Shyam in the class room- A story by Patti
It was 15 minutes before class was to begin and the young boys were running and playing around the classroom, making their usual noise and bumping each other into the desks and tables. After hearing the doings from outside for some time, Shyam approached the doorway and stood half-visible looking on. One of the boys looked up and saw Him standing there in His bright yellow dhoti and upper cloth and immediately stopped his roughhousing and stood amazed at the vision, the likes of which he had never seen before.
“Who…who are you?” he stammered, making the other boys too stop and look up. “Oh, I am your new teacher,” Shyam replied with a broad smile. “I mean…I mean, where do you come from?” the boy again murmured. “Oh, Everywhere, really speaking, but that’s a long story, “Shyam said, His eyes twinkling with merriment at the obvious effect He was having without seeming to make the slightest effort.
“Well, then, what are you going to teach us?” the same boy queried as the others drew cautiously nearer to get a better look. “Well, that depends on what you want to know, “Shyam said, stepping forward to the teacher’s desk and taking the seat behind it. “No one ever asked us that before,” the boy replies, “we have always just been taught grammar and a lot of other subjects required in this school. I don’t really know what I want or need to know.”
“The best question to ask yourself is what is the most important thing in life,” Shyam said. “What is it?” the boy enquired. “For you it is to know the Divine Being and Consciousness that animates all life and to have a personal and eternal relationship with that one, to know Him as your dearest Friend, Companion and Father and to feel Him ever near you and ready to help you at all times. Do you believe that it is possible? Shyam answered simply. “Since you say it is, I believe it’” the boy said, with a new glow coming over his countenance like the dawning of something new and wonderful. “How can I get to know Him and be with Him” he asked further.
“Come here,” Krishna said, drawing the boy into the fold of his arm. “Now what do you feel?” “I feel all warm inside like I am about to burst,” he said, suddenly weeping and sinking to his knees beside the chair, nesting his head on the left side of His breast, his small left hand groping. As it were, for His Heart. “I feel so drawn to you. I feel such love for you”, the boy cried. “You…You are the one I want.”
“Now you have understood”, Shyam said softly, stroking the boy’s hair gently. “You see that One that is greater than the greatest can come in human form and be nearer to you than you closest kin. Because you have experienced this so readily I now have to go away from you outwardly. It is not to be cruel. As most people would think, but because you must now know Me within yourself. Look, all of you, he said, gesturing out the window into the school garden, “All those flowers and trees are within My own being. All of you also are contained within Me and I know you all as I know My own self. I know what you have been, are and will be, so I can lead you all to the Divine Victory, which is union with me.”
“You see”, He said again to the boy at His feet. “you are weeping now, but when I go you will not weep. You will feel the glow and presence I have put within you and you will know that I am your very self. This is the answer to the problem of separation that has plagued mankind ever since it began to know what human love was. I have now shown you the way to conquer all emotional sorrow and feel the Oneness that is the Reality of the whole world. I have given you the key to everything. I have to go now”, He said, slowly rising, lifting the boy up beside Him. “Your regular teacher will return tomorrow. Those who have understood Me will remember Me and will grow into the Truth that I have shown you.”
Shyam then strode out of the room without looking back and the boy felt no pangs of parting, “I have heard Him and I know”, he thought to himself and smiled, and the flowers beyond the doorway seemed to wave in accord.