Satsang Glory of the Guru

Glory of the Guru

Lord, Guru and Self are logical sequences in the Spiritual
Journey to liberation. When the divine spark starts glowing
inside an ardent spiritual aspirant and all the values of
worldly nature fail to quench his thirst for reality and the
hunger for God becomes powerful, insistent and continuous,
then God Himself takes the form of a Guru suitable to the
understanding of the sadhaka.

Spiritual goal is something that can rarely be attained by one's
own effort without guidance from a realized Guru When one
cannot cross a forest or climb a mountain peak without a guide
how difficult it should be a journey alone on the intangible
spiritual path? People, who out of egoism, pride and ignorance
question the need of competence of the Guru are yet too raw
and have not reached the ripe stage of a true disciple. Even
exalted avatars and mahapurushas, who by their own right were
born with Brahma Jnana went through the formalities of
Guru-Sishya relationship be Rama wfth Vasistha, Krishna with
Sandeepani. Narada with Kumara, Sukha with Janaka, Jesus
with John and Adi Shankaracharya with Govindapada.

The Guru not only shows the way, but has the power to transmit
the truth of his experience. In fact, it is the Guru who makes the
spiritual ideal living by initiating the disciple with a simultaneous
impulsion into the practice for the progressive unfoldment of
spiritual realisation. Sri Narasimha Swamiji says, "After my
enlightenment, I discovered that I had committed three blunders.
Firstly, long before I started my whole-hearted journey towards
God, God had already started earlier His journey towards me.
Secondly, when my love towards him was just a drop, a tricle,
His love for me was like the sea in high tide. And third and
lastly, when I thought I had reached Him, actually it was not I
that had reached Him but that He had reached me. When God
decides to absorb a man unto Himself (why and when, we
cannot say), he first appears as a Guru to create longing, a
yearning and a love for God in the heart of the person concerned
and because He creates the 'prerana' or love in the heart of the
person this Guru is called 'Preraka'. After this, another Guru
comes and wipes off all defilements and negative propensities
from the heart of that chosen person and purifies him. The
second Guru is called 'Swechaka1 (Swacha means pure or
clean). Just after that another Guru comes up to explain the
glories of the Lord and this Guru is called Vachaka1 viz., by
words he expounds the glory of God. Yet another Guru the
'Bodhaka', the fourth comes up to give the necessary buddhi
or wisdom to understand what the Vachaka Guru is expounding
and the last and final Guru called 'Darshaka' comes to the
devotee to help him to have darshan of God in all His manifested
Glory.

(to be contd..)
Saipadananda Magazine July 1995
Source: http://www.saileelas.org/magazines/saipadananda/july95.htm