Revision as of 21:05, 13 January 2018

Good gurus

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.)