THE TRUE NATURE OF GRACE & GURU

"Guru" is anyone or anything physical or non-physical such as a teacher or information such as within a book or a direct personal experience that sheds light on the darkness of ignorance. The following are a few insights of one of the most renowned mystics of this century....

"I have not said that a Guru is not necessary.

But a Guru need not always be in human form. First a person thinks that he is inferior and that there is a superior, all knowing, all powerful God who controls his own and the world's destiny and worships him or does Bhakti.

When he reaches a certain state and becomes fit for enlightenment, the same God whom he was worshipping comes as Guru and leads him on. That Guru comes only to tell him that "God is within Yourself. Dive within and realize." God, Guru and the Self are the same.

Realization is the result of the Master's (Guru's) grace more than teachings, lectures, meditations, etc. They are only secondary aids, whereas the former is the primary essential cause.

Guru's grace is always there. You can imagine it is somewhere high up in the sky, far away and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart and the moment (by any of the methods) you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into it's source, the grace rushes forth, spouting as from a spring, from within you.

Contact with jnanis (enlightened/Self realized men or women) is good. They will work through silence. A Guru is not the physical form. Hence his contact remains ever after the physical form of the Guru vanishes.

After your bhakti (service to others / devotion / knowledge or meditation) to God has matured you, God comes in the shape of a Guru and from outside pushes your mind inside while being inside as Self, he draws you there from within. Such a Guru is needed generally, though not for very rare and advanced souls.

One can go to another Guru after one's Guru passes away. But after all, Gurus are one, as none of them is form. Always mental contact is the best.

Guru not being physical, his contact will continue after his form vanishes. If one jnani (enlightened Self realized person) exists in the world, his influence will be felt by or benefit all people in the world and not simply just his immediate disciples.

Each seeker after God should be allowed to go his own way, the way for which he was built (meant). It will not do to convert him to another path by violence. The Guru will go with the disciple in his own path and then gradually turn him onto the Supreme path at the ripe moment. Suppose a car is going at top speed. To stop it at once or turn it at once would be attended with disastrous consequences."


* The above insights of Sri Ramana Maharshi are known among spiritual seekers the world over and prized for their great inspirational power, which transcends all religious differences. Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879 - 1950) followed no particular religious path or traditional system of teaching, but rather spoke directly from his own experience of non-duality.

Related links:Ramana - The Society of Abidance In Truth - http://www.satramana.org/



Site created Sept 1997.