Guru Gita 23

Gurucharanam Saranam

Gurumoortim Smaret Nityam, Guror Naama Sadaa Japet

Guroraajnaam Prakurveeta, Guroranyam Na Bhaavayet

Remember the form of Guru daily. Repeat Guru’s name always. Follow Guru’s instruction. Do not think (in prayer) on anything other than Guru.

You float like a withered leaf in the indescribable spiritual sky without the support of Guru, the personified abstraction of the Supreme Light. Can a little infant walk without the finger of its father? The faith in Guru is the sublimation of one’s ego. Each soul is connected to certain astral skies from where manifests the Guru of his life; it may be in the form of a person or ideology. For our spiritual growth, it becomes necessary to absolutely identify with the omniscient Supreme Guru. Very less people understand the true Guru concept. Majority of Hindus follow temple worship and mightn’t have even got a Guru as such. Adi Sankaracharya once mentioned: ‘blessed is the life of one who has got three things in life – birth in Bharat, desire for liberation and getting of an enlightened Guru’.

We have innumerable Gurus belonging to Saiva, Sakteya and Vaishnava cults or paths like Yoga, Jnana or Bhakti. But the Guru of Guru Gita is above all sects and traditions. So long as there are different creeds, sects and traditions, there cannot be spiritual unity. The basic cause of India’s disunity lies in her heterodox spiritual tradition. Her heart is spiritually fragmented or compartmentalized. Following one or the other Guru is not as important as its social and spiritual impact. The Guru should be the catalyst for social change, not just a retail vendor of spirituality, like the pandas do sitting on the Ghats of Varanasi. This type of spirituality will not help to forge unity of mankind. The cumulative effect of all this spiritual degradation is that very few people know about the epochal Guru regime in Sanatana Dharma as different from popular religion. Each epoch has a Guru of its own, a Kaalaanthara Guru, like Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru in Kaliyuga, who has been empowered by the Supreme Light of Brahman. The exhortation of Guru Gita becomes a reality only when India installs the concept of Supreme Guru-hood in its altar of spirituality as being repeatedly stated here by Lord Siva in Guru Gita.

Guru Gita 22

Gurucharanam Saranam

Sirah Paadankitam Kritvaa, Yatha the chaakshayovatah:

Teertha Raajah Prayaago-asau, Gurumuurtyai Namo Namah

Prayag is considered the most holy of all holy waters and it is here the akshayavata - the everlasting banyan tree--stands. Devotion to the form of that Guru by prostrating at whose feet one earns the immortality (of the akshayavata) and the merit of taking a dip in the holiest of all holy waters.

Prayag, the confluence of three sacred rivers – Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati, which we may (arbitrarily though) attribute to three sects of Hinduism, namely, Saiva, Vaishnava and Sakteya, because of their symbolic connections with Siva (to Ganga), Yamuna (to Krishna- associated with the myths of Vishnu) and a phonetic connection with goddess Saraswati, which we may associate with female deity worship). There stands an immortal tree on the banks of Prayag - the Jnana Vriksha, the fourth path of the transcendent Rishis who meditate under it. Without this tree of knowledge, the holy waters of Ganga and Yamuna, like the pale sun affected by an eclipse, might be just cold and colorless streams.

The all knowing Guru is the Jnana Vriksha on the banks of holy waters and it is by prostrations at the feet of Guru one earns immortality. Hindus seem to have neglected this jnana vriksha, this sage living on the banks of the holy rivers and teerthas. This is about the fourth face of the Vedas, the Jnana Kanda, about which people generally know very little or have they chosen to remain satisfied with the appeasement of celestial gods? Like mirthful children, they swish, swim and splash in the river of ritualism, each immersed in their own world, without a real spiritual leadership. When will Hindus graduate to the immortal spiritual wisdom of the Rishis?

Guru Gita 21

Gurucharanam Saranam

Kaasi Kshetram Nivaasascha, Jaahnavi Charanodakam

Guruh Visweswarah Saakshaat, Taarakam Brahma Nishchitam

Kaasi is where Guru is present; the water that washes Guru’s feet is the holy water of Ganges. Guru is verily the Lord of the Universe and the Supreme Power that takes one (and all) across (the ocean of worldly existence).

The spiritually inclined are drawn to the holy city of Kashi, the sacred Ganga and the god lording over it, Siva, the ascetic of ascetics. Those who hunger after spiritual virtues settle down there. Still, Guru is required to open the door to spiritual realization. The real truth of holy places like Kashi, sacred rivers like Ganga and gods such as Siva is understood only when connected with a mystical eye by the grace of Guru.

In the ancient city of Kashi lived Sant Kabir, who said that he would first salute Guru if Guru and God were to manifest together in front of him. He firmly believed that only by the grace of Guru, God, the formless mystery could be experienced. While Kabir said this, he had in mind the impossible scenario of the manifestation of formless, nameless, infinite God in front of the devotee and the perennial truth of Guru’s mediacy in God realization. Therefore Guru is the liberating attribute of impersonal God. Without an authoritative liberated Guru, a spiritual seeker will get bewildered in challenging astral dimensions. According to Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, millions and millions of such souls are caught in astral dimensions unable to attain the final sublimation or salvation.

Guru Gita -20

Gurucharanam Saranam

Yasmaad-anugraham Labdhwaa Mahad-ajnaanam-utsrujet

Tasmai Srii-desikendraaya Namascha-abhiishta-siddhaye

Salutations to that Lord among Teachers, on receiving whose blessing, great ignorance is dispelled and also wishes fulfilled.

What does our soul desire? It desires eternal peace. There cannot be peace when there are wants and desires to be fulfilled, duties to be fulfilled. Every man has to undergo life experiences presented before him which are the products of soul’s karmic backlog and evolutionary growth. Evolution is related to the upward journey of consciousness from gross emotional planes to the purity and tranquility of subtle higher states of consciousness. There are no fights, struggles and grievances there. It is an endless valley of pure love. The soul before reaching that state of stillness has to evolve achieving victory over the painful domain of ego, very deluding and difficult to transcend.

Base instincts, shameful actions and cruel deeds do occur in this domain due to the association with ego, sensuality, name and form. These are excusable when performed under the roof of ignorance as well as under remote astral influences with which a soul might be associated with. Such souls become food of the spirit-world in the dark regions. However, there is hope for those who have a Guru of supreme elevation. They can surrender all their bad karmas on the lotus feet of Guru and get purified. It is an assurance from the great Guru, Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru. Sin is washed away by the purifying light of Guru.

Those who live according to the dictates of dharma, who are able to control and discipline their thoughts and actions, become upwardly oriented. One branch of this people becomes the food of gods due to their attachment to heavenly pleasures and celestial splendor. The other group disgusted by the pendulum of pain and pleasure, their ceaseless meaningless repetition, desires to ascend the peak of spiritual tranquility, freed from the dark valley of ignorance below. Such souls are lifted up by the blessing hands of Guru, the radiance up above the higher regions.