Question the Question

I have been teaching for almost thirty-five years, though I do not have a penchant for it. What I like most is studying, not teaching. But teaching seems to be my karma.

As soon as I began learning Sanskrit, I also began teaching it. It seemed I was always being approached to teach something or another. The truth is - I have learned more from teaching than from studying.

Different teachers have their own styles. Some do not allow questions during their lectures; questions may be asked only at the end. Others allow questions at any time. I belong to the second category.

Sometimes the questions bring out the finer details of the subject. Everyone benefits. Sometimes they are irrelevant, unclear, or trivial - a waste of time, and oftentimes annoying. But in modern times, the teacher is expected never to get annoyed, to remain tolerant and respectful. Gone are the days when teachers ruled the roost.

I had just begun studying Tarka Saṅgraha from Svāmī Śrī Śyāma Śaraṇa Ji Mahārāja Nyāyācārya, a renounced and learned ācārya of the Nimbārka Sampradāya. Sitting on the floor before him, I felt an itch on my ear and began to scratch it. He noticed. He rebuked me heavily. I stopped immediately - and in twenty-two more years of study under him, never dared to do such a thing again.

He was not an irate person. He was very loving. Sometimes, teaching a difficult passage of Nyāya, he would stop the lesson entirely, unwilling to move on until the point had clarified itself. Later he would come to my room and say, "Satyanārāyaṇa, I understood the point." He taught me until the last day of his life. Where can you find such teachers now?

I submit this article primarily as an appeal to my students to be judicious in asking questions. Based on my experience and my study of śāstra - which is itself primarily in question-and-answer form - I have arranged twelve categories. The first four are desirable, their examples found throughout śāstra. The remaining eight are a disturbance to the subject, and to the students.