Sadhana Panchakam - Post 30

Endearing Oneself to the Guru  

External forms of devotion may certainly help in the beginning to build up devotion to the Guru. 

However, it is dedicated and long service of the Guru that truly endears us to the Guru. This is what is meant by Tat Paduka Sevyataam, “serving his Holy Sandals”.

The Indian ideal is not just serving the Feet but the sandals. The sandals are already serving the Guru’s feet. The ideal we have to try to cultivate is to be the “servant of the servant of the feet that hold up the Guru!” This calls for great humility and sacrifice.

Even if we serve his feet directly, sacrifice is needed. Sandals are known to do all the dirty work. Yet, they go on serving the Master unnoticed. When entering a home, they are left outside, invariably not neatly. They uncomplainingly face the bad weather, the rain and the mud. 

Bharata refused to accept the throne of Ayodhya when Rama, his elder brother, was exiled to the forest. Rama appealed to him that he had to do this duty. As a compromise, Bharata took Rama’s sandals, placed them on his head and walked back to Ayodhya, where he placed them on the throne and ruled the state as a servant of the Lord. 

He even shifted his residence to Nandigram, lower than Ayodhya, where he built his home below the ground – he had to be in a lower position than Rama!

Indeed, the highest humility is needed to do Guru-Seva. Service of the Guru has the designed effect – it naturally reduces the ego at every stage. Every act of service gives us the opportunity to eradicate a chunk of our ego-sense. 

The Guru’s service is incomparable in the efficiency with which the disciple’s Ego is chipped off.

When looked at in this manner, who is serving who? Isn’t the Guru really serving the disciple? 

He is lifting the disciple up from the ditch, as it were. Effacement of the ego happens on its own when the disciple puts his whole mind on pleasing his Guru by his service. The disciple serves with no thought of his own comfort.

Points to Ponder in Guru-Seva 

1. God has some choice forms through which He expresses Himself. Mother and father are two of those forms. A good friend is a third. 

The Guru is the purest form of God that we can ever hope to see. He is mother, father, friend and a guide all rolled into one.

2. The service of the Guru is for our benefit; it is not that the Guru needs this service. The service must not be forced onto the Guru. If he is not in need, please leave him alone. It is not required to be aggressive in personal service to the Guru.

3. It is said, “Obedience is better than Reverence.” Total unconditional love and sincerity is needed in our approach to and service of the Guru. We should always know where to draw the line in our freedom to talk to him and be close to him.

4. There is a very subtle aspect in serving the sandal of one's guru. The Guru's feet may take a disciple to Guru's form and the disciple may get immersed/get emotional about Guru's form, which is not what his Guru wants from him.

On the contrary, Guru's sandal at least takes the disciple's thoughts from the physical form of his Guru at a gross level. Serving the sandal is able to render the disciple to go beyond the physical form of his Guru. 

5. Where does this service of the Guru lead us to? The answer is to greater and greater inner purity of mind. 

There is one important point related to service to Guru, which is the most significant secret revealed to all today in the following steps/points.  

In the path of Jnana, the seeker is supposed to equip himself with sadhana chatushtaya, i.e., Viveka, Vairagya, Shad Sampath and Mumukshatva.

Next, he has to approach a Guru, whom his very inner soul confirms as “his Guru”.

The Guru then starts imparting knowledge to the disciple.

At this juncture, unless and until the ego of the disciple is completely annihilated, completely removed beyond any chance of hitting back, he cannot benefit from the vidya that his Guru is imparting to him. How????

Till slightest trace of ego is left out in him, his mind, fueled by his ego, will try to judge the teachings of his Guru with the knowledge gained earlier by the disciple from somewhere, from some book, from some discourse, from some sources.

It might even happen that even while his Guru is teaching with a certain approach, the disciple gets to know of a different approach followed by someone under some other Guru/in some other way and the ego hits him saying, “it seems the other path is better”

The significance of serving the sandal of his Guru lies here. The disciple, by serving the sandal of his Guru, is able to remove the least trace of ego within him and is able to render himself (his intellect, his heart)  as a pure white paper in which his Master can write supreme Brahma Vidya clearly.

More on this important step to follow in next post.

 

Love.