गुरुचरणाम्बुजनिर्भरभक्तः संसारादचिराद्भव मुक्तः ।
सेन्द्रियमानसनियमादेवं द्रक्ष्यसि निजहृदयस्थं देवम् ॥३१॥
Gurucaraṇāmbuja nirbhara bhaktaḥ
saṁsārādacirādbhava muktaḥ,
sendriyamānasa niyamādevaṁ
drakṣyasi nija hṛdayasthaṁ devam
O devotee of the
lotus feet of the teacher! May you become liberated soon from the saṁsāra through the discipline of the sense organs and the
mind. You will come to experience the Lord that dwells in your own heart.
Śaṅkarā wants to tell us of one more thing that we may want to do.
Everything else will follow from it.
What is that one most
important means?
It is the ardent devotion
to the lotus feet of the teacher. He is suggesting that this is an outstanding
means for the pursuit of knowledge, for becoming free from saṁsāra.
Why this devotion to
the teacher is emphasized so much?
Devotion to the
teacher also includes devotion to what the teacher stands for. One cannot be
devoted to a teacher unless he is devoted to what the teacher stands for.
A teacher represents
the scriptures. He represents the tradition, he represents the knowledge. In
being devoted to him, there is devotion to the knowledge, devotion to the
scriptures, devotion to the tradition, and devotion to God.
Sri Krishna Says in
Bhagwad Gita,
udaaraaha sarva evaite jnyaanee
tvaatmaiva me matam |
aasthitaha sa hi yuktaatmaa
maamevaanuttamaam gatim ||
(All of them
are good. But I hold the Jnani as Myself, for, having his soul always
united with Me, he is firmly established in Me as the highest goal.)
Swami explains who is
Guru.
“This day is a day
set apart for the worship of the Guru. Who is the Guru? How can a person who
has not reached the goal guide you towards it? When he is himself groping in
the dark, how can he illumine your path? Most Gurus who profess to lead are
themselves not quite sure of the road or quite convinced of the rightness of
their path. 'Gu' means darkness, or ignorance; "ru" its removal. So
the Guru must know the process by which ignorance can be removed in another.
How can he do it when he has not done it for himself? The blind cannot lead the
blind.”
Guru has another
meaning too. 'Gu' means gunaatheetha (beyond the three strands of energy
of which the Cosmos is composed) and 'ru' means rupa-rahitha (devoid of
any particular form). Now, no mortal has transcended the guna (quality) and
rupa (form). God alone can be described as unaffected by these. And, God is the
Guru, right in your heart, ready to lead and enlighten. He is all-knowing,
all-powerful, and all-pervading.
Sathya Sai Speaks
V12:Ch42, Divine Discourse July 1974
Dear All,
If everyone is
realized when one is born, then there is no need for any Guru and Sishya in
this creation, as all have realized that they are divine.
But this does not
happen in reality because due to the karma of past life (lives), we carry
our sanskara from previous birth to current birth and these sanskaras influence
our habits, our tendencies and our nature.
With our sanskara,
our inbuilt EGO, even if best teachings are available in audio / video
discourses, we will still be interpreting / misinterpreting or ignoring such
words of wisdom due to our own ego, our own nature.
If this is not there,
then all scriptural teachings and even qualified / realized master’s teachings
are available in internet / amazon!
It is only when we
accept some qualified being as our preceptor, our acharya, then, it is very
easy for us to keep aside our ego, our own interpretations of the scriptures
and offer ourselves wholly to the instructions of our Guru and follow the same
accordingly.
By putting ourselves
in the orbit of the Guru’s influence, by devout contemplation on his
personality, our minds will gradually attain the same level of the Guru’s
purity, Guru’s state, without the limitations in our own individual struggle.
A dry wood, kept near
a fire quickly catches the fire and becomes one with it. Similarly, by being
nearer and accepting and absorbing the burning renunciation and holiness
of the Guru, our heart gets free from the moisture of worldliness.
Devotion means love
with respect and reverence. It is a love in which there is reverence and
surrender. There are different kinds of love, but the love between a teacher
and student is altogether different. There is a willing submission or willing
surrender to the teacher out of a sense of reverence, and an implicit trust or
faith in him.
We have to take the
exposition of a Guru by Sai very clearly in our mind. Swami has said and the
quote is there above, that a Guru is beyond Gunas and beyond Form.
This has to be
understood very clearly when we approach a Guru and surrender ourselves to him.
The Guru's form, His
appearance, His situation, His environment, His present occupation - all these
have to be totally transcended.
You are not
surrendering to a physical Guru. You have surrendered to His realized state.
You have surrendered to the scriptural knowledge which the guru has attained as
subjective experience. You have surrendered to the one who has merged with God
and exists as pure as God.
Thus, you are bowing
to His spiritual state, the knowledge transformed into spiritual
experience which is standing before you in a form, as your Guru.
This is important
because, if you focus on His form, His environment, then your ego may crop
up and raise a doubt in your mind, "O, He is also dressing like anyone
else, He is also leading a normal life like anyone else" (especially where
your Guru is an householder).
A devotee did not
even leave Swami when the devotee spoke to Sathya about Swami and said, “See,
Swami also cracks jokes, Swami also talks to Students casually....., so we must
also be jovial.....".
It is here that
the author insists that one should not focus only on the outer
appearance / normal talks of a Guru but stay focused on his teachings because,
in his case, the teachings are not mere scriptural knowledge but they have
merged in Him, they have culminated as real experience in Him!!
Continued…..
