Every year during Guru Poornima I go on an annual pilgrimage to offer my humble and heartfelt obeisance to Hriyananda Baba at Kamareddy (Chandi Mantralayam) along with my Master. This year it so happened that I was only able to visit baba in Nov during my visit to India for Diwali. It was almost 1.5yrs since I had last visited him.
Just recently I finished celebrating the festival called Dussehra/Navaratri during which for the first time I did the Parayan of ‘Devi Mahatmayam’ with my Master who expounded the most powerful scriptures and imparted me the profound and esoteric knowledge about the Lord’s Potencies. For the first time in life I was given an explanation and the true meaning behind each of the stories about these great Goddesses who wins the battle against the various demons.
Every visit to meet Baba always awaits me with lots of surprises and very profound experiences of the Guru Tattva which is a subject of his expositions and something that is very dear to my heart which I can never fathom. So let me share the essence of the 7hours of wonderful Satsang which was reiterated to me by Baba and my Master. It is the exact recap of the lessons given to me by my Master over the last few months and over 6.5years.
- Absolute Faith in the Guru: Faith is a very interesting phenomenon as it can never be explained what it is to have complete faith in your Guru/God. Faith is not determined by what you get or not get. Faith is not established only if your Guru favors and not otherwise. Faith has to come from within one’s own self. There are no pre-conditions to develop faith. Faith is a very flimsy thing you cannot have 99.9% it has to be 100%. In Spiritual you should know that your Guru constantly tests your faith in Him/God. Let me give an example with a story: Once baba said to his disciple to go to the market and buy flowers. It was raining heavily at that time. The disciple said to Baba that he will go as soon the rain stops. Now what happened is the disciple did not have faith in the words of Baba. One should know that the moment you just do what the Guru asks you to do his universe works to deliver the Guru’s command. But by showing no faith in the Guru the disciple has failed. If he would have obeyed to what his Guru said, he should know that the rain would have stopped on its own even before he stepped out of the house. So the lesson here is don’t use your mind and never question or doubt what your Guru tells you. Just listen and have blind Faith in Him. Following his words exactly to the tee and doing everything as ordained by him is extremely important for your Spiritual Growth and reaching your destination. And hence it is said “As is your Faith so are your experiences”.
- Complete Surrender unto the Feet of the Guru: Surrender this word sounds very simple but one of the most difficult things to do and achieve. For a disciple this is one of the most difficult things to do. This is because the individual Ego and Mind always stands up in your way when you want to surrender to the Guru. What does it take to surrender the mind, body and ego at the feet of the Guru/Lord? We are always thinking about I, Me, Myself it is never ‘Thou’. When you surrender unto the feet of the Guru you will always think about the Guru/Lord first. Like Ramakrishnaji says – The cow cries “Hamba‟ which means “I‟. That is why it suffers so much. It is yoked to the plough and made to work in rain and sun. Then it may be killed by the butcher. From its hide shoes are made, and also drums, which are mercilessly beaten. Still it does not escape suffering. At last strings are made out of its entrails for the bows used in carding cotton. Then it no longer says, ‘Hamba! Hamba!’, ‘I! I!’, but ‘Tuhu! Tuhu!’, Thou! Thou!’ Only then are its troubles over. O Lord, I am the servant; Thou art the Master. I am the child; Thou art the Mother. Egotism is the cause of all suffering. When you surrender unto the Guru he takes charge of your life and then the Will of the Lord works in your life. Hence Krsna says that – He is the Servant of those devotees who have surrendered unto their Guru.
- Unconditional Love for the Guru: What is the meaning of Unconditional Love? We all say I love my Guru/God a lot. But is that so? By the way how do you Love him and what kind of Love do you have for him? As a disciple each one think that we love our Guru the most. No one can be like me is the idea that we carry for ourselves. But to attain the unconditional Love for the Guru is not a joke. You need to wear yourself out doing your Sadhana under the guidance of your Guru and go through the process of getting your mind, body, heart purified first followed by surrendering your mind, body and ego unto the Master without which the aspect called the divine Love will never open within you. Forget about believing that you have Love for the Guru/Lord it is a very far away thing. The reason why I am saying this is we look at the Guru and his human appearance and judge him by the way in which he conducts with us and others. You need to know the Gurus ways are unfathomable. Never go by what he is showing you. He is always going to delude you by behaving like an ordinary human being and showing all the human flaws in him. This is only to test our love for him whether it is conditional or unconditional. You need to Love the Guru Unconditionally no matter come what may. For eg: Lord Dattatreya deludes all the Gods by coming out of the sea with two beautiful heavenly damsels and with a liquor bottle in his hands. Being an Avadhuta (Ever Liberated) nothing affects or touches him. His mind and senses are not in the sense objects. They are only lost in the Self alone and is always in the state of SatChidAnand (Truth Knowledge Bliss). This Love can only be awakened with the grace-bestowing power of the Lord called the ‘Guru’.
- Exclusive Devotion: Now comes the 4th most important aspect called ‘Devotion’ especially an exclusive one. What does it means to have exclusive devotion to the Guru/God? In our world we are devoted to everything else and God is one of the aspect of that everything in our life. We are not exclusively devoted to Him. We are devoted to too many things like our family, husband, wife, children, job, money, name, fame, recognition, etc. the list is never ending. We remember Guru/God only when we need something or we are in trouble. The rest of time they just exist. And we are lost in our mundane material existence. And not just that when we show our devotion we start looking into the neighbor’s plate on what is that he/she is doing or offering to the Guru/God and in turn what is that he/she has been given. We start comparison feeling bitter and getting angry with the Guru for being biased or unfair according to our own yard stick. Now forget about exclusive devotion none of the above 3 aspects stand here since we are now devoted to our mind. Such is our flimsy devotion to the Master of this Universe who is full of compassion, loving, kind, benevolent, etc. who wears out his body for the welfare and well-being of this world and the entire creation. He does everything for our good alone but we go to him with only our demands and wants which is to fulfill our desires. The Guru is a desire less being and is a perfect celibate. He has no ulterior motive behind what he does. On the contrary he only does what is good for us beyond even what we can imagine since he has the knowledge of everyone’s past, present and the future. Hence you should fill your mind, body and soul with the devotion towards your Guru/God. And not look into his paraphernalia’s. And that is why Krsna says the highest form of devotion is to see Krsna in everything just like how Radha sees Krsna in everything in Vrindavan. She can only see him alone in everything. For her Krsna has turned into the Cows, to the Tamala trees, Yamuna River, the Gopis (cowherd girls), Bumble Bee, etc. This is called the highest form of devotion. Again to reach this state it is a steep climb and an upward journey with your master and only with his grace and your self-effort you will be able to atleast develop this devotion. Attaining such a state is a far away thing but you can always begin. And it has to come from within. No one can give this to you.
- Serving the purpose of God or Mankind and to give: And finally the purpose of this human birth is not for the material worldly enjoyments nor to appease our sensual pleasures. It is to attain the Divine and to serve the Lord’s purpose for which we have been bestowed this human birth. It is said that a human birth is achieved after having earned the good merits over the many lives that you might have been born. Hence it is extremely important for one to become the best instruments in the hands of the Lord so that he can use us to serve his purpose in this world. But being a material being we have our wants, desires to be fulfilled first. We are not bother about others. We are the most selfish and self-centered creatures. We do not think about the people who do not get a square meal a day or have a garment to cover their body or a roof on top of their head and this list is never ending. We are never thankful to what we have and are always greedy for more and more. We do not know what it is to give. Jesus say – Give to those who can never ever return it back to you. But what kind of giving do we do? We want to give to those from whom we are going to benefit or get some kind of returns. We are always thinking of return on investment (ROI). We are the most selfish human beings. All the God given wealth we want to splurge in fancy holidays, food, drink, clothes and what not. But never have once asked how many people in this world do not even get food to eat or clothes to wear or even have a place to live. Can we donate generously with what God has given? Nope we do not and this thought never ever crosses our mind. Why? Because it never affects us since we do not understand what it is to not have? We are all the beggars in the land of the King (God) who gives generously to the most ungrateful ones without ever thinking what is that he is going to get? He does not even think or have any expectation from anyone in this world. Again what Ramakrishnaji says – What can anyone give to the Owner of the Garden? You are going to pluck the flowers from his own Garden and offer it to Him. So we need to serve the mankind and share what has been bestowed upon us. The reason we have been given is so that we can give generously to those who do not have. I can never finish writing this article however will definitely continue this as we go ahead.
So to conclude no matter what you call yourself a devotee, lover of the lord, servant, disciple, etc please note one thing very clearly ONLY the Guru can do the attestation of who you are to Him. Without him giving you the certificate what you say or believe has no value. So Rise and live the lessons which is being imparted to you. As you are the chosen one and hence you are getting this knowledge. Do not waste this precious and priceless life and time which you have been bestowed.
