Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 39

 

Qualifications of the preceptor

This spiritual treasure can be obtained from another too. However, the giver has to possess supreme attainment, and the recipient has to possess the special merit that deserves the achievement. The seed may have life in it, but the soil must be ploughed and made fit to activate it. When both conditions are satisfied, the harvest of spiritual success is assured. 

One who instructs in the field of religion has to be of enthralling excellence; the listener, also, has to be of sharp and clear understanding. When both are surprisingly supreme and extraordinarily enthusiastic, the result will be spiritual awakening of the highest level. Otherwise, rarely can such results follow.

The real gurus steal your hearts, not your wealth. The pupil has to concentrate on service to the guru and ruminate over their teachings. The pupil must be eager to translate the teaching into daily activity and actual practices. The pupil must fill the heart with devotion and dedicate all their skill for the actualization of the guru’s counsel. Such a person deserves the name pupil (sishya).

When the thirst for liberation and the revelation of one’s reality is acute, a strange and mysterious force in nature will begin operating. When the soil is ready, the seed appears from somewhere! The spiritual guru will be alerted, and the thirst will get quenched. The receiving individual has developed the power to attract the giver of illumination. That power is strong and full. Therefore, naturally the splendor that can confer illumination will get ready to bless.

Avatar: Guru of gurus

Readers! Though gurus of the common type have increased in number, a guru is available for one who is far more supreme and compassionate than any or all gurus. He is none other than the Avatar of the Lord. He can, by the mere expression of His will, confer the highest consummation of spiritual life. He can gift it and get one to accept it. Even the meanest of the mean can acquire the highest wisdom, in a trice. He is the guru of all gurus. He is the fullest embodiment of God as a human. A person can cognize God only in human form.

This Indian (Bharathiya) Spiritual Stream has been declaring, over and over again, that adoring God in human form is the highest duty. Unless God incarnates as a person, people can never hope to see God or listen to His voice.

Of course, one may picture God in various other forms, but one can never approximate the genuine form of God. However much one may try, one cannot picture God in any form except the human. 

People can pour out wonderful discourses and talks on God and the nature and composition of all that exists in the universe. They may satisfy themselves, asserting that all accounts of God descending in human form are meaningless myths. That is what the poor ordinary eye can discern. This strange inference is not based on wisdom (jnana). As a matter of fact, wisdom is absent in these assertions and declarations. What we can notice in them is only the froth floating on ego waves.

Who am I?

Who am I (Koham)? Why do I feel that I am the doer? What is the nature of consciousness that I am the enjoyer? Why be born and die at last? How did I deserve this life? Can I be liberated from this series of entrances and exits (samsara)? The attempt to discover answers to these questions is what the sages (rishis) of old designated as “austerities (tapas)”.

When the intellect of the individual ripens into this steady inquiry, the individual enters the path of spiritual exercise (tapas). This is the first step. As soon as people have ascended this step, the scriptures — the collective wisdom of seekers enshrined in sacred texts — welcome them. The traditional revealed scripture (sruthi, i.e. the Vedas) directs them to “listen, ruminate, and practise” the axiomatic counsel of the sages. The sages assure them that they will attain the goal of release and will free themselves from the delusive fascination for the visible world, portrayed for them by their own minds. A proper guru is in God-consciousness Only the Divine can be the guide, companion, and counselor on this lone journey of a person. Those styled gurus cannot help or rescue.

The Vedas (Sruthis) advise people to approach gurus who are versed in the Vedas (are srotriyas) and in God consciousness (Brahma-nishtas). They warn people against resorting to others.

What does srotriya mean? It means a person who is unquestioningly loyal to the Vedas and who adheres to the rules prescribed and the limits imposed therein, without the slightest deviation.

Brahmanishta means a person who is established in Brahma-consciousness. The person has no doubts to pester them, no diversion to distract, for the person has won steady faith in Atma.

Continued....

Love.