Q. Swamiji, Does Every Guru Go Through Religious Persecution?

First thing I want you to know - do not go to a Guru who has not gone through religious persecution! I tell you, any Guru who is an authentic enlightened Master, will have a unique integrity and strength which cannot be tolerated by collective negativity and ignorance and the collective unconsciousness. They will try to persecute him. See an unconscious man who possesses even the ten rupees he has, who is greedy for money, cannot even understand I am not attached to this gold rudraksha or this golden throne. He cannot understand.

See, many times when a man comes out and does so much good, the collective negativity cannot tolerate it. It will persecute that man. Understand: if somebody is not persecuted, he has compromised with enlightenment. He doesn't have that integrity, that strength. So I tell you, don't go to a Guru who is not persecuted. Being persecuted is one of the basic scales to find out whether somebody is real Guru or not. That is the truth; that is the truth. Gurus go through religious persecution because of the honest, truthful contribution they make to the world.