Can a Shishya question his Guru?

Shrimad Bhagwad Gita is a conversation between a guru & his shishya. Not anywhere else but in the middle of a battle ground!! Shri Krishna patiently answers every one of Arjuna’s doubts. Shiva Sutra is again a series of questions posed by Parvati ( shishya) to her Guru ( Shiva). Shiva answers all of her questions but eventually tells her to sit on his lap & then absorbs her into himself because experience trumps knowledge. He said come & be a part of my experience & thus he became Ardha-Narishwara. Questioning is the basis of every Guru- Shishya relationship. But the questions have to be towards self improvement. It takes a lot of effort to frame the right questions.

We believe that the very basis of Guru-Shishya relation is to reason out by discussions and debates. Unless we are not rational and we don’t question and debate there cannot be an healthy relation. Guru - Shishya relation is not a master - slave relation it is a teacher-student relation, where the teacher learns from the student through Tarka (Logical Argument) and the student learns from the teacher through Vedanta (Philosophical Argument). There is a very big section of people in India who understand and behave otherwise, they simply enslave themselves and behave sheepishly in front of a guru. Also, there are gurus who don’t know and understand that Guru-Shishya culture is to learn from each other and the bondage is divine and not a mere samsara bandha where the junior takes care of seniors needs.

Tarka or Arguments is an inherent and important phase of learning in Indian culture and almost all the heroes of our Bhakti movement have defeated their gurus in tarka and commenced their reformation of Hinduism. Every new Peeth adhikari (the new guru who is to be incarnated) in a monastery (mutt) has to propose a new dimension to an existing vedanta or altogether provide a new one, which contests the older guru without this there is no new guru. Keeping this in reference, let us learn to reason our beliefs, learn to question our systems, learn to be rational with our religions and at the same time love our culture, practice our tradition and respect our social beliefs

Of course the relation of a teacher-student must always be that wherein the Student gets his doubts resolved. So a student has every right to question the Guru. The only condition being that the student has to be sincere. This is what Sanatana Dharma emphasises on while reminding the student about “Shri Gurubhyo Namah”. First be sincere, then question. In fact you should , for Hindu is a shishya for several lives and Hindu does not accept anything on just logic or dictate. He she wants to experience the truth or effect in fact the entire upanishad is proceedings of daily t group discussion between the guru and shishyas; the subject can be knowledge, karma, sciences, mathematics people welfare, health, engineering or anything.

The feature of Hindu dharma is that it is vycharic at the individual soul level, as opposed to the dogmatic single person patents. The very introductory sentence in the prasthabs trayas, the basis of Hindu enquiry is athaato brahma jignaasa… now is the discourse on dharma…unlimited examples, like Nachiketa, Jabali, Maitreya, Arjuna, Agastya and millions. Questioning is the fundamental requirement of the Hindu dharma as in modern science.. it is this freedom that is confuses other streams of thought on matter and spirit , nature and the cause on other dogmatic religions they are therefore limited or upaadhigrasta. Hinduism is an infinite search through question, yoga and seeking truth. Jay Shri Guru Dev