Guru

“ Swamiji then continued: "The real Guru is he who leads you beyond this Mâyâ of endless birth and death — who graciously destroys all the griefs and maladies of the soul. The disciple of old used to repair to the hermitage of the Guru, fuel in hand; and the Guru, after ascertaining his competence, would teach him the Vedas after initiation, fastening round his waist the threefold filament of Munja, a kind of grass, as the emblem of his vow to keep his body, mind, and speech in control. ”

“ The Guru neither eats nor drinks, neither lives nor dies:
Neither has He form, line, colour, nor vesture.
He who has neither caste nor clan nor anything else - how may I describe His glory? He has neither form nor formlessness,
He has no name,
He has neither colour nor colourlessness,
He has no dwelling-place. ”

“ Who is thy guru, and what power hath he to pardon thee since thou violatest all rules and destroyest life?’ The Guru in reply uttered the following pauri:—
When the True Guru is merciful, faith is perfected.
When the True Guru is merciful, man shall never grieve. ”

“ We must all wait till the Guru comes, and the Guru must be worshipped as God. He is God, he is nothing less than that. As you look at him, the Guru gradually melts away and what is left? The Guru picture gives place to God Himself. ”

“ Invoking a Guru’s blessings on your own higher nature for the purpose of sustaining you in this trance state, is as blasphemous and reprehensible an act of assisting descent, and conversion of higher into lower energies, as to invoke your Guru to help you in excessive wine drinking; for the astral world is also material. To be able to solve the mysteries of any consciousness whatever, even of the lowest physical, while in trance, is as vain a boast of the hunters for such a state, as that of physiologists or mesmerists. ”

“ Where dwells that Supreme Spirit, and how does He have His sport with all created things?
The fire is in the wood; but who awakens it suddenly? Then it turns to ashes, and where goes the force of the fire?
The true guru teaches that He has neither limit nor infinitude. ”

“ All souls are playing, some consciously, some unconsciously. Religion is learning to play consciously.
The Guru is your own higher Self.
Seek the highest, always the highest, for in the highest is eternal bliss. ”

“ Hear, O Pandit, why writest thou puzzles?
Write under the instruction of the Guru the name of God, the Cherisher of the world.
He created the world with ease: in the three worlds there is one Lord of Light.
Under the Guru's instruction select gems and pearls, and thou shalt obtain God the real thing.
If man understand, reflect, and comprehend what he readeth, he shall know at last that the True One is everywhere. ”

“ The undertaking to which you propose to devote yours energies is worthy of the holy traditions you represent and worthy, too, of the spirit of the great Guru who has inspired your life and its aims. We hope and trust that it may be given to us also to associate ourselves with you in this noble work. We fervently pray to Him who is the all-knowing and all-merciful Lord of the Universe to bestow on you long life and full strength and to bless your labours with that crown of glory and success which ever deserves to shine on the brow of immortal Truth. ”

“ They declared that the Guru was the wisest, the most learned, and the most religious man in the world, and that he was beloved by God. "The strange and incomprehensible questions over which others quarrel for days and years, the Guru sees through and settles with a word. ”

“ There are disciples who seek a guru made in their own image. ”

“ My guru was standing motionless before me; I started to drop at his holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright, and spoke calmly, unpretentiously.
“You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains for you in the world. Come; let us sweep the balcony floor; then we shall walk by the Ganges.”
I fetched a broom; Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses, while the body performs its daily duties. ”

“ The Guru established a separate religion, and laid out an easy and simple way of obtaining salvation by the repetition of God's name. The Guru extricated men from the terrible ocean of the world, and included them in the boon of salvation. He cut off the fear of transmigration, and healed the malady of superstition and the pain of separation from God. Until the Guru's advent death's mace ever impended over men's heads, and the apostate and the evil spent their lives in vain. When men grasped the feet of the divine Guru, he gave them the true Word and effected their deliverance. ”

“ Over and over again—to take a comparatively modern example, as the Gurugîtâ—we find Him as Teacher, to whom Pârvati goes asking for instruction as to the nature of the Guru. He it is who defines the Guru's work, He it is who inspires the Guru's teaching. Every Guru on earth is a reflection of Mahâdeva, and it is His life which he is commissioned to give out to the world. Yogî, immersed in contemplation, taking the ascetic form always—that marks out His functions. For the symbols by which the mighty Ones are shown in the teachings are not meaningless, but are replete with the deepest meaning. ”

“ They alone are fit to be Gurus. You and I are only hollow talk - talk, not teachers. We are disturbing the world more by talking, making bad vibrations. We hope and pray and struggle on, and the day will come when we shall arrive at the truth, and we shall not have to speak. "The teacher was a boy of sixteen; he taught a man of eighty. Silence was the method of the teacher; and the doubts of the disciple vanished for ever." [2] That is the Guru. Just think, if you find such a man, what faith and love you ought to have for that person! ”

“ Who is Guru?"
So I told him who Guru was, and just as he began talking about cheap magazines and fairy-tales I said one of the words that Guru taught me and he stopped talking. Because he was an old man and his joints were stiff he didn't crumple up but fell in one piece, hitting his head on the stone. Then I went on.
Even though I'm going to be only twelve on my next birthday I know many things that old people don't. And I remember things that other boys can't. I remember being born out of darkness, and I remember the noises that people made about me. ”

“ The Guru frees my soul. The father and mother give me this body; but the Guru gives me rebirth in the soul.
We have certain peculiar beliefs. One of these is that there are some souls, a few exceptional ones, who are already free and who will be born here for the good of the world, to help the world. They are free already; they do not care for their own salvation -- they want to help others. They do not require to be taught anything. From their childhood they know everything; they may speak the highest truth even when they are babies six months old. ”

“ Nowadays, everyone wants to be a Guru; even a poor beggar wants to make a gift of a lakh of rupees! Then the Guru must be without a touch of taint, and he must be Akâmahata — unhurt by any desire — he should have no other motive except that of purely doing good to others, he should be an ocean of mercy-without-reason and not impart religious teaching with a view to gaining name or fame, or anything pertaining to selfish interest. ”

“ They remove the thick darkness of many sins, like the moon in the gloaming.190 The teaching of a guru is calming, and brings to an end the faults of youth by turning them to virtue, just as old age takes away the dark stain of the locks by turning them to gray. ”

“ The Guru replied: ‘Thou shouldst have endurance like the earth, steadfastness in woe and weal like a mountain; thou shouldst bear pardon in thy heart, and do good to every one irrespective of his acts. Thou shouldst deem gold and dross as the same, and practise humility, for the humble shall ever be exalted. ”

“ Where the teaching of thy guru, thy learning of the Vedas, thy resolves of asceticism, thy [111] hatred of pleasure, thine aversion to vain delights, thy passion for penance, thy distaste for enjoyments, thy rule over the impulses of youth? Verily all knowledge is fruitless, study of holy books is useless, initiation has lost its meaning, pondering the teaching of gurus avails not, proficiency is worthless, learning leads to nought, since even men like thee are stained by the touch of passion, and overcome by folly. ”

“ Like a divine mirror, my guru apparently had caught a reflection of my whole life.
“The living reality of your presence, Master, is joy beyond any symbol.”
“It is time for a change, inasmuch as you are unhappily situated in the hermitage.”
I had made no references to my life; they now seemed superfluous! By his natural, unemphatic manner, I understood that he wished no astonished ejaculations at his clairvoyance.
“You should go back to Calcutta. Why exclude relatives from your love of humanity?” ”

“ What teachest thou the people, and what knowledge dost thou communicate to thy disciples?' The Pandit replied: 'By the will of God I teach the people the fourteen sciences—reading, swimming, medicine, alchemy, astrology, singing the six rags and their raginis, the science of sexual enjoyment, grammar, music, horsemanship, dancing, archery, theology, and statesmanship.' The Guru replied that better than all these was knowledge of God. ”

“ The Guru is as meek as he is sleek, and generally a worthy, jovial fellow, who is much, too much, trusted by the "ladies of the house." Then there is the temple priest who keeps the idol, and is, in return, kept in the best style by the worshippers. ”

“ All the time his ears are alive for information, because by receiving information, perhaps hearing that which is being given to other people, the wise student can deduce, can infer, and when the Guru in his wisdom sees that the student is making progress, that Guru, in his own good time, and in his own suitable way, questions the student, and if he finds some of the pupil's accumulated store of knowledge is faulty or incomplete, then the Guru, again in his own good time, repairs the omissions and deficiencies. ”

“ There are disciples who seek a guru made in their own image. Such students often complained that they did not understand Sri Yukteswar.
“Neither do you comprehend God!” I retorted on one occasion. “When a saint is clear to you, you will be one.” Among the trillion mysteries, breathing every second the inexplicable air, who may venture to ask that the fathomless nature of a master be instantly grasped?
Students came, and generally went. Those who craved a path of oily sympathy and comfortable recognitions did not find it at the hermitage. ”

“ No guroo-a religious teacher-can change a man's temperament. A Guru among the Hindus is regarded as a spiritual parent from whom the youth receives the initiatory mantra or prayer, and who conducts the ceremonies necessary at various seasons of infancy and youth, up to the period of investiture with the sacred thread or string: this person may be the natural parent or the religious preceptor. The word Guru is also used for a teacher or preceptor generally. ”

“ It must, as knowledge advances, be held in greater honour. With you is the future. Prepare yourselves for it, by learning, by virtue, by industry, by sympathy, by unselfishness; and seek to win for yourselves that place in public esteem, which is now held amongst the great mass of the people by the Guru. ”

“ A Guru should be a doctor of men. He should understand the nature of his disciple and teach him the method which suits him best.
There are infinite ways of practicing Yoga. Certain methods have produced successful result with certain men. ”

“ On the eighth day I fell at my guru's feet and implored him to keep me always near him in this sacred wilderness.
"'My son,' Babaji said, embracing me, 'your role in this incarnation must be played on an outward stage. Prenatally blessed by many lives of lonely meditation, you must now mingle in the world of men. ”

“ Similarly God, though everywhere, we can only conceive Him as a big man. All ideas of God such as merciful preserver, helper, protector — all these are human ideas, anthropomorphic; and again these must cling to a man, call him a Guru or a Prophet or an Incarnation. Man cannot go beyond his nature, no more than you can jump out of your body. What harm is there in some people worshipping their Guru when that Guru was a hundred times more holy than even your historical prophets all taken together? ”

“ The one thing necessary is to be stripped of our vanities — the sense that we possess any spiritual wisdom — and to surrender ourselves completely to the guidance of our Guru. The Guru only knows what will lead us towards perfection. ”

“ I remember an old gray-headed Hindu saying to me, when we were discussing Gurus, “After all the true Guru in every house is the Mother; and are there not only three important things in the world—God, the Word of God, and the Guru, he who brings the Word?” ...
Of the intellectual capacity of a woman a Hindu has a very poor opinion; but he will yield to, and even refer to, her about all matters of religion and—the kitchen. ”

“ Upon this he received an inspiration to go to Goindwal and see the Guru of whom everybody was speaking. Full of devotion he arrived and had the happiness of beholding the object of his visit. He stood absorbed in thought for a short time, and then gave utterance to the following in the Guru's praise :—
By the Guru's divine knowledge and meditation man's soul is blended with God. He who with single mind fixeth his attention on God, shall know Him who is the truest of the true. His mind shall not fly or wander who restraineth his lust and wrath. ”