24  The Teacher and the Taught TC  "24  The Teacher and the Taught" \l 1

If you find a guru, at any time, who tells you, “I will show you God,” discard him. A guru can guide you on the path, but you have to do the walking yourself. No one else can do it for you.

When there is a true yearning, a strong desire to find the purpose of life, the very strength of that desire will attract you towards that which will show the way.

All knowledge of the universe is contained in you. That wisdom and knowledge is ever there; it is eternal, beginningless and endless.

When a pupil is ready, the master is there; and the master comes in many forms and shapes. The whole purpose of the external guru is to awaken the internal guru. As a guru, I am only a channel, a means. There will come a time when you do not need the external guru because the internal guru will have been awakened.

The greatest thing a guru can do is to activate the spiritual force that is already within you. On a very subtle level he activates that force, so that you feel something. When you feel that something, you start having faith. Not faith in the man, but faith in the teachings and in what he represents. Faith can move mountains.

There shall be many doubters. Let them doubt, for their doubts too will lead them.

If you go mountaineering, the experienced mountaineer goes ahead of you. When you come to a place that is difficult, he extends his hand and pulls you up. Now, you are not worshipping the mountaineer; but you have some trust: “Over this precipice he is holding my hand and pulling me up, and he’s not going to let my hand go, to let me fall into the precipice.”

So, that little trust is needed, until the trust is confirmed in your heart and mind. Then skepticism vanishes, as darkness will vanish when the light is switched on.

Ancient scriptures always advise that spiritual practices must not be taken from books or from people who are unqualified. They must be given by a guru and accepted by a chela. Only a guru can judge how much sensitivity is there and how the sensitivity is increasing—when to give the car more gasoline and when to put on the brakes. That is the job of the guru. He does that easily all the time.

The presence of the Guru is so important—because he not only brings wisdom with him, but he also brings with him a force, in a very tangible form, that helps us along the path to greater and greater joy.

When you climb the stairs you have the railing to hold on to. You might be strong enough to climb the stairs without the railing, yet the railing is there as a protection to grip on to if your foot slips.

All true teachers live their teachings first, and then teach. Otherwise, their teachings carry no conviction!

Everything in life is a guru; everything in life teaches something.

Every word I speak to you comes from deep experience. I will not speak about anything that I have not experienced myself. If I should speak about anything that I have not experienced myself, then that would defeat the purpose of putting forth the essence of truth.

The duty of a teacher is to impart whatever he has; and it depends entirely on the recipient of the wisdom to take what he can. The teacher comes and goes, giving his teachings, and the more illumined or enlightened the teacher is, the more profound will be the wisdom. The wind blows fresh air; it is up to us to open the windows.

I do my duty; and my mission in life is to give off what I have gained. If I have gained joy, I impart that joy. If I have gained wisdom through the power of Divinity, it is my dharma to impart that wisdom. If I am filled with love, it is my duty to give of that love. So life itself is nothing more than a sharing.

I tell my teachers here and everywhere that the seeds you are sowing are not for you to enjoy. Enjoying the fruits is not your dharma; that is not your ambition; that is not your purpose in life. Serve humanity, plant the seed of love, open up people’s hearts so that their ambitions may also be turned upward.

I am concerned with every hair on every meditator’s head. It is my responsibility to see to it that they unfold, that they develop the joy that is inherently theirs, and that they appreciate the Divinity which is within them.

To every word that I say to you I would add this: do not accept what is not appropriate to you. Accept that which is appropriate to you now, at this moment. We only accept things according to our understanding.

A few years from now, when you come across the same words again, you will find different meanings in them. When I was twenty and read the Gita I understood so much. When I was twenty-five and read the Gita again I found a deeper meaning in those very same words. When I was thirty there was still far greater meaning. Yet the book had not changed—I had changed. As our understanding widens, our appreciation of the Bible, the Gita, and of all scriptures, expands.

To be uncritical does not involve any worship whatsoever. You don’t need  to worship gurus—no! That is wrong! Why should you worship gurus? But you can be devoted to a guru if you wish, and that devotion is experienced every day; it’s a very natural thing.

You’re devoted to your children; you’re devoted to your mother; you’re devoted to your father; and you can be devoted to a friend. After all, who is a guru? He is but a friend, who says, “Look, I’ve been on this path. Do you want to travel this path? Come, take my hand. I will show you. I know the pitfalls, because I’ve been across this road.”

That’s all. It’s so simple. And where there is that little bit of devotion involved in your taking the hand, trust increases and faith increases.

You will find that the teaching of a true spiritual teacher will always be universal. Any principle we set forth can be verified by every religion. We do not study dogma, or the narrow philosophy of one particular person, but, in all our talks, in all our teachings, we take the essence of truth which is contained within every religion and in every teaching.

The qualification needed to bring down the highest philosophical truths to their simplest form is that the teacher must know what he is talking about.

A real teacher, in the class of Buddha, Christ, and Krishna, feels the pain of your clinging. That is why the scriptures say, “He died for your sins; he suffered for your sins.”

Devotion and love are felt within. The true master immediately feels and sees it, and not even a word needs to be spoken.

The guru is a channel and has the ability to pour through himself all the energies that a person requires. But the recipient, too, must have certain qualifications.

We cannot ask a teacher to make a child pass high school, if that child has not even passed sixth grade. The student, or the chela, also requires the qualifications. In our field, the spiritual field, the qualifications are sincerity and honesty.

A human being needs the human touch, the human impulse, to obtain maximum benefit. When you are feeling ill, you call a doctor. Yet there is no doctor that can cure you: your body has all the elements within it to cure itself. The doctor can diagnose the source of the illness; and the medicine which he will prescribe to you will be the factor in balancing the forces within you. It will help you in the process of curing yourself.

That is all the guru does.

If a guru gives you a practice which is needed by you, specifically tailor-made for you, practice it with sincerity and truthfulness. And if you practice it with sincerity and it does you no good, change the guru!

The teacher shows you the path, but you have to walk it with your own feet. There is no other way. No one else can evolve you—you have to evolve yourself.

One important principle we always forget: first deserve, and then demand.

Charlatans come along and promise all kinds of things. We do not promise anything. Actions speak louder than words, and a person on the spiritual path must be taught to act.

It does not matter if a person is critical of what the teacher says—everyone to his own level of understanding. But one thing is true: once you have embarked on the search for truth, that search does not stop. Once you have started on the spiritual path, you have started . . . and that is what is important.

Many people have the misconception that the chela, or the pupil, accepts the teacher. It is the other way around. It is the Guru who accepts you or tells you there is another path for you. And he will tell you this with love, always.

The unfoldment of the chela is tackled from three aspects. The mind comes to greater awareness; the heart unfolds into greater expansion; and all this is backed up by the impulse which the guru transfers all the time, to quicken the spirit.

To serve the guru, be worthy of the teachings of that guru. That’s the best way, nothing else. Be worthy of the guru’s teachings, not by constant theorizing, (although it helps to understand things,) but rather through the practical aspects of life.

The human being, because of problems within himself, and because of the lack of integration of mind, body, and spirit, goes through suffering. Then great teachers come along. It is their duty, their dharma, to show how to restore the balance between mind, body, and spirit. When a person understands that, then does he truly understand the meaning of the words, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life.”

How can you deny such a teacher? Can such a teacher be denied, when he shows you the Way? His own life is modeled in the Way for others to follow.

Give a person spiritual wisdom without any motivation or attachment, and that wisdom is perpetuated. It will grow. The seed is planted, and it will carry on for lifetimes and lifetimes.

We don’t speak to show our erudition, knowledge, or wisdom. We speak to convey a message: and the message is only totally conveyed if it can penetrate the mind and the heart. Even if the mind does not appreciate the full implication of the message, the heart just feels, “You know—this is true—I just feel it.”

Teachers sometimes develop a spiritual pride, which is not good at all—it is devolutionary instead of evolutionary. The greatest thing to be watched for is pride. A person can reach a very high evolutionary spiritual standard, but if he assumes any form of pride, then he is not a spiritual teacher because he, with his pride, will never be able to impart anything to the chela.

We can go on and on describing the various characteristics of the unfolded man, but the main characteristic is that he loves, and loves, and loves, entirely. With that love there is sacrifice, there is surrender, and there is devotion. A true guru is more devoted to his chela than the chela is devoted to the guru—always. That is the mark of an unfolded man.

The man of unity, the man of bliss consciousness, the man of God, is with you in your suffering, suffers with you, and yet knows that his is part and parcel of the karmic laws which you yourself have created.

So, you reap what you sow. But even in the reaping there is joy; and that is what he teaches.

The mystic is concerned with your spiritual being, for through experience, he has found that, “I can draw from deep within myself to regenerate all my mental attitudes and bring joy into my heart and mind, so that my life functions beautifully and joyfully. Now, if I have done it for myself, why can’t I impart the basis of it to others, so that they too can share the joy and the bliss that I experience?”

The message of truth will eternally remain the same. But as times change, the message has to be given out in a different manner, so that people can understand, accept, and practice it. When they practice they benefit. When they benefit by unfolding themselves, all joy of the universe is theirs, and that is, as it has always been, the Way.

Times change. Teachings do not change. Eternal truths remain eternal. But they must be portrayed and taught in a way which is appropriate to the times.

Yes, it is true, so many satans come in the name of the Lord. So many of them do. You are deluded by the satan, but it is not the fault of the satan, it is your fault. Why do you get deluded by the satan?

What a beautiful communication can take place at these satsangs, when heart flows to heart and the energies that emanate from us all become one, become merged, where the guru feels that he is the chela, and the chela feels that he is the guru. There is only one heart.

The heart is the core of the human personality, and it is universal. That is why so many benefits are felt in coming together on (meditation) courses, where energies are radiated and concentrated, where so many individual minds and intellects become attuned to one purpose: to know what is really meant by the injunction, “Man, know thyself.”

The teacher leads a person from his sense of duality and separateness to the sense of oneness—that the entire universe is one. When the human being starts recognizing the inner Divine force he will start recognizing the Divinity in others. Then only can he practice “love thy neighbor as thyself”—otherwise it is just mental gymnastics.

The unfolded man has to be a humble man. He must know the true value of humility. He can identify himself with a highly evolved being and at the same time identify himself with the merest worm that crawls on the floor. This identification takes place because he has recognized the Divinity existent everywhere: he has knows the immanent God in everything around him.

A true teacher becomes more ordinary than ordinary: that is why Jesus became extra-ordinary.

There is no such thing as following a teaching. The ideal is to live the teaching and become the teaching.

Why was there a Buddha? Why was there a Krishna, a Rama, or a Christ? They were teachers . . . and they came to awaken that which is already within.

There is an analogy that tells the difference between belief, faith and knowingness:

If you sit in an air-conditioned room, you can believe that there is a fire burning next door, and that the next room is warm. You believe that. But as you approach the next room and feel the heat coming, you start having faith—the fire is warm. When you get into the room and really experience the fire, then you know what fire is!

So it all starts with belief; belief leads to faith, and faith to knowingness. Now there is a forerunner to this: and that is called skepticism.

I have found that those who are skeptical become the most ardent followers. Not followers of me—I don’t want followers!—but followers of truth.

The truth that is spoken, the essence that is studied, will forever remain, for generations to come. That is the whole principle. No worship. No worship, but friendship.

Many profound teachings have been lost. Religion today has been watered down. It is not only the teachings that have been watered down— it is also traditions.  Religion today has become 70 percent tradition and 30 percent religion. We follow things traditionally—when we add 70 percent tradition, then 70 percent religion has to be removed to accommodate tradition.

Losing the sense of individuality does not mean you are losing self-identity. That is what mergence is all about. That is what Christ meant when he said, “I and the Father are one”: the individuality has merged away in the universality of the entire existence. For this purpose, as human beings, we need teachers and guides.

You see how it all progresses, how it all adds up to something very beautiful. In the end you will say, “I have never been alone. That universal force has been with me all the time.” It was there all the time, but we did not realize it.

The duty, the dharma, of the guru is to awaken the inner guru within you; and when that is awakened you will know the outer guru and the inner guru are but the same.