What happens when you find your Guru…Yogi Ashwini explains

The day of Guru Purnima holds a special place in the life of Sadhak. The day celebrates the shakti and Mahima of a Guru…the energy which alone can make you cross dimensions in a second, and without whose blessings you can go on for aeons without moving forward on the journey of the spirit, no matter how able or accomplished you think you are. Shri Ram and Shri Krishna also made a Guru when they took a human form, even though they were gods.

Let me explain this with a famous example from the not-so-distant past. There was an ordinary person named Giri with no apparent special talents or intelligence, what he had was humility and the bhav to do seva. Once a Guru came to his town and took him under his fold.

The Guru had three very able disciples, who were well-versed in the shastras, who had had phenomenal revelations and realisations. Giri never participated in discussions or answered any questions during the lectures by Guru, and was often mocked by other disciples for his dull-mindedness. Giri however was immune to all this and took pleasure in serving the Guru, running around to do his personal chores, preparing his meals, washing his clothes, picking flowers, cleaning his room, etc.

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Once the Guru was to start his lecture, but Giri had not returned from the river where he had gone to run an errand. So the Guru waited for him to arrive before starting. The other disciples could not stop themselves from asking, “Guru ji, why do you wait for him, as it is, telling him something is like talking to a wall, nothing he understands.” The Guru just smiled and waited for the arrival of his student.

When Giri arrived, Guru gazed at him intently. Something happened, and Giri bowed before the Guru and started singing praises of his Guru, a composition he created on the spot. The other three students looked at him in bewilderment and marvelled at the brilliance of his composition in silence. Pleased by his disciple, Guru gave him the title of Totakacharya, and the composition came to be known as Totakashtakam.

Totakacharya went on to condense the essential teachings of Upanishads in a treatise and was counted amongst the foremost disciples of Adi Shankaracharya. Such is the power of the mere gaze of the Guru.

In the Rudryamala it is said, “The fool who commences japa and tapas by reading books instead of receiving it from the Guru acquires nothing but sin, no one can save him. Guru alone can, in a single moment, destroy the mass of his sins…”

It is after the lifetimes of sadhana that a being meets his/her Guru, and when that happens, there are indications for it. The first indication is thatcertain changes occur in your body - it starts looking the way you always desired. Secondly, any imbalance or disease in the body disappears. You cease to fall ill. And the third indicator is that you start experiencing the energies that run this creation.

A Guru does not charge you a fee or claim to rid you of your problems, he puts you on the path of attaining the final reality opening the doorways of subtler dimensions. He is sthir in the five yamas of ashtanga yog, He exudes the glow and attraction of yog, and whatever he says happens.His mantra ucharan is full of force and results in divine experiences and manifestations. A Guru does not amass wealth, build palatial ashrams, or seek huge followers. Guru comes for a cause and shows the same path of karma and seva to those who come to him for their awakening and evolution.

One should not be in a hurry to make a Guru and should be absolutely sure when he/she does make one basing the faith upon experiences he/she has had. Yogsutras give a period of two years for a sadhak to observe, analyse and understand everything before making a Guru.

In the present day and age, our society has degraded so much that one is not able to accept or comprehend the importance of a Guru. It is because we are living in the age of darkness, the beings of this yug are not looking for light. Rishis of yesteryears had said about kalyug that there will come a time when businesses would be run in the name of yog and gyan, which is what is happening today, which further dampens one’s faith in the subject. But here it becomes important to distinguish a Guru from businessmen and showmen and seek the Guru because there is no journey without Guru, no matter which yug we are in.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)