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Today I had a
radio interview. But not how it normally is but for
an internet radio. They called from America
and I talked for about an hour with them. They
recorded it all and will broadcast it soon. Maybe we
will be able to put it on our website then, too.
As I was
talking about differences between India and the west
yesterday something else came into my mind today
which caught my attention. I was talking about
respect in the last days, too, and there is a huge
difference between the respect for teachers that is
shown here in India and that is shown in the west.
When I am travelling in the west I can see that
actually there is very often not much respect for
the teacher at all. The idea there is that you pay
for the teacher so he has to be there and do his
job. You pay for a course of 20 hours and that he
has to fulfill, that is all. The respect is not
really there but it is also the teacher's attitude
that contributes to this. If the teacher thinks,
"okay, I got 15 students who will pay me for the
next course, that is it" then he will not put his
love and effort into bringing knowledge to his
students. I know a lot of teachers there, too, who
don't want to be teacher anymore because they do not
have the feeling that they are respected for what
they want to pass on. And I heard from a lot of
young people who only become teacher because they do
not know what else to do. That is also not right.
There has to be the wish to teach, to help passing
on knowledge. And then teachers are more respected.
Here in India, if I see one of my teachers now on
the street, I will go and greet him with respect.
You know in earlier times this was a very divine
relation between the teacher and the students. And
still now you can see each morning in Ashram, after
Sanskrit class every student greets the Sanskrit
teacher respectfully and they feel honoured that
they can learn from him.
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