Svaminnamaste natalokabandho
karunyasindho patitam bhavabdhau,
Mamuddharatmlyakataksadrstya
rjvyatikarunyasudhabhivrstya.
O Master! O friend of those who reverentially surrender to thee! Thou ocean of mercy! I salute thee; save me, fallen as I am into this sea of change, with a direct glance from thy eyes which rain nectarine grace supreme.
Chinmaya writes,
"Here a student of Vedanta is asked to surrender himself to the Guru and to serve him with meek surrender. This prescription is not meant to make the student intellectually a slave to the Teacher but these practices, when pursued for some time, easily make the student fully tuned up to the Teacher's heart.
What the Teacher has to convey is the experience of the Transcendental and as the Infinite cannot be defined in finite words, the words of the Master can echo their message only in a bosom that has been stilled in complete love.
In order that we ourselves may not create any discordant notes and destroy the harmony, we, as students, are asked to serve and surrender, to pray and worship at the Master's feet."
The very first verse in one of the greatest works of Brahma rishi Sivananda- Moksha Gita - exactly echoes the deepest essence of this verse.
The disciple said: O Merciful Master! I bow to thee. I have fallen into the dreadful ocean of birth and death. I am afflicted with the three kinds of Taapas. Save me, O Lord. Teach me, how I should cross this ocean of Samsara.
“The disciple approaches the Guru. This is the starting point of Brahmavidya. The aspirant after equipping himself with the Sadhana-Chatushtaya, i.e., the ethical discipline necessary for the purification of the heart before enteringinto the field of Brahmavidya proper or the Science of the Ultimate Reality, goes to the Spiritual Teacher for higher Knowledge.
Humbler than a blade of grass, filled with the fire of renunciation born of discriminative understanding, the seeker bows down to the Guru who glories in the majesty of Brahmic Splendour.
Not as the present-day student of the school or the college, but as an earnest votary of Life’s Grand Destination, roused up by the consciousness of suffering in pluralistic existence on earth, fully aware of the affliction of mortal living, cheated by chance, tormented by thought, defeated by the forces of nature, oppressed by the massive weight of worldly duty, shocked by the horror of death, dreaded by the consciousness of future lives where the tragedy of existence will be repeated, finding no way of escape from the prison of terrestrialness, the aspirant opens his eyes and looks up towards his Great Duty, the duty of Self-realization.
A spiritual Preceptor is absolutely necessary. He alone can foresee the pitfalls of the aspirant and direct him in the right path. The Chandogya Upanishad says that only he who is guided by a Guru can have the Knowledge of Brahman. Others will be misled and lost in spiritual blindness; for the road to Moksha is hard to tread. It is a razor-path. The Grace of God and Guru, Ishwara-Kripa and Guru-Kripa will raise up the aspirant to the heights of Spiritual Attainment.”
Every preceptor, from Sankara to Sivananda and all others lay such great emphasis on the importance of Guru and need for surrender to Guru in the path of wisdom. When they say this, the mean surrendering to the Guru Tatwam.
But in the present day world, this differentiation between the name and form of Guru and Guru tatwa, the essence of Guru, is not clearly experienced and understood by the disciples/ intellectual beings.
Even physically worshipping/serving one's guru, reverring one's guru should happen due to the surrender of the disciple to the essence of Guru, to the realized state from where the preceptor has come down to take the disciple on his lap and to teach the disciple.
Hence this total surrender to the Guru tatwa is lost during the journey of a sadhaka and sadhakas thus get stagnant in their spiritual evolvement and the downfall in their evolvement starts taking place, when they fail to surrender to their Guru (tatwa) and start existing / continue sadhana as per their mind, their ego. This is the most unfortunate thing in present world where ego reigns supreme over all other things in the world.
Love