Prayer Of Peace For The Master And The Disciple

Swami Chinmayananda

oi-Priya

By Priya Devi

Wednesday, April 25, 2012, 14:36

Om Saha navavathu
Saha now bhunakthu
Saha veeryam karavavahai
Thejaswina vadheethamasthu
Maa vidwishavahai.
Om Shanthihi! Shanthihi!! Shanthihi!! (Kathopanishad)

“Let Him protect us both. May He Bless us with, the Bliss of Knowledge. Let, us exert together. May what we study be well studied! May we not hate (quarrel with) each other!
Om Peace! Peace !! Peace !l"

This Peace-verse gives us an idea of the team spirit in which the teacher and the taught approached the business of teaching and learning. How far removed is / it from the modem relationship between the teacher and the taught!

Today the preacher reaches the desk only to pull through his job and the students seem to be there to put in only their compulsory period of attendance! To the teacher the taught has become an unavoidable and gruesome botheration: to the taught the teachers are thorns in the otherwise-soft-flower-bed of their college days!!

In Brahma Vidya no progress is possible without the active cooperation of the teacher and equally sincere co-operation of the taught. Hence, the special prayer "May we never quarrel with each other." This prayer seems to be specially imperative in the study of the scripture where the chances for wasteful and useless arguments are so many that they can lead us into the meshes' of ruinous misunderstanding, understanding and non-understanding of the Sruthi at every step.

Each day the teacher and the pupil started and ended their lessons chanting this stanza of peace. Even today wherever the Sruthi is taught this practice is strictly followed.