Welcome to Day 20 of our 40 Day Retreat 2008.
We are at the mid-point. Each day continues to be as beautiful, interesting, motivating, inspiring. That is how I feel when I speak with you.
Teachers – a gift to our Society
The subject, of course, is a very interesting one. It is a subject that is very dear to my heart, and I do believe that the transformation of our society has a lot to do with our relationship with the teachers in our society. Teachers are the ones who can really guide us, lift us and help us. And depending on the quality of the teacher and student, then the most can happen in the relationship. They both can achieve the most from that relationship. I think teachers are a gift from the Universe to our society and their role is most important.
Secular Vs Spiritual
In my life earlier on, it was the profession that really inspired me to be the perfect teacher. And it did not take too long before I realized that the perfect teacher was not the secular teacher. Rather, the perfect teacher was the one who mastered the inner Self.
Yesterday we dealt with the secular teachers- those who teach us in the external world. That external world we also refer to as the secular world. We often describe the worldly as the secular and the inner as the spiritual. We spoke about how important those teachers are in our secular world. We also discussed how important it is to learn those sciences and humanities that help us to become better individuals, to help us to understand our world better and to interact with our world in a better way.
These branches of knowledge help us to create a more progressive and better society, but of course in all of that, spirituality is extremely important. Spirituality brings out the best within us. Spirituality leads to peace and love and harmony, understanding, kindness and compassion in our world. And deep spirituality leads us into the most expansive qualities in the spiritual arena or domain.
Planting the seeds of Spiritual Life
Today I want to speak about those spiritual teachers at the beginning of the journey. In life, in the world and in society at some stage in our life, we will be introduced to spiritual life. In our society that may be termed “religious” life. So someone is going to come who will initiate us to the religious life. Those teachers become very important at that stage. They initiate us into religion, into do’s and don’ts, some sort of moral code, and give us our first appreciation, as it were, for the ideas of God, the Universe and of life. And though we may not fully understand at that stage we become very drawn into the practice of ritual.
Those who teach us how to pray, what to say, they teach us the various mantras and rules and we begin to practise those. And in the initial part of spiritual life, we become very drawn to the practice of this even by memory. Some of us may even become God-faring by then and we practise out of fear. Some of us become a little more understanding and we make it a form of discipline. For some of us, it actually takes us deeper inside.
Gratitude to all Teachers
These teachers plant the initial seed of spiritual life in us, and they too are very important in our society and in our lives. They may not be fully realized beings but they are also important. Think of civilized life without religion, without rules, moral codes and ethics and we see a somewhat barbaric life. So these teachers are very important as they lead us in a certain stage of the journey. Therefore as we reflect today, we need to also give them importance.
If you reflect on who was the first one to teach you a prayer or mantra; who was the first to initiate you into some kind of spiritual knowledge, then there should be some measure of gratitude even for that first step. So the first step is about planting the seeds inside of us. Some of us rebel at those earlier days, we become radical and move away, nevertheless, those steps are there for us. So that is one kind of teacher.
Guru who begins our spiritual Journey
The Guru Gita begins to talk about teachers, and it is this type of teachers it is referring to. It says:
Panchaakshar yaadi mantra naam
Upadeshtaa tu Parvati,
Sa Guror bodhaka bhuyad
Soochakaa dayam uttamah
The Guru who initiates the disciple in the first panchaakshar
or five-syllabled mantra etc,
O Parvati, he is of the bodhaka type and superior to the suchaka
We spoke about the suchaka yesterday. So the Bodhaka Teacher is superior to the one who teaches the worldly. Of course, the worldly sciences and humanities are meant for our livelihood and communication, and for understanding the world around us. But they are not for the spiritual journey. The bodhaka Guru is the one who begins our spiritual journey- a very important one. Guru Gita says he is superior to the ones who teach the sciences, however great these teachers may be. The bodhaka Guru is an important Guru. He teaches us the beginning of spiritual life.
Other Guru inspires detachment
It goes on to give other Gurus who are also important. I am going to read another verse for you and that will introduce another class of Guru.
It says:
Anityam iti nirdishya
Samsaaram sankataa layam
Vairaagya patha darshee yah
Sa Guror vihitah priye
Everything here is transitory and an abode of calamities and problems. Viewing thus, the world which is an abode of miseries, the Guru who shows the path leading to Vairagya or detachment is known as the Vihitah type.
If you think carefully this is spirituality at the next step, which is when we are taught that the spiritual life is more important than the worldly life. That we should not be drawn into the worldly life, called samsara. It says we should not be so attached to the worldly that it becomes more important than the spiritual. Vairagya means when we begin to lose that attraction for the world and begin to feel the attraction for the inner space. In the world we are so caught up with attraction for the world. The world drives us in so many ways – temptations, power, pleasure and the rest.
It is saying those Gurus who begin to open your eyes to the truth about the world and to help you to begin to understand its true nature, and inspire you to become more detached from the world and more drawn into the spiritual world; those Gurus are of the Vihitah type. Those are Vihitah Gurus.
It brings another beautiful aspect of Guru in the world. I am sure if you go back into your life at some stage, those Gurus will begin to teach you how to see the spiritual as more important than the physical, and to learn how to give priority to the spiritual. Those are important Gurus too. They perform a very important step in terms of your spiritual life, and in terms of viewing the world in a proper way.
Different classes of Gurus – Honour them all
So isn’t it exciting that Guru Gita looks at these classes of Gurus and gives importance to everyone? When you see these Gurus in your lives, you will not think that they are a waste of time. Of course, the real Guru is the one for enlightenment. But you can’t jump into the step of enlightenment right away. Sometimes when you think that you have arrived so far, it is because you have climbed on the other steps. Every Guru along the way gave you some kind of experience that allowed you to be where you are now.
For me, it is a great joy when I see those Gurus who initiate us in the mantra or in the ritual or prayer. I think they are important persons; those Gurus who take us a little deeper in the spiritual life by teaching us about the world and the futility of following the things in the world. They also teach us to become a little more detached and to give more attention to the spiritual world. Those teachers are also important.
I will stop here today at honouring both the Bodhaka teachers and the Vihitah teachers – very important Gurus in our spiritual life. As we remember them let us also honour them for the roles they have played in our lives.
