RECOGNIZING THE TRUE SPIRITUAL GURU
As we focus on articles on Guru this month, let’s discuss yet another important and related topic. In the previous article ‘True Guru: Importance and Role‘, we discussed who is a true guru and his role in our lives. In this article, we shall focus on how one can identify the right Guru and recognize false or fake Gurus.
With so many people claiming themselves to be gurus in their own right, it becomes important to understand who can be considered a true guru or true spiritual guru.
This article is a conversation extract from the book titled “The Light of Grace” by Sirshree. It presents the conversation between seekers of the truth and Sirshree. The article is presented in two parts for us to go back and contemplate whether we are on the right track. (The names of the seekers are withheld for privacy.)
Seeker A: I am fed up of all false gurus. The internet and news bulletins are rampant with stories related to fake gurus involved in money scams and sex scandals.
Seeker B: Many of them appear to be noble in their cause in the beginning, but later on are found involved in scams. Some join political parties and get elected. Some even encash their popularity and run big businesses in the name of healthcare and wellbeing. How can such immoral people pose as Gurus?
Seeker A: I am really scared of regarding someone as my guru. Whenever I think of a guru, I always feel that he should be a pure soul who is guiding me in my life. But I feel it’s impossible to find someone like this in today’s world. I don’t want to risk my life by trusting someone as a guru.
Sirshree: These days, because of such so-called gurus, people have lost trust in the age-old guru-disciple tradition. It is essential to know about these fake or so-called gurus so that you get the eye to assess a true guru. One can claim to be a guru under many guises, but a true spiritual guru is beyond all such claims. So-called gurus self-proclaim themselves based on various claims.
Seeker A: What sort of claims?
Sirshree: Let’s discuss these claims and understand the real truth. Some of them claim to be a guru by healing diseases, using alternative therapies, by training people to use breath-work, by practising karmic rituals, or by claiming to awaken the Kunadalini. There is nothing wrong with approaching healers to bring physical and mental health. But one should not stop there. The human body in itself is a miracle. There are several points in our body that if tapped properly can help us attain good health. This is exactly what healers help people achieve. They religiously study such healing techniques and help rid people of physical disease.
Seeker A: I have heard about faith healers. They are more popular in Christianity. Their prayers help people release their faith and attain good health.
Seeker B: I’ve known such teachers who impart techniques related to watching breath, vibrations, or light to their disciples. They ask their disciples to chant mantras a million times, meditate on the chakras of the energy-body, or awaken the Kundalini power within them for spiritual growth.
Sirshree: Mystical experiences and psychic abilities are sold in the name of spirituality! It is one thing to be curious about these occult practices but when these are categorized as “spiritual practices”, then the real purpose of spirituality is lost.
These practices may have their own benefits. They may possibly help in healing traumas and serve as alternative therapies for body ailments. However, they deal at the plane of the human psyche, the plane of energy, or the physical body. True spirituality is beyond the mind, beyond the realm of energies, and beyond the physical realm. Hence, no amount of dabbling with these practices can ever lead one to the purpose of true spirituality. Instead, one’s ego gets inflated in the process and he drifts farther from the true Self.
Seeker B: I have also known of priests who force people to follow them by scaring, threatening or even enticing them with bribes or false karmic rituals. They create an aura around them, as if they are gurus. They claim to change one’s fortune if one performs their suggested ritual or changes the name of one’s shop, TV serial or film to start with one’s lucky letter. I always wonder and doubt how changing a name can make so much difference.
Seeker A: I would like to mention one more common practice. While I was in Varanasi to perform the last rites for my deceased grandfather, I came across priests who performed the rituals for the dead but were haggling for a good sum of money by offering ritual packages. Some were even posing as agents to send gifts for the deceased relatives so that they are taken care of in their afterlife!
Sirshree: Do you believe that the deceased ones really need such things there?
Seeker A: It is so absurd and I wonder what the deceased have to do with food, or shawls or sweaters when they have left behind their physical body on earth. Would they feel cold or hungry there?
Sirshree: (laughs) Such physical gifts are needed for the physical body here; they are no longer useful after the death of the physical body. Such rituals can help people here to get rid of their guilt or incompleteness. These rituals also feed the needs of the karmic gurus who receive these offerings for themselves!
These practices are just distractions from the real goal of attaining the transcendent truth. Instead of bringing clarity, such people only promote superstitions and bloat the ego. A sincere truth seeker desires to get rid of his ego on the path of truth. But such practices do not lead him to liberation. Hence, he needs a true spiritual guru who can impart him the knowledge of the truth beyond such limiting beliefs and helps free him from such distractions.
There are others who claim to be a guru by their attire. They shave their head, or keep a long beard, smear ashes on their forehead, wear garlands and chant mantras. Innocent people follow them out of blind faith and fall victim. These appearances don’t bring any transformation in the lives of people. As a result, they remain deprived of the real truth.
And there are some who claim to be a guru by imparting mantras to their followers. They travel from one place to another, share some mantra with the people and initiate them as their disciples. They then instruct these disciples to repeat the mantra throughout their lives.
Seeker B: But can recitation of such mantras help in attaining salvation?
Sirshree: It’s true that mantras play a certain role in human life and their repetition yields some benefit. Your mind calms down with their repetition. However, such benefits are only temporary. You won’t attain salvation through such temporary benefits. In fact the effect of a mantra is delivered only when the essence of the mantra is known at an experiential level. Mere chanting without experiential understanding does not serve the ultimate purpose.
Seeker B: What about teachers who claim to be gurus by teaching yoga or physical exercises? We see many such instructors and trainers, who help us work with our bodies. They make people workout in gyms or in yoga workshops and help them become physically fit and healthy. Many people consider such trainers as their gurus and follow them. I agree that physical fitness is important and that Yoga has its own important place in the world in helping people become healthier at any age, but how can it be related to the truth?
Sirshree: Yoga is an ancient science which was initially conjoined with the truth. Unfortunately as the wheels of time turned, yoga remained limited to Asanas (postures) alone instead of being a bridge for union with the experience of truth.
Seeker A: Some people learn yoga from India and practice it in other countries in the name of spirituality. People indeed get misled by them. While they do attain physical fitness, they remain bereft of the ultimate truth.
Summary: So to summarize, just following different practices like kundalini awakening or healing techniques or just repeating mantras will not lead to the attainment of the real purpose of human life. To know the true purpose, we need the true spiritual guru who helps in liberating us from all false notions about spirituality and the beliefs that we have around spirituality.
The right guru does not just bring the knowledge of spirituality in our lives or liberate us from the egoistic, comparing judging mind, but primarily guides us towards realizing the ultimate purpose of human life and leads us to the experience of who-we-truly-are. (You can read our article on The Ultimate Purpose of Human Life)
To read the next part of this article click here.
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