Every year, on 5th September, we celebrate Teachers’ Day.
We remember the teachers who taught us mathematics, science, history, literature and everything else that appeared in the syllabus.
But there is one question I have started asking myself after almost 30 years of life:
Who was supposed to teach me how to understand life?
I don't mean how to earn money, get a degree, build a career or become “successful.”
I mean life itself.
Why do I want what I want?
Why am I running?
What exactly am I trying to achieve?
And after achieving it, will I actually be satisfied?
Nobody taught me these questions.
And perhaps that is the biggest thing I missed in my education.
School: Where I First Learned the Meaning of “Success”
As a child, my teachers used to tell us two things:
Become a good human being. And become successful.
I somehow assumed that both meant the same thing.
In my mind, becoming successful meant becoming financially well-off, respected and accomplished - and, at the same time, becoming a “proper” human being.
School gave us subjects.
We memorized them.
We prepared for examinations.
We wrote answers.
We received marks.
And then came the rankings.
The famous Top 10.
Nobody had to explicitly tell us that the students in the Top 10 were different. The way teachers looked at them was enough.
I was one of those students who enjoyed that attention.
To be honest, it felt good.
Being appreciated felt like achievement.
Being recognized felt like achievement.
Being ahead of someone else felt like achievement.
And somewhere there, without my realizing it, an illusion began.
Fame. Recognition. Achievement. Being better than others.
Perhaps the foundation of my future “success” was being quietly built inside a classroom.
But there was something my teachers never explained.
They taught me what to study.
They taught me how to score.
They taught me how to perform.
But nobody really explained what it means to be a human being.
Not the social definition of a “good person”.
I mean the restless consciousness constantly operating inside us - the thing that keeps wanting, comparing, fearing, seeking and becoming.
Teachers were almost next to God in my childhood.
We were told to respect them.
And I did.
But today I sometimes wonder:
What if the teacher's real responsibility is not merely to help a child become successful, but to help the child understand what success itself means?
Then Adolescence Arrived
By the time I reached Classes 11 and 12, the school became co-educational.
And suddenly, the definition of achievement started changing.
Marks were still important.
Success was still important.
But now there was another achievement that somehow became extremely important:
Getting the attention of the opposite sex.
Nobody taught us why.
Nobody sat us down and explained what was happening inside an adolescent mind.
Why suddenly someone's attention could feel so important.
Why attraction could become an obsession.
Why romantic fantasies started occupying so much mental space.
Instead, we simply accepted it.
Everyone was doing it.
So it must be normal.
And slowly, without anyone teaching it explicitly, another idea started developing somewhere in the subconscious:
One day I will have someone. I will protect them. They will depend on me. I will become the provider.
The jungle had disappeared.
But perhaps some of its programming had not.
Then came the romantic stories, the movies, the books, the social expectations and the endless messaging about what a “normal” life should look like.
Study.
Become successful.
Get a job.
Fall in love.
Get married.
Build a family.
Earn more.
Provide more.
Consume more.
And repeat.
But I wish someone had stood in front of that classroom and simply said:
“Marriage is not compulsory.”
It is a choice.
You don't have to marry because everyone else does.
You don't have to become a provider because society has assigned you that role.
You don't have to construct your entire life around a relationship simply because biology and culture have made it feel inevitable.
I don't remember anyone saying this.
College: The Rat Race Gets a Name
College made everything more serious.
Now the stakes were higher.
The future.
The career.
The package.
The placement.
The degree.
The marksheet.
The competition.
The fear of being left behind.
The race had officially begun.
Teachers encouraged us to become industry-ready.
Be employable.
Be competitive.
Be the best candidate.
And there was nothing wrong with any of that.
But again, one question remained untouched:
Why?
Why do I need to run this race?
What happens if I don't want to run?
What if I cannot run?
What if I win?
And what exactly am I supposed to win?
Nobody asked.
The degree started becoming part of my identity.
The marks became part of my identity.
Then came the joining letter.
Then the salary.
Then the CTC.
And slowly, the person disappeared behind the résumé.
I had become a collection of achievements.
And nobody told me the uncomfortable truth:
Even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat.
Perhaps education should have taught us that possibility too.
Not everyone has to reject the race.
But everyone should at least know that there is a race happening - and that participation is optional.
Then I Entered the Corporate World
At work, the questions became even simpler.
Deliver.
Meet the deadline.
Complete the target.
Improve performance.
Take responsibility.
Get promoted.
Repeat.
Nobody was particularly interested in helping me escape the machinery.
And honestly, neither was I.
Perhaps I had never properly understood what I was trying to achieve in the first place.
Then Someone Made Me Question the Questions
Somewhere along this journey, I came across Vikas Divyakirti Sir.
I was following his UPSC program, although I was not an aspirant.
What attracted me was not merely the academic content.
It was his philosophy classes.
His observations about life.
His way of looking at ordinary things.
For the first time, I started getting clarity about certain things that I had simply accepted as normal.
And something changed.
I started questioning.
Not necessarily finding answers.
But questioning.
And perhaps that was important.
Because sometimes the biggest problem is not having the wrong answer.
It is never questioning the question itself.
Vikas Sir helped me see many things differently.
But then came someone who changed the entire direction of that journey.
And Then Came Acharya Prashant Ji
My real transformation began when I came in touch with Acharya Prashant Ji.
His videos.
His teachings.
His discussions on wisdom literature.
His relentless questioning of what we casually call “normal life.”
Something that had been dormant for decades suddenly became active.
Questions started entering my mind that had never entered before.
Why do I want this?
Who planted this desire in me?
Why am I seeking approval?
Why do I want recognition?
Why do I consume?
Why do I compare?
Why do I want marriage?
Why do I want children?
Why do I want money?
Why do I want to be successful?
Why do I want to be seen as successful?
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question:
How much of my life is actually mine?
For almost 30 years, I had carried a definition of life that I now realize was largely fabricated.
Social conditioning.
Tradition.
Fear.
Comparison.
Biology.
Consumerism.
Family expectations.
And countless unquestioned assumptions.
I had mistaken all of these for my own desires.
Nobody had deliberately lied to me.
That is what makes it more interesting.
The system didn't need to lie.
It only needed to keep repeating the same things until they started feeling like truth.
And this is where I feel immense gratitude towards Acharya Prashant Ji.
He didn't simply give me another philosophy to believe in.
He taught me to question the beliefs I had been carrying.
That distinction is enormous.
Perhaps This Is What a Teacher Really Is
Today, when I think about Teachers’ Day, I don't think only about the teachers who taught me formulas, definitions, dates and theories.
I think about the teachers who, directly or indirectly, changed the way I see myself.
My school teachers gave me education.
My college teachers prepared me for a profession.
My seniors taught me how to work.
Vikas Sir helped me question many things.
And Acharya Prashant Ji pushed that questioning much deeper.
For that, my gratitude is immense.
Especially towards Acharya Ji.
Because perhaps the highest form of teaching is not giving you answers.
It is destroying your attachment to the wrong answers.
A teacher may teach you how to earn.
A deeper teacher asks:
What are you earning for?
A teacher may teach you how to succeed.
A deeper teacher asks:
Who decided what success means?
A teacher may teach you how to build a family.
A deeper teacher asks:
Is this actually your choice, or merely inherited conditioning?
A teacher may teach you how to consume more.
A deeper teacher asks:
What is your consumption doing to you—and to the world?
And perhaps that last question matters more than ever.
Because we have created a civilization where “success” often means more consumption, more production, more possessions and a larger carbon footprint.
We call it progress.
Then we spend our lives trying to escape the consequences of that progress.
This Teachers’ Day
So this Teachers’ Day, my gratitude is not simply for those who taught me what to learn.
It is for those who taught me how to look.
To my teachers from childhood, adolescence, college and professional life—thank you.
You played your part in making me what I became.
But to Vikas Sir, thank you for helping the questioning begin.
And to Acharya Prashant Ji, my deepest gratitude.
Because you made me question not just my answers, but the very structure through which I was looking at life.
I don't know how many years of life remain.
But perhaps for the first time, I don't want to spend whatever remains merely collecting achievements.
I want to understand.
I want to see what is false in me.
I want to reduce the unnecessary.
I want to understand desire rather than blindly obey it.
I want to consume less rather than constantly demand more.
I want to move, however slowly, towards ego dissolution.
For thirty years, I was taught how to live.
Only later did I meet teachers who made me ask:
“But is this really living?”
Happy Teachers’ Day.