A True Guru

This essay was written in response to a question someone asked about gurus –

A true guru (sat guru) can be of any culture or religion or no religion at all. They are a clear channels of divine grace. It is not their doing or choice, it is grace’s doing. They are an empty flute. Guru is not a status one achieves thru intent or effort or training. And it can happen. Through grace. Grace happens outside the realm of the do-er, of the “me.”

And the student usually comes to the guru with a “I’m Not OK, but the Guru is OK,” mind set, because the flow of grace through the guru draws them.  In Transactional Analysis this would be Not Ok Child to OK Parent.

Many people seem to need and want this relationship, a mommy or daddy to tell them what to think, feel, and do. Humans are herd animals ( my friends prefer I say social beings instead of herd animals) and like to have an Alpha male or female lead them around. This is just the way it is and always has been.

BUT if the Guru is clear and honest, they get the student out of dependence to an Adult to Adult, I’m OK , You ‘re OK relationship as soon as possible. And they play together in the Divine Play as  Natural Child with Natural Child.

In Shaktipat or true spiritual baptism, the ascent of grace awakens the student to the realization, “God dwells within me as me, and in everyone else. There is only God.” A true guru knows this and knows the winds of grace are always blowing. They know the disciple is always already as much God as the guru is, they just haven’t recognize it yet. The guru just keeps pointing it out one way or another until they do…and it happens by grace.

But you can’t have a successful cult if you keep empowering the students. Most who claim to be gurus have spiritually by-passed, are narcissistically encapsulated, and want power and adoration. “I am god but you are not and here are all the hoops you have to leap through if you ever want to be like me.”

True enlightenment is a loss of something – the loss of a sense of a “separate” self, an autonomous doer. There is not the loss of a functional cognitive center within the body. It is the way the body is designed. I AM, there is no me.

We are empty flutes with the winds of grace blowing through us.

The truly great Indian sat gurus of the 20th century – Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ramana Maharishi, Bhagwan Nityananda, and Neem Karoli Baba,  did not run off touring the world seeking disciples and spreading the good news. They stayed at home allowing the Shakti, the power of grace, to do all of the work. They let go and let God, so to speak.

I am using the word, “god,” for the sake of simplicity but you can plug in any word you are comfortable with,  The Mystery, The Unknown, Tao,  Pure Consciousness, Being, The Implicate Order, The Matrix,  Christ Consciousness, This, That, Them, whatever.

The great way is beyond all words. And yet it is always here as you. Without you, nothing exists!