Featured Student - S.R. Krishnamoorthy

A eighty year young man stood nervously at the entrance of the DCS class room at Banjara Academy and peered in. What greeted him was a class full of young girls. His nervousness doubled. Was he doing the right thing by joining this course. He went down to meet Dr. Ali the course director. Ali assured him that the young man was doing the right thing by joining DCS and the nervousness would dissipate with time and he would enjoy the class with all the enthusiastic young girls.Krishnamoorthy was convinced and he took up the DCS course and completed it in 2002 and has not looked back since then.

Krishnamoorthy had graduated from College with Economics as his specialization but always had an urge to understand the human mind. He was in the banking field for 35 years he then retired at the age of 60 in the year 1987, he had also worked as a proof reader in Kolkatta and Pune. By the time of his retirement his urge had increased and so was the need to satisfy his mind with suitable answers. Hence he joined the Chinmaya Mission and had also joined the senior citizens club. Here Krishnamoorthy attended the talks and lectures with a hope to find answers to his questions about the human mind and thinking. And it was during this time that he got the opportunity to attended a talk given by Dr. Ali Khwaja at IIWC (International Institute for World Culture). After listening to the talk he felt that it was like a God sent message, and enquired about the course in Counseling Skills at R.T. Nagar.

"Before I did the DCS course I felt very reluctant to speak to people and found that I had a very unhappy relationship with them, but now I feels very happy to meet people and share my thoughts with them", SRK as Krishnamoorthy is fondly called reminiscences.

After completing the DCS course SRK started counseling at the Banjara Academy and also started his own counseling at Prasanna Counseling centre. He went on to enroll into the Kuvempu University in internship through correspondence. He started research with the help of Kuvempu University and Manasa Education course for his internship and his research he has published in the form of book called 'Dynamics of Counseling'. This book contains SRK's thoughts on counseling, approaches to counseling and an encyclopedia of various forms of counseling practiced around the world. He said that Dr. Ali had burnt the mid-night lamp to help him publish the book.

SRK recalled the first sentence he heard from Dr. Ali's talk. Dr. Ali had told, "The first consellor was Lord Krishna who had counselled Arjuna on the battle-field".

He also mentioned that only giving an emotional solace is not enough but the counselor should learn to understand the psychology of that person also.

Banajara Academy according to SRK was all about interpersonal relationship.

He says, "There are no barriers in Banjara Academy and one always feel welcomed". He said that at other places he had observed how people when they value a person, they consider wealth and money as a yard stick and not knowledge, people also show artificial affection and relationship built on distrust exists. But at Banjara Academy though he visited the 6 days in a month he felt it "very homely and friendly".

People were divided in the name of wealth and religion, SRK felt that people have also started to divide God for their own benefit. If people can forget all religions and castes and form relationships depending on the knowledge of people the world can become a much better place to live. He mentioned a line from the Bible which read 'Life is a gift of God and an accident and nobody can stop or know its end'. He felt that the mind is the one that has to be cultivated and cultured first, then the people will automatically become cultured. He said that he derived an idea from Banjara Academy i.e. the entire humanity should have only one religion and it can be revolutionize through counseling.

Speaking about the benefits of his counseling to others, he mentioned two instances about his services.

1. The first incident that SRK recalled was about a man who was very abusive towards his wife. The parents of the girl had come to him and said that the son-in-law was a very nice person and showed a lot of love and care towards their daughter and towards them. But in a few days after the marriage he had become completely opposite and abused their daughter. SRK thought this sudden change to be some sort of mental illness and, he offered to counsel him and after a few years he learnt that the man had turned a new leaf.
2. In another case he had counseled a lady. The lady had a daughter-in-law who had completed her M.Sc in Mathematic and was working as a lecturer, she would always tease the daughter-in-law since she has a dark complexion and this went to a very great extent where the daughter-in-law had decided to commit suicide. This case was again completed to SRK's satisfaction.

SRK said that Counselling was all about interpersonal relationship at an emotional level. He also mentions, "Mind is the chief instrument and the counselor should become the counsellee first and only the qualification is not an eligibility to become a counselor. As Swamy Vivekananda said 'One should worship the God that is within them' and to do this one should know themselves and culture themselves before they try to change another person." He also mentioned that counselling is not only beneficial to the counselor but also to the counsellee.

He concluded by saying that WHO-World Health Organisation had defined Mental health but it was the Indian representative who had taken the initiative to inlcude 'Spiritual Health' in the list.

S.R. Krishnamoorthy is regularly available at Banjara Academy.