The Guru part 21

All berries are not edible. Likewise all are not Gurus that men may flock to.

What does the acceptance of a disciple by a Guru mean? It means that the Guru will gladly live in the world of golden sacrifice.

If the disciple discovers within himself the pangs of fear and not the fount of love for his Guru, sorrow and spiritual frustration will dog him throughout his discipleship.

The Guru sees in his disciple the very image of God. So he is all sacrifice to the disciple. The disciple sees and feels in his Guru the only shelter of his limitations. So he is all love for his Guru.

The Guru can kindle the lamp in you. When? Only after you have brought him the wick and the oil.

O disciple! do you know the most foolish customer on earth? He is your Guru and your Guru alone. He buys your ignorance and gives you knowledge; he buys your impotence and gives you power. Can you ever imagine a more foolish bargain? Now learn the name of your Guru's foolishness: Compassion and nothing else.

The Guru's body is the Compassion-Net. It entraps the disciples, sleeping or awakened, with all their baffling age-long problems of ignorance.

It has become a fashion nowadays for man to say that there is no necessity of an intermediary between him and God, referring not only to the traditional priest, but also to the traditional Guru. Granted, but just tell me. Did you receive any help in learning the alphabet? Did you require a teacher to help you master your musical instrument? Were you given instruction to enable you to obtain your degree? If you needed a helper to do these things, do you not also require a teacher who can guide you to the knowledge of the Divine, the wisdom of the Infinite? That teacher is your Guru and no one else.

O man, do you have no love for the temple inside which you worship the idol? Then you must love the body of the Guru, if you aspire to worship the Omnipotent in him.

To achieve realisation oneself and alone is like crossing the ocean in a raft. But to make a disciple realise the Divine, one has to become a boat, strong and swift, to ferry him safely across the sea of ignorance.

Who can show a disciple his true Motherland? The Guru. What is the name of that Motherland? Consciousness: Consciousness Infinite, Consciousness All-Pervading.

The real work, if there be any, of a Guru is to show the world that his deeds are in perfect harmony with his teachings.


. Continued from Vol. 1, No. 2

Sri Chinmoy, AUM — Vol. 1, No. 3, 27 October 1965, Boro Park Printers -- Brooklyn, N. Y, 1965