block (say, a lump with a different refractive index than the surroundings) , it is seen as a different existence. Similarly , ‘self’ is confined to the bodily boundaries and is manifested as an ‘individual’ because of the inhomogeneity of one’s life’s rhythm as compared to the rhythm of the Universal wholeness. This is like an insoluble lump of sand grains in water. This ‘inhomogeneity’ is the root cause of ‘aham’ or ‘bodily confined individual self’. Compare this with a novice singer in a chorus song, who can not sing in consonance with the others and hence, his voice is audible as the odd tune out.

The Universal self

The yogis speak of pranayamas to tune one’s own rhythm to that of the infinity. The pranayamas ensure the stability of the inner clock (established through the periodicity of rhythmic respiration) which helps in discovering the macrocosom imploded into the bodily boundary itself, or in other words, exploding the inner self to the Universal self.


If one submits his individual ‘self’ to the Universal ‘self’, he loses his small identity, he is promoted to Samadhi. The vastness overrides his small ‘self’. In a prolonged Samadhi, one does not live for many days (our texts say, 21 days), because ‘life’, in limited sense, is defined as the act of retaining one’s individual existence, fighting against all the forces of nature. Physicists and engineers may compare it with the concept of an engine in thermodynamics drawing energy from a source and giving up to a sink. The vastness always tries to override and engulf the individuals, it is ‘life’ which fights back, retains its individuality as a bubble in the waveful of ocean. When ‘life’ terminates, as if the bubble collapses, its individuality is again dissolved in the infinite vastness.


Education refers to having a feeling of the vastness. The ‘self’ , like a lyre, whose strings are tuned to the tune of the vastness, can resonate in all tunes and hence can become great teachers. A great teacher is the one, who can suit all types of disciples, with different states of individual selves. A great teacher can lit the candles of all his disciples from the light of his own heart, which, he himself has lit when he has tuned himself to eternity. From Samadhi, he comes back to the material or earthly level to share his spiritual treasures with his students. Yet, he has a limitation to share the ‘seed’ of all realizations, to whatever extent he preaches as a gifted orator, the ‘seed’ of all knowledge still remains ‘intangible’ or ‘inexplicable’. The teacher himself might have perceived ‘that’ in his highest spiritual state (may be as a scientist, a dancer, a musician or as a saint) , but as soon as he comes out of that state to reach his students, he can not bring ‘that’ fire like Prometheus. That ‘seed’ of all knowledge is referred to as Brahmojnana, the Atmodarshan, knowing one’s own self integrating from the limit of the body to the infinity.

This seed of knowledge, Atmodarshan, was the one, which young Nachiketa wanted to learn from Yama, as described in the Kathopanishada. The lesson refers to the eternal question of every intellect and its eternal answer; Who am I, and Why ?

Upanishadas tell very beautifully about a truth regarding education. Regardless of the intellectual strength of the teacher, the student can be imparted only fifty percent of the knowledge. Among the rest fifty percent, twenty five percent is acquired through discussion with the fellow mates. And the last twenty five percent? That is the seed of all knowledge, Prana of the structure of knowledge, which comes to oneself though introspection and meditation; in the process of which one is transformed to the realization of the Advaita ; he becomes the knowledge personified. Every education waits for this completeness, when the candle in the heart of the individual is lit from the fire of the unique ultimate !

(Written in October, 2008)