A Good Mentor

A portion of the newsletter

Once upon a time, in a deep jungle, lived a great master.
One fine day a pupil joined him with high aspirations.

In his first learning task, the master told him, "Go and see my garden."
After pupil's return, the master asked, "What did you see?"
The pupil replied, "Master, I saw many charming birds flying in your beautiful garden. I want to encage some and feel their flying spirit.
Master replied, "Go again and look, listen and learn."

Next day, the master asked, "What did you see?"
The pupil replied, "Gurudev, I saw many charming birds in your beautiful garden, I wish if I were a bird I would fly higher and dipper in the sky."
The master replied, "Go again and look, listen and learn."

Next day, the master asked, "What do you see?"
The pupil replied, "Gurudev, I saw many charming birds flying in your beautiful garden. They are birds, gifted with flying skills and I am a human being, gifted with observation skills. Their duty is to fly high and my duty is to observe deep. I have no right to encage or emulate them."
The master replied, "Now, you are learning."

Above parable demonstrates the perfect way of mentorship. The good mentor is not the one who presents the refined intellect to their mentees but the one who inspires his mentees to refine their own intellect. Mentorship is also not "Learning-by-seeing or listening", but it is “Learning-by-doing".

Penned by,
Toastmaster Mithilesh Kumar
(Published in TOIT, May 2016 Edition, Infosys Toastmasters Newsletter, inspired from a famous essay of great Hindi poet and author Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya' )

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