Good teachers don't impose their views

When love replaces ambition, truth is established in the place of success automatically. Where success is the only value of life, there cannot be truth. The central importance given to success has really killed truth.

No, being successful is not all there is to life. Mere success is not a value in itself. It is more valuable and dignified to be unsuccessful in a good project than to be successful in doing a wrong thing.

It is better to be unsuccessful in love than to be successful in competition. Is it not more valuable to be unsuccessful in religiousness than to be successful in amassing wealth?

I do not see the value of life only in being successful. I see the value of life in truth, goodness, and beauty. But as long as success is the only measure, the soul of man cannot move towards truth, goodness and beauty.

For truth, goodness and beauty to prevail, even failure will have to have its place in life. One should be able to see that in that direction even failure has dignity.

It is a victory even to be defeated for truth, because in your courage to accept even defeat for the sake of truth, your soul is strengthened and it is able to touch those high peaks which are shining bright with the light of godliness.

Winning and losing are meaningless. The meaning is in the path where there is victory or defeat. Is it the path of truth or untruth, love or hate, humane or inhumane activities?

I say blessed are those who give up victory on the path of untruth, and embrace defeat on the path of truth, because that way they are victorious even in their defeat and attain to the deathless even in their death.

But all this is possible only if there is a revolution in the system of education and the values given to winning and losing, which have for centuries troubled man, are taken away.

Is it not fair that inquisitiveness in children be encouraged, that they should not be shackled with readymade solutions? They should be helped in developing their own questions; borrowed answers should not be dumped on them.

If education can only send them out on the great journey of discovering the truth of life, its work is over.

In my view, the teacher is one who arouses the dormant questioning in children, awakens inquisitiveness and makes children fearless and courageous enough to find solutions for themselves. One can be a teacher in this sense only if he himself is free from prejudices and biases.

That is why becoming a teacher needs endeavour full of devotion. A soul with awareness, rebelliousness and alertness is required for becoming a teacher.

A teacher in whom the fire of rebellion is missing will become, knowingly or unknowingly, a broker for some vested interest, some morality, some religion or some politics.

Such a teacher will impose his beliefs and biases, of which he himself is a prisoner, on the children. This is a great responsibility. If the teacher is able to fulfil this requirement, only then a new man and new humanity can take birth.

- Osho (Abridged from Revolution in Education)