The Master Is Your Bridge To Divinity🔗

Q: Swamiji, how does the Guru help the disciple? What is the process?

The whole Gita is the answer to this question. The whole Gita is the process. It starts with the master providing the intellectual clarity, then giving the experience, taking the disciple through the whole path and putting him in the same consciousness in which the master lives. The whole Gita explains the process, and if you listen to it, you will be able to understand the whole process. The whole Gita is the answer to your question.

Guru, the master, is the link between God and humanity. Seeing the state of the master, the disciple gets encouraged and feels that he too can elevate himself to that level and that he too can aspire. That is why time and again I tell you all, I am not here to prove my divinity; I am here to prove your divinity.

The very mission of a guru is to remove the layer of ignorance that surrounds you, which prevents you from seeing your own divine nature. That is what the word ‘guru’ means; it means, leading from darkness to light, from ignorance to wisdom, to the wisdom of who you really are.

The Guru can assist with a glance, with a touch, with a word, without a word, in many ways, to gift his grace upon you. This is what is referred to as dīkṣa or initiation. This is the process of bestowing his grace upon the initiate. All that the disciple needs to do is to accept with an open mind. But that is the difficult part.

The Original Sin that the Old Testament refers to is the loss of memory of their divine nature by Adam and Eve. It is a sin that a master can rectify. He can restore you to your divine nature, if you let him. This is what Krishna does for Arjuna through the course of His teaching in the Gita. He listens to Arjuna patiently, answers his questions, clarifies his doubts, chides him as needed and finally reveals to him His own true form.

The nature of the Guru is compassion. He is not satisfied until the disciple is liberated. The only way for liberation is the destruction of all ego. That is the painful part. The process therefore becomes a surgery, with the master as the master surgeon. The disciple who has the wisdom to realize this, undergoes the surgery and realizes himself.

Q: When will Gita be accepted universally as a scripture?

There is a book written by Dr. David Hawkins, a renowned psychiatrist, about a system that evaluates the absolute truth of a scripture or a person through a scientifically validated system. In this, he rates Gita at the highest level of truth.

When you are open to the truths propounded in the Gita, they penetrate your being with an energy that no other literature can match. That is why I call Gita a śāstra, stotra and sūtra; a scripture of wisdom, a devotional book and a book of techniques, all combined in one.

There is an ancient Chinese book called I Ching that people in China use as a guide. They either open a page at random or use sticks to generate the page number to obtain an answer to the problem that troubles them. They use it as a book of predictions. Many Christians use the Bible in this manner. Gita can be used in a similar way. Gita will answer any and all of your questions. It is the ultimate book of truth.

Q: Why is Krishna wasting His time with Arjuna? Again and again Arjuna is coming up with the same questions. Obviously Arjuna does not have what it takes to understand the truth.

Arjuna is not only the representation of all of humanity in the Mahabharata and Gita, but he is also a prince.

As a human being Arjuna has all the weaknesses that all of us possess in the body and the mind. These are the weaknesses, the conditioned memories or saṁskāras that are being released, as he is in dialogue with Krishna. This is the reason why Krishna is so patient with Arjuna. The entire humanity is in need of the compassion of the master.

As a prince and warrior, Arjuna is ego incarnate. There is a saying in Tamil, and I am sure in other languages too, that only when a fruit is ripe can it fall. Unless the ego is ripe it cannot be dropped. People who practice humility without understanding will carry negative ego with them and it will be impossible to drop it.

A small story:

Birbal was a very wise man, a minister in the court of the great Moghul emperor Akbar.

One day Akbar asked Birbal to bring the four biggest fools of the kingdom to him.

Birbal started looking for fools. He saw a man carrying a large plate on his head. It had some clothes, food and toys. Birbal asked the man where he was going. The man said that he was taking this to his wife who had left him, remarried and now had a child from her new husband. These were gifts for the child.

Birbal was happy to find this fool to take to Akbar.

The next day Birbal saw a man traveling with a donkey, the man carrying a bundle of grass on his head. Birbal asked him why he was holding the bundle instead of tying it to the donkey. The man said that his donkey was pregnant so he did not want to overload the animal!

Birbal was happy to find another fool to take to Akbar.

The next morning Birbal took both these men to Akbar and introduced them, describing how he found them. Akbar asked: I told you to bring four fools. Where are the other two?

With folded hands Birbal said: Sire, the third fool brought you the two fools. The fourth asked for them! Akbar was a wise and humorous man. He laughed and sent all of them away with gifts. He was a king who had everything except ego.

A prince has all the powers to do anything he wishes. When he decides to drop his mind he will apply the same energy and the same focus to this effort as he does to every other undertaking in his life. Some of the most celebrated sages of our ancient culture were kings, like Janaka for example. When a king detaches himself from the outcome and focuses on the path and process, there can be no one more powerful.

Krishna is exemplifying humanity and the select class of humanity through Arjuna.

Q: You have been critical of philosophers. Isn't it a bit unfair? There have been many great philosophers who have contributed highly to human consciousness.

When philosophers contribute to enhancement of human consciousness, they are no longer philosophers; they become teachers and sages.

You may think I am playing with words but I am not. From time immemorial you will find two classes of scholars; one, who taught based on their inner and outer experience, with deep honesty and respect for the other person. Then there were those whose teachings and writings were based partially on reading and partially on observing others. They had not internalized what they read or observed and they had no inner experience of what they propounded. I call this latter class of scholars as philosophers.

To observe others partially and selectively requires no intelligence. One has already formed a hypothesis; one has already made a judgment. All that one does is collect evidence to support that hypothesis and judgment. If one finds any evidence to the contrary, it is ignored. Most modern research works seem to be done this way. That is why there is so much controversy in the academic field.

Sigmund Freud declared that man is unhappy by nature. This is because he never met any enlightened master. He had already made up his mind that all humans were unhappy and his mission was to collect evidence to prove this. Freud's colleague and friend, Carl Jung came to India, heard about Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, the great enlightened sage, but did not meet him. He later admitted that he was scared to meet this blissful enlightened master for fear that his hypothesis and life's work would be demolished!

Rene Descartes, the renowned French philosopher, single handedly established the Western philosophy of rationalism. ‘I think, therefore I am,’ he said. It is a pity that an intelligent man like him did not want to go deeper and understand that it is only when you stop thinking that you understand who you are. Until then you are a mere plaything in the hands of your mind. You are the slave of your mind, not its master. What is there to be proud of in being a slave?

Of course there were men like Socrates, the Greek philosopher, who were willing to sacrifice their own lives for their convictions. Such people surely enhanced human consciousness and are to be ranked as sages.

Q: When Arjuna says that he cannot attack his revered teachers like Drona and Bhishma, is he not saying what needs to be said by any intelligent and righteous person?

You are right. That is the reason why Arjuna says what he says.

Arjuna knows that he will be evaluated at a later period by humanity based on his behavior towards his elders and teachers. People will say, ‘What kind of a person was this? He claimed to be a noble and righteous prince and great warrior and yet he went ahead and killed his teachers.’ Arjuna is trying to protect himself, his reputation, his name and fame; he is protecting his identity. He is issuing a disclaimer: ‘I am not responsible for killing my teachers. I said so in public. This Krishna made me kill them.’

If Arjuna truly had such respect for his elders and teachers, he would not have come as far as the battlefield. In fact, Yudhishtira never wanted to fight. He was persuaded to fight by his brothers. His brothers wanted vengeance. Draupadi wanted to be avenged. Arjuna wanted the kingdom. Had Arjuna been aware and conscious he would have done one of two things; either he would not have come into the battlefield or he would have attacked his enemies without any mercy. Here he stands confused, torn between greed and fear. Arjuna is just being human.

Metaphorically speaking, Arjuna, like all of us, is bound by his conditioning of respect towards elders and teachers. Bhishma represents the saṁskāras (engraved

memories) towards elders, and Drona represents the saṁskāras towards teachers. Both these saṁskāras need to be destroyed before he can move towards the ultimate Truth. As long as one is ruled by this conditioning of elders and teachers, it is impossible to find one's own truth. Truth conveyed by anyone else, even an enlightened master, must be internalized through one's own experience before it can become one's own truth. Even a master can only guide; he can light the lamp to drive out the ignorance; but the realization must happen within oneself.