Guru Gita Verses

Gurucharanam Saranam

Verse 26

Ananya chinthayaa loke, sulabham paramam sukham

Tasmaat sarvaprayatnena guroh aaraadhanam kuru

If one is able to remain in the world with no other thought, supreme happiness is easily attained. Therefore, worship Guru by all means.

Is it possible for us to remain without any thoughts in life? Hundreds of thoughts pass through the mind every day. Mind can never remain without thoughts. Can the sky be ever free from clouds? Clouds appear and disappear in the serene sky, but the sky remains ever unsullied, as an eternal witness, unmoving and as silent as ethereal quietude. Guru is that Eternal Witness, that unmoving ethereal quietude though the medium of which alone we can still our thoughts that run amuck. We have to pin our faith and hopes on that symbol of divine sublimity – the Guru, in order to experience supreme quietude and happiness. Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Jesus or Mohammad represented that sublime divinity. They all said in unequivocal terms: ‘Take refuge in Me alone’, ‘I am the Way’ and ‘Believe in the Prophet’. Therefore, with all efforts, one should move away from the path of demigods, angels and mediums in that line as all of them bow before the Supreme Guru for spiritual sustenance. Step into the track of that Omniscient Guru, take refuge in Him alone and be free from all worries. Guru will take care of you just like the king, to whom you pay tributes and taxes take care of your security.

Guru Gita Verses

Gurucharanam Saranam

Guru Gita-25

Svaashramam cha Svajaatim cha

Svakeertim Pushti Vardhanam

Etat Sarvam Parithyajyaa

Gurumeva Samaashrayet

One should take refuge in Guru alone, leaving aside everything else such as one’s stage in life (like being a householder etc.), caste, reputation and wealth.

Complete surrender to Guru is the principle. One’s ego lives in a delusory paradise in the company of four enchanting terrestrial beauties. They are one’s social status (svaashramam), caste or class-consciousness (svajaatim), desire for fame (svakeertim) and wealth accumulation (pushti vardhanam). Spiritual sublimity is possible only when the ego is crushed or diluted. The ego when tied to the four pillars of worldly worries in the form of social status, class-consciousness, desire for fame and wealth creation, cannot enjoy freedom and spiritual joy because of the conflicts, struggle and pain related to these enterprises. Men perish in the cage of their very ego unable to break free from its cruel and painful claws. One can break free only by the surrender to Guru, under His merciful care. Guru becomes the very aim of life, the personification of Supreme Light, unto whom the ego, nay the soul itself is surrendered as an offering, in the name of Truth, in the name of God. Peace and spiritual illumination dawn on such persons in due course. There is no other support than Guru in this venture. So take refuge in Guru alone. The ego can be obliterated with a conscious thought process or constant reflection that what exists is eternal consciousness alone in which and by whose truth we seem to exist like bubbles in the ocean. Such reflection alone can bring us solace.

Guru Gita 24

Gurucharanam Saranam

Guru Vaktre Sthitam Brahm, Praapyate Tat Prasaadatah

Guror Dhyaanam Tatthaa Kuryaat, Naarii Pativritaa Yatthaa

The grace of the Absolute Brahman present in the Guru’s face can be received only if Guru is pleased. (For this) engage in meditation on the Guru as intensely as a chaste woman would engross in the thought of her husband.

That Supreme Truth is anchored in the physical form of Guru for the spiritual direction of humanity! O’ Soul! Why do you run away from the benign light of Guru and reside in dark celestial regions? Open your eyes to the bright dawn of resplendent light in the settings of a new age. Witness that beauty and wisdom and constantly contemplate on Guru, like the unending meditations of a chaste wife on her husband.

The intimate physical and soul contact between the husband and wife attains a spiritual dimension. A woman’s life is at great stake when she enters into marriage as it is related to her spiritual elevation and life fulfillment. Likewise, if the husband does not find in his wife the spiritual support that he requires very badly, complications would arise in the family. Therefore, in ancient India, the enlightened rishis gave great importance to marriage. Ignorant of these soul intricacies and the genetic engineering of the rishis, the parents and pundits alike risk the lives of their children solely on material considerations like caste, creed, education, wealth etc.

Today, the practice of this precious genetic engineering rests with Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru. Guru permitted marriages only after ensuring spiritual balancing of the souls, looking into the spiritual, ancestral and karmic influences of the concerned couple and their families (gotras) through the astral eye of the Guru or His empowered disciples. The disqualifying spiritual backgrounds of the matched couples are astrally cleansed and synchronized by the sankalpam of the Guru and necessary instructions given before and after marriage so that the life of the husband and wife becomes a combined prayer for begetting a good progeny. The families can thus remain blessed by the birth of virtuous children and the society protected from the birth of a wicked generation.

Those who seek God without realizing the truth of Guru-manifestation are like people who merely enjoy watching of the distant birds, gliding above golden clouds. We can describe their beauty but can never fondle it. O’ soul! On what wings, other than Guru, will you travel to those forbidding heights?

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?