Is A Guru Essential?

[Guest guest]

Now, we read in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, a devotee asking,

`Sir, is a spiritual teacher necessary?' Sri Ramakrishna replied that

it is necessary for many. If there be some unique souls, born with

divine consciousness, who feel the Divine presence even from their

very childhood, they do not need a spiritual teacher, but all others

do need. Once a devotee asked our teacher Swami Brahmananda - and I

have been telling many of you to read, if you have not done so, The

Spiritual Teachings of Swami Brahmananda - `Maharaj, is a Guru

necessary?' and the Swami smiled and said, `My boy, even if you want

to be a thief, you need a teacher. How much more should there be the

necessity of a teacher when you want to know the highest truth!' You

know there are gangs of pickpockets; they have to pass through a

tremendous discipline and training and then only one can be an expert

pickpocket.

 

In this connection, I wish to tell you a story: Girishchandra Ghosh,

the actor and dramatist and a great devotee of Sri Ramakrishna, used

to practise Homeopathy in his old age. Taking the name of the Master

he would give medicine. He had naturally tremendous intuition to

achieve success in his way of treatment. One day an elderly and very

decent-looking gentleman was sitting by his side, when a young man

came and said, `Sir, I have lost my wrist watch on my way'. The other

gentleman became inquisitive and asked, `When and where did you lose

it?' He said, `Sir, I lost it at such and such an hour, at such and

such a place', and the man said `You will get it back'. How could he

give the assurance? Because, the fine-looking gentleman was one of

the leaders of the pickpockets, one of their Gurus.

 

I give you another instance. You want to learn Astronomy; you take a

book and try to understand it; you get precious nothing! But the

Astronomer says something astounding. Every day you see the sun

rising and setting and here comes a man who says the sun never rises;

the sun never sets; it is all due to the movement of the earth. If we

believe our sense perception fully, we do not pay any heed to him.

But if we do not, we have to go to him, study under him, make

experiments, and then we really convince ourselves what we have seen

is an illusion and it is just the truth that the sun never moves, the

earth moves.

 

A spiritual teacher also comes and says something astounding. We are

all conscious of our body. We think we are all men and women but the

spiritual teacher says that we are the Spirit, distinct from the body

and distinct from the mind and distinct from the ego. But if you

think as many think, `He is a cheat', Lord bless you! But if you

doubt sometimes, `Am I this mass of flesh, this mass of filth or is

there something living in me, something living in everybody?' If you

start thinking like that, your spiritual life begins. I go to a

teacher who has been following the spiritual path all his life, has

attained illumination, has come to possess a tremendous sympathy,

love, compassion and kindness. I sit at his feet, learn from him

something of spiritual disciplines and do my spiritual practices

regularly. As my mind becomes purer and purer, I get something in the

domain of the spirit and my Ista Devata becomes living. I feel within

me a presence that permeates my being, a presence that permeates

everybody.

 

I will tell you a story. In the Upanisads we come across `Narada

Sanatkumara Samvada', a discourse between Narada and Sanatkumara.

Saints are not born perfect, they have to manifest their perfection.

Through sadhana they unfold their potentiality. Saints and sages do

not drop from the sky. Narada had his period of true studentship,

studied all branches of learning, studied the scriptures, sciences

and arts. But having mastered the subjects, he found something was

lacking in him. He had studied many things but had not known himself.

We all are quite content to read and know of the outer world but we

forget to know even a bit of ourselves. It is most unscientific. A

great Western physicist has said `That to which Truth matters must

have a place in reality, whatever be the definition of reality'.

Without some knowledge about the subject, education is incomplete.

Our world is full of half-educated people, of those who don't know

themselves, who don't know anything of the higher Reality, but pose

to be teachers or saviours of the world. Such persons are about to

destroy the world. Now, let us come back to the anecdote: `Narada

felt " I am not an Atmavit " .' He felt a deep pain. He says, `Soham

bhagavo sochami - (I, who have not known the Reality in me, am in

great sorrow). Please remove my sorrow. Take this sorrow away from

me. Give me peace.' The Guru listened to him with infinite

tenderness, took him step by step, helped him to have a finer and

finer mind and ultimately revealed to him the Truth. `Yo vai bhuma

tat sukham nalpe sukhamasti ` That alone which is infinite is bliss.

There is no Bliss in the finite.'

 

- Swami Yatiswarananda