Absolute Power Comes from Absolute Surrender to the Guru

Beyond and above all forms of mortal relationships exists Guru, the supreme entity and the ultimate truth. In him reside and merge the trinity of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the nurturer and Shiva the destroyer. In the world of illusion, there are only two irrevocable truths, the Guru and the disciple, the master and the pupil, the supreme knowledge and the ignorant. Most relationships in the world flourish on the principle of give and take. Commerce is at the root of the strengthening of all such relationships. Transcending the ephemeral world of maya, the Guru and the disciple are joined by the purer emotion of affection and love.

 The credit goes to the Guru who guides the disciple gently through the maze of ignorance to the path of learning and knowledge. And to acquire this knowledge the disciple must sit at the lotus feet of the master in absolute honesty. Even an iota of deception by the disciple to the Guru sets him off to the path of failure and destruction.

Karna, Duryodhana’s friend was unmatched in war skills. However, when he invoked Brahmastra, the supreme knowledge in the art of warfare, at the most critical juncture of the war, he forgot it, because he had deceived the Guru, sage Parshurama to acquire that knowledge.

Transparency, honesty and surrender are absolutely critical to achieve the blessings of the Guru. When the pupil surrenders to the master, something magical happens. The alchemy of Guru begins to work and the life of the pupil is changed forever. He is salvaged from the rut of birth-death and rebirth, and now for the first time with the blessings of the Guru, the disciple begins to tentatively figure out the purpose of his birth and makes a move towards spiritual ascendancy.  Whether disciple chooses to meditate, chant mantra or pray, Guru is the nucleus of the spiritual exercise. Until His grace flows, there is no hope or progress for the pupil in the realm of spiritualism.

Who needs a guru?

Anyone who needs a soul needs a Guru because He is the soul to the life. The way expert hands of potter shapes the clay to give it a distinct shape and utility, in the same way Guru moulds us. In his expert hands, our lives find meaning and essence. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the purpose of life is not to remain buried in ordinary, rather aspire and reach towards the extraordinary. Our birth goes beyond biology. It is a spiritual event and we chose the set of parents, family and spouse long before we had been born because in the lesson called life we have to learn certain chapters depending upon the need of our soul. Eventually, the soul is destined to meet its maker and this is why soul dons the garb of life and visits the planet Earth to learn lessons.

Now, here comes the role of the Guru. He is the magic wand that can expedite the learnings and enable perfection of the soul, so that it can merge with the divine. Obviously, Guru is the light in the student’s abysmal life. He is the one who leads the disciple to the righteous path and brings him closer to the divine, the Narayana.

Guru: the Narayana

Lord Shree Krishna has said in Bhagwat Gita “I am Immortal and have an eternal form; hence I am not born again and again. But in order to spread divine enlightenment among all living beings and for leading them onto the path of virtues I appear on this earth in human form with the help of nature.”

This leaves no scope for doubts because Guru is Narayana. Think him any less and you’ve closed the doors of divine grace for yourself, because in Guru exists the whole world, expounds Guru Gita. The divinity of the Guru creates a charade of human presence to fool and benefit the ignorant souls like us. The Guru is the only one capable of casting miracles. Though, He might never agree or accept something like that. It would be immensely foolish to get blown away by the guise of simplicity of the Guru. In his case, what meets the eye is not even the tip of the iceberg. He is the Narayana who has chosen to salvage mortal beings like us from the rut of earthly existence.

Greatness comes after surrendering to the Guru

The all-knowing Guru knows the purpose of the life. After all, the soul gets the human form when it has accumulated good karmic coins. Of all the species existing on the Earth only humans can think and correlate. Guru wants us to recruit the opportunity to do bigger things in life. Anything short of greatness is unacceptable to the Guru and with his Midas touch nothing becomes improbable.

However, most disciples grapple with surrender. The primary difficulty is to surrender to the Guru and the major hurdle comes in the form of ego. Most of us are fond of considering ourselves too seriously, whereas no one else accords us the same priority! By surrendering to the Guru, we agree to drop our ego, inhibitions at the feet of the master and be ready to carry his orders.

If somehow we convince ourselves to surrender to the Guru, we stop doing action. When we are ready to take the situation as it comes, viewing it as divine grace, our desire to do work diminishes. Though it appears strange, but for most of us surrender is equivalent to non-action.

For most of us divine providence means non-effort. If it’s destined and we can seek the blessings of the Guru, things will automatically take shape, and if they don’t we are willing to accept the events as they are, is the logic that goes behind such surrender.

The need for action

Greatness doesn’t happen in isolation and not at all in the absence of action. Referring to the life and times of Krishna, there is a beautiful anecdote that highlights the imperativeness of action.

When it began to rain furiously in Gokul, as the rain god Indra was upset because Lord Krishna had stopped the age old practice of his worship, the God huddled the residents beneath Govardhan mountain. On His little finger, the Lord held the mountain to rescue the people of Gokul standing beneath it. Simultaneously, he requested his playmates and other residents to place their wooden stick beneath the mountain to keep it steady. Suddenly, vanity struck the human beings and they thought that they have held the mountain on their stick. Sensing it Krishna fidgeted His finger a bit and the mountain was all ready to crash on the hapless people seeking shelter beneath it. Vanity disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced and the playmates prayed the Lord to steady his finger. One of them was curious: if it’s You who is the doer why have You asked us to put our sticks? Would you not do action, answered Krishna.

Absolute power comes from absolute surrender to the Guru

When Guru says to surrender, he wants you emancipate from the attachment to the outcome. Once you’ve set yourself free, you no longer suffer from performance pressure. You reach a calm state of mind that is willing to accept failure and success with equanimity. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that your performance improves when there is no pressure to win or excel. Guru wants his pupils to achieve nothing short of greatness. Just by doing action and aspiring to achieve more and following the path directed by the Guru, nothing is unachievable for the disciple, because when Guru is around, universe plays along!

Emptying before the Guru

Until I had the divine providence to meet my Guru, for me the term evoked image of a mendicant with matted hair living in a faraway land. Often, this perception would perturb and I would wonder how a Guru detached from the pains of living could supply answers to my mundane queries of everyday existence. I was starving for a Guru. Every day I fervently prayed for my Guru to appear. I had heard that when the disciple is ready the Guru emerges to take him/her in His fold. And, like magic, my merciful Guru touched my life with his Midas touch. For the first time in my life, I felt that I am home. Joy blossomed in the heart and flashes of divine experiences mesmerized me.

Guru is the guiding light in the ignorance induced darkness.  He is the force that pushes the life to the upward trajectory. He is the savior who comes to rescue mortal beings from the downward spiral and charts the ascending progression of the life, in the spiritual and the materialistic realm. When Guru takes us in his fold, the life gets a perspective and a meaning. Joy wells up in our hearts, abundance flows and peace descends. The moment we’re initiated by the Guru, we are at home, the only place where we wish to be and remain. When we sit beneath the master’s lotus feet, we are sitting at the fountain of knowledge that will liberate our soul from the bondage of eons. Our restlessness ends and we are at peace, for no reason and in all seasons. After years, may be centuries of anguish, peace finds us permanently, when the Guru takes us in his fold.

On the day of Guru Purnima the disciple reinforces his commitment to empty himself before the Guru. This is the day when the disciple should review the progress made on the spiritual journey and expresses his unflinching devotion to the Guru. On this day, the disciple takes a vow to remain subservient to the diktats of the Guru. Any pupil, average or extraordinary must endeavor to meet the Guru on the day of Guru Purnima and pay his respects to the Guru, to express his gratitude to the divine, who lights the life of the pupil and helps him transcend the ordinary and seek heights that were beyond his mortal capacity. However, for the disciple it’s mandatory to empty his mind before he sits beneath the master’s lotus feet. In this scenario, think of the mind like a vessel. To fill in water, the vessel needs to be emptied.

Similarly, Guru is keen to ignite our life. However, the vessel should be empty enough to absorb the wisdom of the Guru. The world in which we exist, what meets the eye is real and significant. Yet, what doesn’t meet the eye is profound and vast. The master guides us through the maze of ignorance and enables us to deep dive inside to access the vast reserve of wisdom lying within us.

Guru is Narayan. Think Him any less and it’s a sin. He guides us incessantly towards the righteous path, so that the soul is able to fulfil the objective for which we’ve incarnated on the planet Earth. The merger with the Guru for the disciple can’t happen in the presence of ego. As long as ego is alive and kicking, the Guru will not even touch the disciple with a barge pole and the plight of the disciple will be that of Karna, the great warrior in Mahabharata. Two things don’t coexist: intimacy with the Guru and ego.  

When the great war of Mahabhara was over, in Maharishi Jaralkaru’s hermitage two of his disciples deliberated why Arjuna won and Karna lost. One of the disciples was unable to fathom the reason behind Karna’s defeat, who was a far superior warrior with exceptional generosity. If good karmas return, then how did Karna get defeated?

Both the disciples went to their Guru to seek the answer. The Mahirishi gave a clear cut answer and said," Arjuna was Nar and Krishna was Narayana
It is the pair of Nar - Narayana that always wins against demons.
Karna was superior to Arjuna in all respects, but he made a crucial mistake of not seeking the blessings of Narayana and considered himself invincible due to his inflated ego.
This fundamental mistake in his attitude was the root cause of his defeat" 

Ego: the exaggerated selfie

Shun ego and empty your mind completely and surrender before the Guru. Only then the master can mould you and help you achieve your highest potential. Why is it required to shun ego to perceive Guru? Guru is the infinite source of knowledge and he is keen to channel the wisdom in his disciples, but this becomes possible only when the disciple approaches Guru with a vacant mind, ready to absorb and assimilate the wisdom offered by the Guru. When Guru welcomes you in his fold, you are home and at home, you don’t carry pretensions that are restricted for the outside world. At home, you just enjoy being yourself. Such should be your emotional and mental state if you decide to get closer to the Guru. Whether you like it or not, but Guru will strip away the superficial expressions attached to your personality that ego fancies, flimsy yet critical to provide you depth and substance. However, for most of us the affection with ego is so intense that we go to extraordinary heights to protect it.

There was a man who searched the whole world for a Guru. Somehow, all he found was a bunch of greedy men disguised as Guru. He had lost hope and had reconciled to his existence without the Guru. Then, the fortune decided to smile at him and he found the perfect Guru, just the Guru should be. An acquaintance was eager to know the details. The man divulged, “Oh! The Guru found in me the perfect disciple!”

Whether the pupil accepts with ease, equanimity or with pain, the Guru is not going to pander to the ego. Rather, he will strip away the false pretensions. Guru and ego do not coexist. One of them leaves. Decide what is more precious for you?

The Guru says that surrender is vital for spiritual enlightenment. Many disciples contemplate and decide to surrender wholeheartedly to the master, but the blessed few manage to do that. Rest of us just do it halfheartedly, or create a charade, or are incapable of surrendering.

What exactly comes in the way of surrender? Most importantly, it is ego, the exaggerated self that views itself in the highest regard. Ego is fond of considering itself seriously, whereas no one else does that. Weakening of ego is directly proportional to strengthening of surrender.

The point reiterated here time and again is that the Guru will strip you of pretensions. He will make you childlike, innocent, wide eyed and ready to view the world with amazement; the state in which nature intended us to remain. However, as we grew we learned to stress ourselves. Guru is the balm to the tortured souls. He is the spring in the desert, and on the day of Guru Purnima, we express our reverence to Narayana who has entered in our life in the form of Guru.

My Struggle with Surrender

The Guru is the guiding light in the lives of all of us. A life without Guru is similar to a boat without a rudder.  The hapless sailor doesn’t know whether the boat will float, or sink, only the winds of the circumstance, labelled as destiny decides the fate of the boat. Blessed are the souls who get initiated by the Guru, the guiding light that can change your life and bestow you with the touch of magnificence. It’s the Guru and only the Guru who can add wings to your tired and listless soul to soar and experience the brilliance of the divine. In fact, 

Guru is the savior in the so called rat race of life, where even if you win, you’re still a rat. He gives a direction to the life. Most importantly, He teaches you to smell the flowers on the way and not get trapped in the journey. Destination is not important rather the journey has its beauty. It’s about living in the moment, experiencing simple and trivial pleasures of life, which we are in the habit of postponing till we reach a particular goal, which could be our personal mileposts, our children’s targets and then grand-children. It seems like the attachment has no end. Guru can deliver you from this tailspin.

However, most of the disciples even after initiation are not able to surrender to the Guru. Somehow, doubts obstruct in the path of surrender. So obsessed are we with our preconceived notions, learnings that we try to fit in the Guru in our pre-existing mould somehow even if it requires sacrificing on the learning we may acquire from the Guru. Somehow, we are fascinated with miracles and we want Guru to cast spells, mitigate our personal concerns, our domestic struggles. Engrossed in the outer domain we tend to ignore the real self, which is the territory where the master has to work, to enable us evolve as a soul and rise beyond the ordinary.

Often I’ve wondered why as disciples we are so mired in the mundane, in the frivolous and are not able to trust the Guru. For me the reasons lie in our inability to trust? In our obsession with the extraordinary, the form of divine that has been handed down to us from ages, the God in his resplendence that we’re unable to have faith in the simplicity of the Guru and in his normal existence. 

The modesty that should have connected us more with the Guru comes in the path of the trust. This is what is called the absence of absolute surrender, where you do something ritualistically, just because you’re ordained to do it. I would call it half-hearted surrender. Doing but not believing in it.

How to rise above the challenge? The solution is simple. Trust Guru. When you trust boundaries evaporate and you merge with the Guru. The real test of being a disciple is to connect with the Guru without expectations. Most of the times, we inundate Guru with our trivial concerns, which are just a 

phase in the life because good and not-so-good times constitute life.

Guru is the alchemist who can transform you. However, you have to allow him to cast his spell. Allow him to take in your fold and trust him. The word here is BLINDLY. Avoid doubts because they can erode your relationship with the Guru. Guru and disciple are bound by love and affection. Enjoy it and cherish the beautiful relationship and see how master weaves his magic.

Disclaimer

Me and My Guru, my thoughts, any resonance with you or your thoughts is not coincidental

How ego comes in the way of your union with the Guru

 The Guru says that surrender is vital for spiritual enlightenment. Many disciples contemplate and decide to surrender wholeheartedly to the master, but the blessed few manage to do that. Rest of us just do it halfheartedly, or create a charade, or are incapable of surrendering.

What exactly comes in the way of surrender? Most importantly, it is ego, the exaggerated self that views itself in the highest regard. Ego is fond of considering itself seriously, whereas no one else does that. Weakening of ego is directly proportional to strengthening of surrender. If this is the case, then why is it difficult to surrender even in hard circumstances?

From my perspective as a disciple, surrender is mistakenly believed to be equivalent with non-action, which it is not. Our years of training and belief in action doesn’t permit us to surrender because then we are no longer in control, which is a frightening thought for folks like me who love to regulate events happening in our life.

Then, how to surrender to the master? Surrender comes from the faith and belief that the Guru is the guiding light. And here lies the turmoil, because our pre-conceived notions and knowledge do not let us rely on the master totally. We are afraid to give in ourselves to the Guru or we give little, or give expecting the result in the return.

In fact, my feeling is that our mind is extremely calculative and manipulative. It keeps an account of each effort made and the outcome received. The wisdom comes in the way of surrender, because it doesn’t let you renounce all your notions. Surrendering to the Guru means that you have to empty your mind and absorb the wisdom of the guru, which strangely is a paradoxical situation, summarized in the famous ‘what if’ context, which is the root cause of all doubts.

What if, I surrendered and it didn’t happen as I’ve thought? If these are your feelings, where is the surrender? For most of us Guru is the shortcut to deliverance and that too ‘my’ way. He is just another medium to fulfil wishes when circumstances get tough. Isn’t it the way most of us pray?

Actually, most of us are not surrendering to the Guru, rather recruiting the master to fulfil our desires and make our lives simpler, which the Guru can with His Midas touch. He is the alchemist who can turn paltry iron in the precious gold. And we come in the fold of Guru with an expectation to seek solutions for our everyday living, for things and concerns non-existent in the larger scheme of things, yet extremely critical for us! Rather than relying on the Guru we are directing the master to find solutions to our life’s troubles. Here lies the inability to surrender because Guru is an additional facilitator to live the lives we’ve decided for ourselves.

Our unwillingness to surrender clips our wings to rise to the fullest potential because we do   not let the master weave His magic. So bogged down are we with the mundane that the master who could have enabled us to rise to a conscience higher than the current remains trapped in bestowing blessings for the fulfilment of the ordinary.   Perhaps, our incapability to surrender lies in our mindset. Just the way Arjuna viewed Krishna as a friend because of his myopic vision, in the same way, we get fooled by the simplicity of the Guru and start viewing him as a mortal being, which He is not and is the biggest sin committed on the part of the disciple.

The question is how to surrender. Like, the famous Nike slogan ‘Just do it,’ because there is no other way, but to surrender. For me surrender is akin to becoming a child who believes and trusts his parents under all circumstances. That’s what surrender is for me, anyone or everyone. Just trust Guru implicitly and follow him blindly. The master knows all.



Disclaimer: These thoughts are strictly mine and any any resonance with you or your thoughts is not coincidental