Transactional Coaches, not Gurus

A parable of good behavior that I was told as a child, was that if you're walking and you meet god and your teacher together, you must first greet your teacher since the teacher shows you the path to god.

Since Sanskrit is dead, and the general populace only understands smatterings of it, any shlok/mantr in Sanskrit is taken as the word of god. One such subterfuge is "gurur brahma, gurur vishnu, ...," which basically says that the guru is the boss of the universe.

Eklavya's story from the Mahabharat made me question who was on the side of dharm vs adharm. Eklavya learnt archery on his own, but gave misplaced credit to the guru Dronacharya, who had promised to make Arjun the best archer. So Dronacharya asked Eklavya to slice off his thumb off as dakshina, a tuition fee, to the guru, thereby enabling him to keep the promise made to Arjun.

The rampant abuse of people by the current generation of sri-sris, swamis, yogis and acharyas has been getting widespread public attention in recent years. It is time for modern Hindus to free themselves from the yoke of gurudom and think of people who guide them as transactional coaches. A transactional coach is takes on the role only for the duration of the transaction - no more. You need to play soccer well, you work with a soccer coach. You need to learn yoga, you work with a yoga coach, etc. 

No more spiritual mumbo jumbo. No more dakshinas than the established free market rate. This will enable the "tax" on the Hindu household that currently goes into maintaining the lifestyles of gurus to be used into more productive community building activities.

A coach is an experienced person who has spent years absorbing the field he's coaching about. Is advice from anyone else even legitimate? If Modi, a person who dropped out from school, starts to preach on how to perform well in exams, he needs to be vociferously ignored. Rahul Dravid's personal experience in the Indian national side has enabled him as the head of Indian Cricket's youth program, to keep a full pipeline of cricketers ready for the next level. He has picked winners such as Mohammed Siraj with regularity. 

A coach is able to identify weaknesses to improve upon and guide you on how to play to your strengths. But coaches are only that - experts in their field who get paid to provide guidance to improve. Their guidance is neither a favor to the player, nor indispensable to the player's growth. Granting a coach mythical guru-like stature simply enables abuses - whether in India or in the US at places like Penn State and US Gymnastics.

Have a good long weekend.

Kuntal.