Welcome to Day 30 of our 40 Day Retreat.
We have been speaking about the power of the Parama Guru to help us out of darkness to freedom. The reason why Parama Gurus are in the world is because of the need of students or disciples for enlightenment. By the law attraction these teachers are born to serve these students who are aspiring towards enlightenment, towards freedom. Parama Gurus have come into the world to serve a need.
Guru Deeksha - Initiation
There are various kinds of disciples with different intensities of desire for freedom. The impact of a teacher or a Guru on a student in terms of awakening that spiritual consciousness, or deepening spiritual growth is called “initiation” and in Sanskrit it is called “Deeksha”.
So we are now on the subject of “Guru Deeksha”. Guru Gita gives us the grounds by which initiation can become fruitful. This means that you can have all the teachers in the world, but the student can only gain as much from the teacher as the student is ready to receive. So sometimes we may think we are so worthy and ready and we meet teachers who are known to be very powerful teachers and we find that nothing is happening. Then the question becomes whether we are sufficiently ready or worthy (worthy in the sense of being ready).
I am going to spend some time in speaking about the worthiness or readiness of the disciple in order to make that initiation happen and for it to be fruitful. I have a verse from Guru Gita that will begin this subject, but I will speak about that later on.
Different Qualities of Disciples
I want to touch on the subject of "different qualities of disciples’ for a moment and look at how deep our desire is for that freedom that we may be aspiring to. Think about this:
The students come and they seem to be very interested. The Guru gives a teaching. Then they may say “well I have heard this from so many teachers already, it’s the same thing I’m hearing again, this Guru has nothing new to teach me” and the students go looking for another teacher.
Other students come and say “this sounds very interesting, I want to learn more about this”. They listen and begin to engage in contemplation but though they might be very interested and begin to contemplate, these students are busy doing so many things. So although the students have all the good intentions they are just so busy! If they have some time again, they will go back to the Guru.
Then there are the students who have been looking and before even meeting the Guru they start researching. They start looking for all the ideas that are available, start saving them in books, start writing them down, start thinking about them. They look at all the possible Gurus that are around, begin to analyze their teachings even before meeting them, learning everything about them and finally selecting one and thinking “let me go and listen to this teacher”. When he or she goes to the teacher, there is such an impact that the student doesn’t want to leave. Their mind is so taken up, that no matter where they go they are thinking about that impact. That impact is so powerful that it changes these student’s lives.
Students Readiness & Involvement in Worldly Life
Now how would you consider these students? What makes the difference?
The first students who came and found the teaching to be like all the other teachings, is so preoccupied with the world and has so many important things to do in the world, that they only have five minutes for this teaching. When they hear the same thing again, they need something new, something that will be very impactful, they just don’t have time. You know in our culture - the quick fix - we need a Guru who will quickly fix us. So the Guru becomes just another commodity, like any other thing we try to acquire in our lives. We become very judgmental “I don’t think this one is it”.
The second ones in their busy life make a little time, are very open and consider what the Guru is saying and remembers it for a little while. These are taken up too, but not as busy as the first one. He or she manages some time for contemplation and when very inspired may put a little of it into practice.
The next ones are so prepared, so ready, that one word impacts so deeply because so much research has been done, so much time has been taken trying to practice and their whole life has changed.
The difference is between the students that we have in our world and this decides how that initiation will take place. In all these cases it showed their sense of readiness and how much the person is taken up with the worldly life.
When you are so taken up with the worldly life and your mind is so crammed with thoughts of the world, you don’t have time for spirituality. Then you have to set priorities. When your priorities become the goals we have in the world, spirituality becomes a lower priority and will wait for later. If you look carefully I am sure you can fit yourself into one of those categories.
When Guru Deeksha Becomes Fruitful
Now we are ready to listen to the verse of Guru Gita. In beautiful Sanskrit is says:
Dussangam cha parit yagya
Papa karma parit yajet
Chitta cinham idam yasya
Tasya deeksha vidheeyate
“One who has abandoned bad company and also sinful acts and who has a heart free from sin. To such a one, Guru Deeksha is fruitful.”
When you are caught up in people who are so full of worldliness (Company does not necessarily mean physical persons, it can mean company of all the movies you look at, all the books that you read, all the information that comes to you) when you associate yourself with that, what happens? You are influenced by them; your goals are influenced. Bad company here means “that which takes you away from the path.” Sinful acts are those acts that take you away from the path. It speaks about bad company.
Conversely when you associate with those who have a strong desire for freedom or who are established in goodness, that is how you are influenced as well.
It speaks about company and about sinful actions because when we associate with such people we are drawn to performing that kind of action. Actions that get us more caught in the world and its worldliness, in its power plays, in its pleasure plays and then we have very little time for spirituality.
Then it says “one who has a heart free from sin, sin in the sense of taking you away from that beautiful light within you or the path of the spirit, when you develop desires, intentions for worldly things, for things that distract you from spirituality you get more caught up in the world, then your heart, your emotional nature, your passionate nature becomes filled with worldliness”.
This verse says “be careful of company, actions, intentions or desires. Abandon that which is not good for you if you want Guru Deeksha or initiation to be fruitful.” Does it ring a bell? Does it make sense? Then can this verse of Guru Gita stay with us if we are the good disciple, so that we never forget this verse once we have heard it?
Worthiness for Guru Deeskha
That is the contemplation about worthiness for Guru Deeksha. Have we really abandoned the company that leads us in another direction other than the spiritual? Have we abandoned actions that get us drawn more into the world of desire and power? Have we freed our heart from those desires that draw us again and again into this world? If you have, then you have opened yourself up to the power of Guru Deeksha, then you are ready to sit and listen.
In one of the books of ancient India, I’ll tell you a story that really impressed me:
There was a Guru who had a king as his disciple and he always showed special regard to the king. You can imagine all the other disciples when they saw this special regard. “Oh he’s the king and he’s so rich and he has so much power that the Guru favours him.” Of course the Guru never liked that the students should think that way and thought “Oh what kind of students are these?”
So one day the Guru decided to teach the students a lesson. He asked someone in the village to spread a rumour while satsang (meeting) was going on, that there was a fire in the village. So during satsang, rumour came that there was fire. Everyone got up and ran off because they had to secure their stuff! The king never budged an inch, he was sitting with the Guru and he knew that if the Guru told him to go then he would go, otherwise he was not moving. So he sat right there.
Of course after sometime all the disciples came back after finding there was no fire after all. The Guru said “Now do you see why I consider this king to be very special? He would not move without my consent. But all of you left, you didn’t even ask me anything, all of you left. This is why I treat this king as special, not because he is a king, but because he is a very powerful student. This is what you need to learn.”
I will leave you with the beauty of this story - The power of Gurus and the power of disciples.
