Why I Asked About Gurus

[Guest guest]

Dear Kochu:

 

Thank you for your thoughts on this matter of the Panchamakara. They

seem direct, informed and sensible. I also agree with your statement

that, "As for guru, if you are going to Panchamakara path you DO need

a Guru. The books cannot be a substitute." And I actually said

exactly that in my original, longish post on the so-called 5 M's.

 

My confusion about the concept of Guru was directed more at the less

extreme forms of spiritual endeavor. I think my musings about the

role of the Guru in this modern age was misinterpreted by some as a

declaration that Gurus are not necessary. It was not. Rather, it was

more of a question, a call for opinions. As always, I am interested

in bringing out what seems to be rarely discussed in many Groups --

which is, the street-level applications of these concepts. Tantra

says a Guru is necessary. Vedic Hinduism would say the same in most

cases. And yet the reality is that most people have to get by in the

interim, for all practical purposes, without one.

 

And so I asked about that. It is not my intention, as some have

assumed, to assert that people can get along fine without a Guru or

that a Guru is unnecessary for full Self-realization. I have made no

such claim. In my experience in other aspects of life, it's often

been apparent to me that people should not criticize that with which

they have no experience. And frankly, I cannot claim to have had a

guru, although I have had the good fortune to encounter

several "mentors," if you will -- people who seem, in retrospect, to

have acted as guides of sorts, pointing me in the right direction at

various key forks along my path.

 

However, I've known a number of people -- often from Andhra Pradesh

and Tamil Nadu, if that means anything -- who've considered various

living saints, such as Satya Sai Baba, to be their gurus. They keep

pictures of him around the house, and on their home altar. They might

have seen him once in person, from a distance, or perhaps in a brief

darshan, one devotee among hundreds of others in a queue. And one

woman I know (Bengali) once spoke of her guru, whom she said was dead

and whom she never met -- and yet she claimed he'd changed and

enriched her spiritual life incalculably.

 

It is *this* concept of Guru that confuses me. In that sense, it

seems, I could just as accurately call Sir John Woodroffe my Guru --

he too is dead, and has greatly enriched my life through his

writings. Or I could say my guru is Mother Meera, with whose darshan

I *have* been honored and whose power (I don't think the term

shaktipat would be appropriate here) is absolutely tangible and

transforming. I also (as one without a Guru) appreciate her teaching

that a Guru is not, for all people in all circumstances, a sine qua

non. In fact, she absolutely insists that she is *not* to be

considered a Guru.

 

On the other hand, the Gurukul tradition -- the student who lives

with and serves the Guru "24/7," as they say, receiving knowledge in

the context of life itself -- seems totally comprehensible. It seems

that this must be the true concept to which the old texts

requiring a Guru refer. Not long ago, I had the honor of a detailed

conversation with the esteemed Carnatic vocalist Sudha Ragunathan (I

was interviewing her for a magazine article) in which she spoke of

her traditional Gurukul relationship with her guru, the great Dr.

M.L. Vasanthakumari.

 

What she described to me was almost a form of indentured servitude,

in which she lived under her guru's roof as a teeneager, carting her

guru's luggage, washing her guru's sarees by hand while on concert

tour, basically acting as her maidservant. And in return she was

granted the secrets of MLV's art -- and the spiritual lessons and

realizations that give the life and power to Carnatic classical

music. In time Sudha was allowed to provide vocal support in public

recitals. When her parents wished her to marry, MLV met with and

interviewed the prospective grooms and her word was law. Sudha told

me: "MLV was my guru. If she told me to jump down a well, I probably

would have."

 

Similarly, I once read an interview with the great sitarist Ravi

Shankar, who described his very similar Gurukul in his own youth --

where, for the longest time, he was not allowed to touch a sitar, but

only to pluck a single note on a tamboura until his Guru believed

that he truly felt and respected the holiness of sound. The novelist

Gita Mehta beautifully rendered the depth of feeling involved in such

another such relationship in her fictional work, "A River Sutra."

 

In such cases I can totally understand a statement like that of

OmPrem, who beautifully wrote a few messages back: "The Guru, because

he/she knows the past lives of the aspirant and what will befall the

aspirant in this life, can guide the aspirant toward God in all

situations. The Guru protects the aspirant and elevates the mind,

intellect and consciousness of the aspirant."

 

Yes, and in a Gurukul situation, this is clearly a "connection" that

is designed to happen -- it's the purpose of the whole arrangement.

But what about the case of the woman with a dead Guru she's never

met? And what about the Tamil-American stockbroker with a picture of

Sai Baba tacked up over his telephone? Or the chela whose guru gave

him diksha long-distance via a "recent photograph," or in the context

of a mass darshan? All of these are real situations! But are they

true Guru-Chela relationships? Because if so, the individualized

knowledge I just referenced, the tailoring and guidance in the

chela's sadhana, is either totally lacking, or totally supernatural.

 

Sorry for rambling. But I did not want OmPrem or anyone else to feel

that my "inquiring mind" in matters concerning Gurus is a simple,

unconsidered, "knee-jerk" reaction of the species "I don't have one,

therefore nobody needs one." I do not believe that for a minute. As I

suggested before, my posts on the Guru dynamic are more queries than

statements. Most often, the replies I receive are counter-

statements: "Don't you dare question the value of a Guru!" Which is

fine, of course, and understandable. But the reason I bring

these matters up again and again, I suppose, is that I've yet to

receive an answer.

 

Aum Maatangyai Namahe