How does a Guru help?

Can the guru carry you to the goal? No doubt that the guru purifies and uplifts the mind from its previous dross enabling the student to reach the very door. Yet, all masters affirm that thereafter the student has to enter the portal himself. Swami Shivanandaji says, “A hungry man will have to eat himself”. The guru only shows the way but the student has to walk it. Most people want a guru who can wave a magic wand or use a ‘forehead touch method’ and miraculously take him there. Swami Chinmayanandaji called them “mule gurus”. Even Krishna promised no easy liberation for Arjun unless he developed dispassion and performed his duty selflessly.
Can the guru’s powerful blessings do everything? Yes, but for that, the student must ‘please’ the guru. The ‘pleasing’ is not by our cheap methods of gifts and sweets, but by carrying out his spiritual instructions implicitly, only then does a disciple qualify for that rare Guru Kripa. Also, if the student is not ready to receive that last push from the teacher, it can blast his mind; as the guru can transfer an avalanche of dynamic yogic power with one glance. That moment seems to be the purest and the most sublime in your life, but if you are not strong enough to retain it, you will fall back to words, theories, and the grammar of scriptures. Growth is evolutionary. A true preceptor always inspires the student to lift himself.
The teacher looks like us, talks like us, and behaves like us, but one should NEVER make the mistake of judging him to be like us! However ordinary they look, they are capable of communicating ( not teaching) the highest truth.
Guru Nanakdevji says: “ God and His Mystics are one/Take them not as different/Due to their human form”.

Prarthana Saran, President Chinmaya Mission Delhi.

Email: prarthnasaran@ gmail.com