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To me the ultimate teachers are also those great books and their authors who taught us the collective wisdom of human civilization. Though those teachers may not be present with us, their books bear testimony to their immense contribution to the advancement of human knowledge. By reading those great books and acting upon it we become immediately the students of those great masters. Honestly it is the books that have taught me many things and I regard some of the books to be the best of the teachers.
Today I am writing about how the teachers and their books have revived human intellectual quest especially in the domain of philosophy. If there would have been no teachers to teach and create sparks in the minds of the learners we would not have seen the intellectual progress of humanity. Wherever there is a systematic disconnect between the teachers and the learners it is natural that intellectual progress will stagnate. There is no second thought about it.
For centuries, the Greek philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus etc were confined to the forgotten chapters of history. The resurrection of philosophy happened with the translations of the books of the “First Master” into the Arabic language. Aristotle was regarded as the “First Master” throughout the 9th century in the Arab world. It was the translation of his book, especially the “Metaphysics” into Arabic that revived the interest of philosophy in the world again.
The translation of all these philosophy books into Arabic language, mainly Aristotle’s books created numerous lovers of philosophy in the Arab world. Within a short time there grew the teachers as well as the students of philosophy. The “First Master” inspired many masters, especially Al Farabi who is regarded as the “Second Master” and ultimately the “Master Series” in philosophy and intellectual development happened.
Further the translation of all the Greek philosophical works into Arabic and then into Latin and subsequently into other languages resurrected philosophy again in the western world leading to the renaissance. These developments created a series of “masters” in every community of the world. The students of Greek philosophy became masters and masters became authors and their books again created students. This resulted into an unending intellectual cycle of students to masters to authors to books and it became an infinite intellectual series that developed philosophy for the world. Perhaps this is the way all the intellectual developments of our collective human civilization has happened.
What I have realised is that everyone has their “First Master”. The First Master can be our teachers as well as the books also. Teachers day wherever it is celebrated and whatever date it is celebrated is a collective endeavor to honour our “Masters”. It is the “Master Series” that carries forward the human intellectual civilization and we all must recognise, participate and celebrate it. Our world must create more inspiring teachers and we must become even more inspired students to reach the zest of humanity.
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