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The Guru Principle

Its evolution

Andrew Cohen, Oct 16, 2019: The Times of India

In India it is often said, ‘Guru is God.’ But in the complex and ever-evolving world of the 21st century, can we still hold on to such beliefs? As Indian culture slowly makes the journey from the traditional, to the modern and postmodern era, can these ancient beliefs survive intact, untouched by the piercing lens of cultural evolution, the revelations of modern science and the profound insights about human nature that have come from western psychology?

Indeed, even in the land that gave birth to such remarkable spiritual geniuses as the Buddha, Adi Shankara, Sri Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Aurobindo, can we still hold on to the notion that these profoundly enlightened masters were therefore, inevitably perfected human beings?

‘Guru is God’ implies that a true guru is perfect in all ways. This means that the physical form of body, mind and personality of the realised one is always an expression of manifest perfection. Does the profound gift of spiritual enlightenment inherently mean that the receiver of that gift is always perfect in all ways? I don’t think so. And that is because anything that is born, that has a beginning in time and that will eventually die, is inherently imperfect. But unmanifest absolute spirit or Brahmn isperfect because it has never been born and has never entered the stream of time and therefore is ever untouched by anything that has ever happened in time.

The man who has become a true guru, a true master, has a personality that has become radically transformed, now mysteriously and powerfully animated by the immortal consciousness of Brahmn. That awakened consciousness expresses itself as the guru principle. This principle has the power to awaken earnest seekers directly to the consciousness of Brahmn.

But if the guru-principle itself is to survive the unstoppable, dynamic movement of cultural evolution into the future, then it needs to be remodeled. The authority and power of the guru need to be downscaled in such a way as to emphasise that the human persona of the realiser is always inherently relative and in that, will always be imperfect. This somehow needs to be done while still finding a way to deeply honour that the manifestation of the guru-principle, when fully activated, reveals an absolute metaphysical source and uniquely reflects the brightness and brilliance of that source in all its overwhelming glory.

In my work as guru and spiritual teacher today, my own way to honour this guideline is to always make the effort to clearly distinguish between man and master. There is no way around the fact that the master always expresses himself through a relative personality structure, and his expression of the enlightened state is therefore always on the one hand limited, coloured and shaped by the condition of the body-mind of man, with his gifts and flaws alike; but on the other hand, he simultaneously transmits the uncorrupted purity and perfection of an authentic teacher.

Considering the guru perfect in all ways is confusing transcendental reality with manifest existence. Only at its deepest source the initial impulse of spiritual transmission is inherently pure and untainted by the deficiencies of this world.

An authentic master, because he is rooted in that source, is able to transmit a powerful measure of this inherent purity to his students – and to this day, this remains the most valuable aspect of the guru principle.

Good gurus

Ashtavakra Gita on the real guru

Pranav Khullar, July 28, 2007: The Times of India

Guru Ashtavakra and King Janaka the Pupil

Many great classical texts are rich in Vedanta. One such is the Ashtavakra Samhita, a conversation between Janaka, the king-pupil and Ashtavakra, the guru-seer whose name indicates that his body had eight contortions. The subject of discussion was what constitutes bondage and liberation; the dialogue is a direct and simple articulation of the nature and joy of Self-realisation.

"Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage...". Sage Ashtavakra says that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses vortex, is false and unreal. He draws his disciple's attention to his own restlessness, despite being a model king. This, Ashtavakra defines as the eternal yearning of the mind for its true nature, beyond all objects and desire. The seeker has only preoccupied himself in this world till now, to quench this restlessness, not fully comprehending himself what he seeks.

The seeker remains unfulfilled as a result of this preoccupation, because one can actually only feel satiated in the realisation of one's true nature. Ashtavakra continues with his exposition of the illusory nature of the world for enjoyment and learning, for "bondage consists only of desire, and the destruction of desire is liberation.." He asks Janaka to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion, to understand that at the root of this cycle of suffering is attachment born of desire. The Ashtavakra Samhita focuses on the nature of atmanu-bhuti or Self-realisation, predicated on understanding the bondage-liberation paradigm.

In a way, one can see in this exploration the germ of what was later formalised as the Ajata-vadaor Advaita school of thought by Gaudapada and Shankara.

Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with the mind, saying that "it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves at anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything..". In a movingly simple verse, he sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for "the renunciation of desire alone is renunciation of the world".

As Bhartrihari in his Vairagya-Shatakam — A Hundred Verses on Renunciation — puts it, renunciation alone removes all fear, for "...in enjoyment there is the fear of disease, in social position fear of a fall, in honour the fear of humiliation, in beauty the fear of old age... and while old age comes on, desire alone grows younger every day".

Ashtavakra then describes the state of bliss of the Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual, aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where "there is no heaven or hell or liberation... nothing but the Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness".

The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away desires of the disciple, and the last two chapters allude to the experiential realisation of the disciple himself. Janaka describes his own state to his guru Ashtavakra in terms and language that are reminiscent of the "neti, neti..." vocabulary of the Upanishads: "...where are the elements, where is the body, where is the mind, where is the knower, the means, the object of knowledge... where is anything, where is the world, where is the aspirant." The Self alone exists.

Tomorrow is Guru Purnima.

Kabir: On the sat (good, true) guru

साधो सो सतगुरु मोहि भावै

सत्त प्रेम का भर भर प्याला आप पिये मोहे प्यावै

परदा दूर करे आँखिन का ब्रह्म दरस दिखलावै

जिसके दरशन में सब दरसै अनहत शब्द [or naad] सुनावै

एकहि सब सुख दुःख दरसावै, शब्दन में सुरत समावै

कहें कबीर ताको भय नाहीं, निर्भय पद परसावै

The greatest Guru ever

The Times of India, May 24 2016

Pulkit Sharma  

The Mahabharata narrates the story of Eklavya, a tribal with immense potential who aspired to study archery from Dronacharya, the revered guru of the Kauravas and Pandavas. But, when he approached Dronacharya, his request was turned down as the guru was appointed to teach only royalty . Drona did not wish to accept a tribal boy as his disciple. Heartbroken, Eklavya made a statue of Dronacharya and every day he would seek guidance and support from the statue besides doing rigorous self-taught practice in archery .In due course, Eklavya turned out to be so magnificent an archer that he had the potential to defeat even the students trained personally by Dronacharya.

Who really was Eklavya's guru? Was it just his own aspiration inspired by Drona's skill or was there some kind of Divine intervention? When relating to a guru, people often confuse the physical body or mental intelligence to be the guru. They may even compare different gurus. The truth is, though, that there is only one guru in the universe ­ the Divine.According to Siddheshwar Baba, since time immemorial, the Divine has assumed different names and forms and has manifested in realised persons so that they could guide sincere seekers on the path of transcendence.

Some great spiritual experiences bestowed upon disciples through their guru may not be even known to the guru. This is because Divine Consciousness is utilising the form of the physical guru as an instrument to manifest itself and help genuine seekers in their evolution. Thus, all gurus, avatars and prophets put together represent One Reality . In the Yoga Sutra, Patanjali highlights that `Ishvara' or Divine Consciousness which can manifest in different forms is unbound by time and has the unparalleled seed of omniscience.Ishvara is considered to be the earliest teacher ­ the teacher of all teachers.Success in yoga can be achieved by submitting to, reflecting on and meditating upon Divine Consciousness.When we surrender ourselves before the Divine, this seed of omniscience is positioned in us and in due course of time it sprouts and flourishes, thereby dissolving all falsehoods.

Whenever a seeker has the sincere aspiration to progress, Divine Consciousness graciously appears on the scene either in its original formless state or by assuming a form to guide the person.There are people who spend a lot of time in searching for an ideal `guru' in the external physical realm.They take initiation from several places but rarely show any commitment and quickly shift from one school of thought to another. They also try to compare various schools of thought with the intent of figuring out which is the better one. This is nothing but sheer ignorance and wastage of time.

What one requires to progress is a deep faith. When it is the same force that illuminates all masters, why bother about external attributes and practices?

Why should one waste time in fighting wars over which particular school of spirituality or religion is the superior one when all of them are only instruments for realisation? All paths are equally good because their end goal is the same. One must seek the One in everyone with reverence and gratitude.Therefore, one must never be hopeless but always pray to Divine Consciousness for guidance, support and enlightenment.And when the prayer is sincere and comes from the soul, it will be heard.

‘No Mortal Being Can Be A Guru:’ Dadaji

J Krishnamurti, No Mortal Being Can Be A Guru, Says Dadaji, January 13, 2018: The Times of India

Dadaji’s chief mission is to regenerate Truth Consciousness. He wants us to realise our own true nature which is divine and blissful. Man is born divine, an irradiation of consciousness and bliss. The Supreme lies within, in the form of Mahanam; we are born with our guru, the Self and the Mahanam within. No mortal being can be a guru. Your Self or God alone is guru. This is the message of Amiya Roy Chowdhury to the bewildered man of the modern agnostic era.

Contradiction is the child of ignorance. Things conceived in the right perspective, realised through the right angle of vision, do not leave any scope for contradiction and a healthy relation is established between the material and spiritual life charged with blissful harmony and rhythm within the framework of one fundamental principle of life ... the Truth ... the perennial prime source of our existence, of the existence of the whole of the universe.

There is only one Truth, the Self. It envelops us from without and is immanent within us. The aim of our life is to realise this great Truth. This Truth is our true nature, our true being, our safest stronghold.

We have simply to realise that we are born initiated. The enlightened Soul realises the whole of creation as Brahmn or Truth. Initiation conducted at the level of the senses by mortal beings can never lead to Truth which is much beyond the range of the senses.

Guru-ism, as we find it prevalent today, is the most abominable stigma in our spiritual life. It is the source of exploitation of innocent people by self-seekers for mundanevalues in the name of religion.

Dadaji, therefore, has launched a crusade against the evil practice of guru-ism and the associated evils in our current spiritual life. Those who undergo spiritual initiation in the presence of Dadaji get Mahanam directly from their own Self.

To bear prarabdha, destined events of life, or compulsions of the mind with patience and resignation, is penance. To have desire-less awareness of the Supreme with absolute self-surrender, unfaltering faith, single-minded love and devotion is meditation. No other penance except Mahanam jap with devotion is required for Self-realisation.

Practice of penance as we do it today is a body-mind behaviour and causes further bondage due to the piling up of impressions of the actions performed. Self-surrender is the real yoga that leads to Self-realisation.

We witness so many inexplicable supernatural events taking place in Dadaji’s presence. Material objects like silver or gold trinkets appear out of unknown sources. His multiple manifestation at different places at the same time and his ethereal presence felt through a unique Aroma at far off places, is all the more inexplicable.

But, Dadaji says that he does not do all these things. These are manifestations of the Divine Will that is limitless. After the public is baffled by such events, Dadaji, himself, condemns these things, describing them to be extraneous and superfluous for the Truth-seeker. The same Divine Truth throbs in the hearts of all human beings, and hence, Dadaji holds that mankind is one.

(Abriged from dadaji.info This article first appeared in the Free Press Journal, February 4, 1972. Today is Dadaji Amiya Roy Chowdhury’s birthday. He lived 1910-92.)

Gurus light, the fire of knowledge

Pranav Khullar, The Guru Lights The Fire Of Knowledge, July 27, 2018: The Times of India

The search for a genuine preceptor is triggered in most of us in that moment of inner dissatisfaction with the material acquisitions one has stacked up in one’s life – in the need to find inner peace beyond the material flux of life.

Conversely, tradition has it that the guru seeks out those who genuinely desire to understand this matrix of bondage and liberation. Only a highly evolved teacher can guide and inspire the disciple to knowledge of the Self, beyond dualities of the empirical world.

Escape chute

Most seek out a guru as an external aid to help resolve the daily issues of life, as a means of escape, without attempting to understand their own problems. Many gurus today have therefore set up institutions and new creeds, reinforcing the image of a guru as a means of escape. But a real guru seeking out a real seeker of Truth, characterises the Ashtavakra Samhita, that records the ancient dialogue between the young Sage Ashtavakra and King Janaka. A rousing call to atmanubhuti, Self-realisation, lies at the centre of this dialogue, in which the guru appears as a physically infirm figure, as if to challenge the notion that the physical frame is the be-all of life, and to inspire his disciple to look beyond the mortal frame of the five senses.

“Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage,” Ashtavakra describes the nature of knowledge thus, going directly into the central focus of his teaching, that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses matrix, is false and unreal. He draws his disciple’s attention to his own restlessness despite being a satisfied king. The seeker remains unfulfilled because of material preoccupation.

World as illusion

Ashtavakra deconstructs the illusory nature of the world further, by exhorting Janaka to renounce desire in all form, be it the desire for enjoyment and learning or even of pious deeds, for “bondage consists only of desire and the destruction of desire is liberation.” He asks his disciple to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion. Compassion and dispassion are the twin characteristics of a spiritually evolved state of mind.

Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with mind, saying, “it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves for anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything .” He sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for the “the renunciation of desire alone is renunciation of the world”. It is from a sense of reality of the world that the mind functions, creating a cobweb of emotions which bind and attach us to this notion of ‘i, me, myself ’, and cuts us off from seeing everyone else as a part of myself.

Only bliss

Ashtavakra then attempts to describe this state of bliss of Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual, aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where “there is no heaven, hell or liberation ... nothing but Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness”. The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away the desires of the disciple.

See also

Amiya Roy Chowdhury

Indic tradition