The importance of spiritual preacher
Smt. Uma Ramanath asked about the importance of spiritual preacher (Guru).
Swami gave the following reply:
A lecturer in Government College will teach you the syllabus and at the same time acts as the invigilator, valuer of the paper etc. and finally you are getting a valued degree from the college. Similarly, the Lord acting as Guru preaches the spiritual knowledge, guides you practically, tests your knowledge in practice and finally gives you the suitable divine fruit. A teacher conducting tuition home is just teaching you and is not connected to the examination, degree etc. Similarly, a human being acting as Guru preaches you the spiritual knowledge and not concerned with your practice and its fruit. The human guru may be able to deliver the knowledge of Satguru (Lord acting as Guru) as it is, but cannot clarify your doubts in the practical field as effectively as Satguru does.
If you are hearing the speech through a tape recorder, the clarification of doubts is not possible. Even in the speech, some parts may not be clear to you due to the defects in your grasping power only. The human guru serves as a messenger of the Lord only. He is just like a postman. Therefore, the guru you referred in the Sanskrit verse uttered by you means only Satguru. However, Satguru is not frequently available. Still the Lord will clarify your doubts through some body since the Lord has the super power. Therefore, you need not worry that your doubts will be remaining without clarification in the absence of Satguru. The Lord is always ready to explain your doubts either directly or indirectly. If you deserve to go to the upper level, you will certainly rise to the upper level by the direct or indirect guidance of God. However, if you are not capable of rising to the higher level, what is the use of even meeting Satguru directly? Therefore, you should not worry about the availability of Satguru. You should worry only about your spiritual progress to rise to the higher level and you must concentrate on removing the hurdles in your spiritual progress. If you are a tenth class candidate and even if you meet the president of the country, he can give you only the post of a peon.
If you have passed I.A.S examination, the appointment order for the post of District Collector comes to your home. Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa told that one need not search for Guru. God will send Gurus of various levels as and when you reach those levels. When you are ripened, Satguru will contact you at once. You may miss Satguru in your search. But Satguru will not miss you when the proper time comes. Satguru cannot do any good to any undeserving fellow. For the sake of majority, Satguru will not come down because He is not bothered about the fame. Krishna preached hundred Kauravas but of no use. Only the five Pandavas followed Krishna as their Satguru. Sakuni could become Satguru for Kauravas. But finally both the Sakuni and Kauravas were destroyed. A teacher in bogus institution gets you a bogus degree which has no value at all. Therefore, the Lord as Satguru and devotee of the Lord as a human guru are good. But the fraud Guru will destroy himself and yourself. It is better to confine to your family if you are not getting Satguru but you should be never trapped by a fraud Guru.
Satguru is the Lord in the human form. You should not see the external human form and should view the Lord only in Him. In the case of human guru, there is no Lord in him but you can treat the external human form as the possessor of power of God. In the first case you should understand the Lord as Guru and in the second case you should understand the Guru as the Lord. There is a difference between God as Guru and Guru as God. Your husband says “Guru Deva Datta” whenever he speaks to Me. The word Guru Deva has two meanings as per the Sanskrit Grammar. In one meaning God is treated as Guru and in the second meaning the Guru is treated as God. There is difference between these two meanings. The second word “Datta” clarifies that the first word is used strictly in the first sense only. Datta means God given to you in human form for the sake of your guidance. Guidance should be essential for your practice. Even clarification of your theoretical doubts should lead you to practice. Unless theory is clear practice cannot start. If there is no practice the entire theory is waste. If the theory is perfect, the practice is spontaneous. Therefore, the clarity in the theory and clarification of your doubts is very very important. Without understanding this, people mock at theory and stress on practice. Without complete and perfect theory, the practice cannot begin. Sometimes people practice due to fear or due to ambition for fulfilling the desires. The Satguru will never base on these two paths of fear and ambition. The false Guru exploits the people using either fear or ambition or both for some selfish gain like money, fame etc. But the followers are utterly deceived because such practice is not giving any good and complete fruit.
Satguru leads you to goal without any long time and deep strain. Suppose you have a bad quality like rigidity. Due to the same quality Duryodhana went to hell and Gopikas went to highest divine abode. In the first case rigidity was applied to worldly affairs (Pravrutti). In the second case the same quality is applied to the spiritual line (Nivrutti). A Satguru will direct your existing bad qualities to the spiritual line and will see that you will use those qualities positively for your real welfare. An ordinary human being acting as Guru will advise you to come to the spiritual line after removing bad qualities. The innocent and ignorant Guru does not know that millions of births are required even to shake a bad quality which was accumulated form the beginning of creation.
This is the difference between a Satguru and human Guru. Satguru generates the divine knowledge. The human guru carries on that knowledge in-to-to. Sometimes a practical problem arises in your spiritual path. The solution for that problem needs generation of divine knowledge, which is impossible for the human Guru. Therefore, if you get Satguru you are very lucky. But, if you do not use His guidance due to your blind attractions, in such case Satguru is useless for you like Sun for a blind man. If you have the maturity of mind to use the guidance, God will speak to you even through the human guru. Therefore, your determination to achieve the goal is the most important factor. If you have such determination, God will approach you in some human form and will guide you properly. Therefore, the problem lies on your side and not on the side of Satguru. How much lucky we are! We are directly talking with the Lord and getting the perfect spiritual guidance. The Lord is staying in My human body. There is no trace of any doubt about this.
When the devotees were calling Me as Lord Datta, I was confused and was very careful about the egoism that may trap Me. But slowly, I am convinced with this point on doing analysis from several angles. This wonderful divine knowledge cannot come from any human being except Lord Datta. These wonderful devotional songs which came spontaneously cannot be composed by any soul except Lord Datta. The vision of cosmic form (Viswa Roopam) can be given only by the Lord and such vision was given to two devotees simultaneously (Ajay and Seetamma) through this human body by Lord Datta. By the age of 16 years who can write hundred philosophical books in Sanskrit except Lord Datta through this human body? Lord Datta entered this human body even in the womb of My mother. Once My mother was telling Me that when she was carrying Me, she used to often get dreams in which she was finding various deities (various forms of God) with temple-bells ringing constantly.
There were two black-magicians in My village, who killed about hundred persons and three hundred children through their black magic in our village. In our joint family seven male issues before My birth were also killed by their black magic. The day I was born, both those demons were killed in violent way. All these factors led Me to conclude that the Lord is staying in My human body for His divine work of propagation of divine knowledge. I am just like all of you and there is no specialty in Me and no special favour is done to Me. The Lord is the speaker I am very very near to Him holding on the mike before His mouth. All His speech is common to all of us. After the war Arjuna asked Krishna to repeat Gita. Krishna expressed His inability to repeat because He also heard Gita from the Lord like Arjuna. When Arjuna pressed, Krishna told Gita again. But the second Gita (Anu Gita) stands nowhere before the first Gita. This is the concept of the human incarnation. The Lord enters the human body of a human being. The guest (Lord) and the owner of the house (devoted human being) are like the two birds and the body is like a tree. Like this Veda says (Dvaa Suparnaa). When the Lord said the first Gita, it is mentioned that the Lord spoke (Sri Bhagvan Uvacha). It is not said that Krishna spoke. Therefore, let all of us follow the Lord’s divine knowledge and get the eternal benefit. The Lord has to enter some human body and He entered this human body accidentally or incidentally. The divine knowledge spoken by the Lord (Satguru) is the guiding force, which clarifies all our doubts leading to determination, which results spontaneously in practice.
Satguru is the Lord in human form like Krishna. Even a liberated soul can be Satguru because He is directed by the Lord. He speaks as per the will of God. Swami Raghavendra, an incarnation of Prahlada is also a Satguru. He will speak whatever Lord wants to speak and thus there is no difference between the Lord and such top most devotees. In olden days the Guru tests the level of the devotee and used to expose that much knowledge only which is related to his level so that the devotee gets benefit. This is called as “Anubandha Chatushtaya” which means the level of the devotee (Adhikari), the portion of the knowledge (Vishaya) that is related to him (Sambandha) and the benefit (Prayojana). Suppose there are three devotees on the ground. One can climb ten steps only. The second one can climb fifty steps and the third devotee can climb all hundred steps. The Guru reveals ten steps only to the first devotee and says that the tenth step is the final step. If you reveal even the eleventh step he will be discouraged. Similarly for the second devotee only fifty steps should be revealed. For the third devotee the entire knowledge can be revealed.
But at present the Lord is revealing the entire divine knowledge through this computer. It is just like the booklet showing all the courses present in the University. According to the level one has to select the course. This facility was not there in the olden days. One need not be discouraged because if you are constantly putting the effort to climb the steps continuously, God will sanction any number of human births to reach the goal. The spiritual path has no physical significance. It is not like the journey to Bombay which needs the help of vehicles. The whole journey is related to your psychology or mental set-up which should act with full determination. The determination will spontaneously come through complete and real divine knowledge. The real knowledge can alone clarify all the doubts. When no doubt is left over the knowledge is complete, which immediately results in determination. Therefore, Guru is more important than even the God is because Guru is the guide and God is the goal. When God Himself comes to you as Guru, there is no need of any journey. He will guide you so that you will recognize Him. But His guidance is always delicate and critical because there is always a risk of your misunderstanding about Him. If somebody guides you to Him, such risk is not there. But such guidance will not be as clear as His guidance. Therefore, the issue gets mixed up.
When you recognize the God in human form, your concentration should be on the God present in Him. Since you cannot directly experience God, the medium is necessary. When you are experiencing God through the human form, the awareness of the external human form should disappear. When you touch an electric wire, your awareness is about the shock of current but not about the structure of the wire. Therefore, you have to see the aspect of God in Satguru and treat Him as directly the God (Guruh Sakshat Parabrahma). This means that you should find only God in Satguru. The case of a human Guru blessed by God is like the hot iron wire in the heater which was heated by the electricity but the current is put off. The effect of the current, which is the heat, remains in the wire.
The heat burns your finger but does not give a shock. Similarly, the human incarnation of a liberated soul has the power of God, though not directly God and is called as Guru. The third example is the wire in which neither the electricity nor the heat exists. To develop concentration in one direction you can treat such wire also as God and such worship is called as representative worship (Pratika Upasanam). There is no fruit from the object but there is fruit in the subject which is the development of concentration. The first two cases are direct and indirect worship of God resulting in the achievement of fruit from the object. For the representative worship you can select any human being you like as your Guru which has also the advantage of development of concentration in yourself.
At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami
Anil Antony
www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org
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