WHY HAVE A GURU?

 

WE ARE BORN WITH A BURDEN

To attain total integration of body, mind and Spirit, no one can do it for you; you must do it yourself. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. No man can take your sins away from you. It is also said in many scriptures of the world that sins are taken away from you, but it has been misunderstood and taken very literally instead of the real essence of it. The real essence is that you follow these teachings, and your sins are taken away.

It is not removed from you as if by a magic wand. I wish I could do that as if all your burdens were like a giant boulder on your chest, and I could just come along and lift it off, and all problems would be gone. I wish I could do that. But it is impossible; it is against all laws of nature. It is against the Divine will. It is against Divinity itself because man is responsible for his actions. Whatever you sow, you will reap. Then if a person says, “I died for your sins,” look at the contradiction; when, on the other hand, it is also said, “You reap what you sow.” These things must not be taken literally. There is a deep, beautiful symbolic meaning, and therefore it is said that “this is the life, this is the way,” and buddy, that is the truth. Philosophy is not something dry as dust. You can have a lot of fun with it.

We have been born in this world with a load, a burden. Without the limitation of past samskaras or past karma, taking birth would not have been necessary. The reason why we take delivery is to unload the load that we created ourselves. The true guru shows the path and how one’s burdens can become less and less and less. Firstly, there are specific techniques involved, mental techniques, whereby the mind could be brought to a certain level whereby it could cooperate with the Heart. Here mental awareness expands, the mind expands, and simultaneously, the Heart expands.

THE CONSCIOUSNESS WHERE EVERYTHING IS ONE

Other systems and other movements in the world concentrate primarily on mind expansion because Western people are perhaps much more orientated towards mental awareness. That is very good. Nothing wrong with that. If the Western mind were not orientated toward greater mental understanding, they would not have progressed so much technologically. All the finest and most significant inventions that are helpful, perhaps constructive, or destructive to the world are because of this high intellectual and mental development and the ability to channel those energies creatively. But a greater danger could exist here because this ability can be misused for destructive purposes, as we have seen what has been done with the atomic bomb.

In our system, a simultaneous development occurs where the Heart opens up, and the mind is extended to its full awareness. When we say “Heart”, we do not mean this little organ; we mean the core of the human personality, and at the core of the human personality resides that which we call Divine. We do not say spiritual development; the Spirit does not require developing; it is fully developed, it requires unfolding. Our practices are so designed that the mind achieves excellent awareness, and the Heart unfolds; one unfolds spiritually.

The combination of mental awareness and the opening of the Heart creates that channel whereby all the energies of the universe are drawn to us. We use a photograph as you would use a cross or as the Jewish use the two inverted triangles. These are nothing but symbols. Photographs are symbols, and they are reminders. But the most important thing is the opening up of the Heart. When the Heart opens up in love and devotion without effort and without trying, you draw those forces of Divine energy towards yourself for your upliftment.

Plenty of electricity in the river flows nearby, but you need the generator to harness the power of the electricity so that we can have light in the room. The guru acts as the generator. He is not the power; he is just the machine. The power is there in the water, that eternally flowing river with water here, there and everywhere. He is like the material that acts as a conductor. A generator that you can harness or get the electricity from the water. And that is what we do when closeness develops between Guru and Chela. Later, the development becomes so great that no differences or separation exists. The guru and the chela become one. When the lover, love, and the beloved become one. This is the purpose of life: to find that unification. All problems in this world are because of a sense of duality. When there are two, there is friction. But where there is one, what could it have conflict? Finding that consciousness where everything is just one is the purpose of life, which is called unity consciousness.

THE GURU PASS ON A SPIRITUAL FORCE

Even gurus, God, Chela, and everything around us is just but one, and that oneness is not of yesterday or tomorrow but here and now. By opening the Heart in that love and devotion, you are drawing a force to yourself to strengthen yourself, and by strengthening yourself, the problem becomes no problem. That is how it works, and it is so simple.

It is always best to use a self-realised object as the channel. This, too, can be achieved through one’s husband or wife. If you can love your husband or wife deeply enough and objectively enough, you can see Divinity in your husband or wife. But people fail to see that because there is an emotional entanglement. While between guru and chela, there is a deep, sincere link and love and yet no emotional entanglement. You see the difference; you know why the teacher is required? You can ask any schoolteacher why she cannot teach her children. She must always send her children to another school so that another teacher can teach her children. She cannot teach her children because of the emotional entanglement.

That is why this very ancient tradition of guru and chela has existed for thousands and thousands of years, not only in the Eastern culture but in all the other cultures of the world. The whole idea is to form a rapport between Guru and Chela. Suppose you go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. That is precisely what happens. You pour out your problems to the psychologist, who tries to analyse them with his mind, and you form a rapport with him. I was told that the most significant difficulty that the psychiatrist has is to wean off the patient when he is finished with the patient. There too, is this entanglement.

The guru differs from the psychiatrist in many ways. The guru has a deep insight into man’s mind and precisely what constitutes the mind of the person, the entire personality, and the very essence of the person. But he also can impart not only mental understanding but also the spiritual force to help, which the psychiatrist has not got. There is a difference.

The force is automatically there if the person, the chela, is receptive enough. The well is full of water. It is for you to throw in the bucket. The smaller the bucket, the smaller the bit of water. Big bucket, lot of water. A person can only draw according to his strength, which is how progress begins. Today you draw a little amount of water. Tomorrow you will be able to attract more and more water, and through meditation, as the wheel gets more and more oiled, you can draw up more and more water from that infinite well. So, the final requirement between the guru and Chela’s relationship is the openness of mind, and the Heart’s receptivity to that love is non-attached. And whenever there is unmotivated, non-attached love, it is pure love, and only pure love could be a conveyor of Divine energy. For is it not said, “God is love, and love is God.” It is only garbled by forming all the attachments around love, and then we call it love, but it is not.

WHEN THE CHELA IS READY, THE MASTER APPEARS

What can a chela reward a guru with? Perhaps provide him with a meal ticket. What else? But Chela has so much to gain. The whole process might have taken him millions of years, through so many lifetimes, and then in some lifetime, he might just be ready and as it is said, “when the chela is ready, the Master appears.”

And he appears in so many different forms; if you look at it carefully, everything in life is a guru. Look at the ants. Look at the beautiful systematic way they build their colony. Are they, not our gurus? Why can we not make our lives so routine? Look at the birds and the bees and how much they teach us, and we try to teach it to our children. Everything in life is something that can be learned from. If the sun can give light to an entire world, a small lamp can provide light to at least a little room. So, from everything in life, we learn, learn, learn. No one can teach you. The teacher cannot teach, but a teacher helps you to learn. This is something to be remembered, always.

The more open the channel, like the carburettor in your motorcar, if it is clean the petrol flows through smoothly, and your car runs smoothly. If your carburettor is dirty, the petrol does not go through, the vehicle does not run well, and you are at a standstill if it is blocked. Then you might find a man coming along. He stops his car, knows something about the carburettors, and helps you open up the choke so you can be on your way again. That is also what a guru does.

So, all the things a poor older man has to do. He has to be a psychologist; he has to be a psychiatrist; he has to be a father; he has to be a mother. If your nappy is wet, I will change it for you: a friend, a brother, a lover of life, a lover of the universe. For the real guru does not love; he is love. Think about that.

TO FATHOM THE UNFATHOMABLE IS THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE

The guru and Chela link are beyond all mental chemistry, beyond all kinds of analysis, and it just wells up within you. It is so fast, so quick, within a second, you just know that I have found my chela, and the chela feels like I have found my old man. These things happen.

Let me take you around and show you the universe. I will hold your hand. When the path is dark, do not worry, you will not stumble and neither fall. For to fathom the unfathomable, that is the adventure of life. That is the beauty of life. That is what keeps life going. That is what gives life its momentum, and that is what makes the world go round. And then, once you have done it all, you sit back and say, “What a lovely dream it was.” That is a different subject, the subject of Maya and Illusion.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1978 – 02