A different way to consider Guru

[Guest guest]

According to Swamiji, Guru means (s)he who dispels darkness with light.

 

I'd like to offer my perspective of of what Guru means to me.

 

A Guru's job, assigned by God, is to help us understand ourselves, to

help us overcome our foibles and other barriers of mind and receive the

light of Goddess.

 

Its a tall order, huh?

 

How do Gurus expose the darkness and illuminate it? What is the process

that (s)he uses to accomplish this goal?

 

I imagine myself to be a hypothetical Guru and I ask my Self: how can I

truly help this person?

 

The answers are not very obvious. Usually the answer that comes to me

is: love this person enough to leave this person alone. Do not react to

this person's button pressing. Set the example of inner and outer love

and inner and outer peace.

 

But according to Maa, that answer makes me a hypothetically not so good

Guru. Shree Maa quotes Ramakrishna who said that there are three kinds

of Guru's just like there are three kinds of Doctors: the first tells

you what to take to get well, the second asks you if you are taking your

medicine, but only the third makes you take your medicine.

 

The difference is karma. The first and second kind of doctors won't take

on any karma for their patient. The third takes on karma. Likewise the

best Guru takes on karma by forcing their disciple to take their medicine.

 

What kind of medicine does the best Guru make us take?

 

The Guru asks him/her Self, "What will bring peace to this person?"

 

Peace is the opposite of creation. Creation itself is the opposite of

peace. How does a Guru bring peace to a disciple? By uncreating the

person. Think about that for a second. What do you figure is the biggest

quality of uncreation? Yep, you guessed it, its the same as the biggest

quality of creation. The same as the biggest quality of birth: pain.

 

The Guru causes us pain. At least, that's how the mind perceives it.

 

What is the mind going to do in response to this pain?

 

It depends on the mind. Some minds will allow the pain to break down the

boundaries of affliction and grow from the experience. Others will

react, recoil and withdraw from the world. Yet others will react and

explode outward with anger.

 

The Excellent Guru knows exactly what will happen and accepts the karma

for the sake of the disciple.

 

What is reality for an ordinary person? What is reality for a True Disciple?

 

An ordinary person reacts to his experience, and his life is the sum of

his reactions. His first reactions are dictated by his genetics and his

parents reactions to him. And then the rest of his life is a sequence of

cyclical reactions from one thing to the next. All the qualities he

possesses become his unconscious director, telling him what to do, how

to behave, and how to keep safe from all the harmful things of life.

 

A proper disciple recognizes a desire for peace within and desires to

stop the reactions which dictate his life.

 

He may never actually accomplish this, for stopping the cycle is often a

time consuming, karma ridden, difficult journey. But the desire to stop

the cycle applies to some future time and possibly some future life

where he will break the cycle and become a master of the physical plane.

 

From the outside looking in an ordinary person and the true disciple

may look exactly the same. Each with their own difficulties, the

difference lies in the heart of the individual and the intention of

their actions. An ordinary person is driven by self (with the little

's'), for self preservation, self protection, self building. The true

disciple is driven by Self (with the capital 'S'), for Self fulfillment,

Self understanding, and Self realization.

 

Take this moment to ask yourself, "What is it that I want in my life?"

Let that choose your intention.

 

What is reality to the ordinary person? Its a button pressing,

confusing, misleading and misdirecting set of experiences meant to harm him.

 

What is reality to the true disciple? Its a button pressing, confusing,

misleading and misdirecting set of experiences meant to develop him.

 

Reality, it seems, is the ultimate Guru. And the True Disciple can see that.

 

If nearly everyone acts on a sequence of mental reactions to surrounding

stimulus, its easy to see just how chaos ensues among the people of the

world. Its easy to see where all the non-peace comes from.

 

Its certainly easy to see the reactions in those around us. Just drive

down the highway in the US for example. You'll see at least one person

react to another person's bad driving. Watch a soap opera on TV. The

writers know what makes good drama, people reacting to other people's

button presses.

 

A Guru is someone who makes us aware of our reactions, they do so often

by pressing our buttons and causing us to have a reaction. They make us

take our medicine by forcing us to face the parts of ourselves that rule

our minds that we try to ignore or wish away.

 

Do you see how in reality, everyone who presses our buttons is actually

our Guru? It doesn't matter what their intentions are because if we are

True Devotees, we see them as trying to force us to take our medicine,

to see our foibles and buttons, to cause us inner pain, the pain of

liberation.

 

Once we see others as Guru, then all is Guru, as it truly is. Then we

become true devotees and surrender our foibles and hangups to Guru.

 

Then we can be liberated from limitations of mind.

 

Sat Chit Ananda