Welcome to Day 8 of our 40-Day Meditation Retreat 2008.

I have been speaking in the past few days on the mantra “Guru”. I spoke about the need for concentration and being in the moment. Then I spoke about being the witness as you repeat the mantra, so there is an expansive state of being as you repeat the mantra. Tool for Managing the MindToday I want to take it a step further.  A mantra is a powerful tool. In the very first instance it helps us to manage the mind, so we use it by repeating it, the goal being to manage the mind: “Guru Guru” or “Om Guru Om Guru”.  It becomes a tool to manage the mind.  Then I spoke about repeating it in a way that allows you to become the witness.  So you can not only manage the mind but you can become more Self-aware of the space in which you exist, the peacefulness of the space, the power of the space.  And from the experiences of yesterday as I listened to people I saw how they were able to use the mantra in a more expansive way, giving even deeper experiences. I was very pleased with that.

Identifying the Supreme Goal of Mantra
What I want to say today is the supreme goal of the mantra is to realize the essence of the mantra. For those who repeat the mantra of deities, for example, the goal will be to become the deity, to experience the oneness with the deity. And if you are repeating some affirmation that holds your mind in control, then the goal will be to realize the power of the affirmation, the meaning of the affirmation, the essence of the affirmation.  So if you are repeating an affirmation, or we can call it a mantra: I am happy Anando-ham, if you were to use Sanskrit.  You begin to repeat Anando- ham I am free, I am blissful as a tool to manage the mind, to make it quiet, to make it powerful. 

The goal would be not just to manage the mind with the thought of Anando-ham. It will be to experience the bliss of freedom that the mantra is implying. So the final goal of mantra is not just to be aware of yourself saying the mantra in a more expansive space.  It is not just to say the mantra- the word of the mantra- to manage the mind, but the supreme goal of the mantra is the realization of the mantra, the essence of the mantra, and that is the Tattwa quality of the mantra to realize this.

If we were to use the mantra “Guru” the same applies. You use the mantra Guru to manage the mind first of all: Om Guru Om Guru and it becomes a tool for managing the mind. And then you become more aware of your inner Being as being expansive so you are repeating the mantra in an expansive awareness and it gives more peace. It gives a higher sense of Self-awareness. You feel that your Being has become bigger.  And so you feel that the mantra has taken you another step into your inner Being.

Guru Tattwa – What is it?
The next step will be to realize the Tattwa- the essence of the mantra itself, and so it is with Guru. So the goal of the Guru mantra is to experience the Tattwa of the mantra. In a sense it means to experience the state of Guru, to experience Guru Tattwa.  The heart of Guru Gita- this book of Wisdom- is to experience Guru Tattwa.

Today I want to speak about that because in the 40-Days of 1978 that was the meditation that took me to a higher level.  Although I had repeated the mantra Om Guru with a lot of respect for the mantra to manage my mind that I may feel my more expansive Being, but ultimately, I had to go into the awareness of the Guru Tattwa.  It took me one entire week in the 40-Days to understand the instructions that I was getting from my inner Being.  But when I got the message, when I got the realization, then I understood the secret of Guru Gita.   The ultimate goal of Guru Gita is to experience Guru Tattwa. 

Now this brings us to the physical Guru.  If we begin to meditate on Guru Tattwa, we are meditating on the light.  So we can imagine any kind of light and think we are meditating on a light. But is that the Ru in Guru Tattwa? Or we can think of meditating on freedom because Ru is the experience of freedom. But is that Guru Tattwa?  Can we really meditate properly by just thinking ‘I am free’?  or thinking  ‘I am the light’?

Physical Guru inspires Understanding
What gives us a powerful support or help in this meditation is actually seeing Guru Tattwa in a human being.  When we see Guru Tattwa in a human being it becomes inspiring and it gives us a very clear idea and the inspiration in wanting to experience this Guru Tattwa. That was my very profound experience in India.  It took me two years to meet the physical being who inspired me.

Relationship with the physical Guru
Initially, I was inspired by the energy of a place and the people who were in the place. Ultimately I met the teacher and that took me two years.  But in meeting the teacher I had to go into Guru Tattwa to understand.  When I opened my eyes and looked at the physical teacher there was no way I can even understand Guru Tattwa. But when I closed my eyes and said, “I want to experience what is the essential quality of that being; what makes that being powerful. What gives that being the power of self-mastery.” I closed my eyes and went inside.  Then I felt there was some great power in that being and felt “that power is inside of me. I want to experience that power.” That was my relationship with the physical Guru. I could see an essential quality in that being that made him a leader, a mentor, a very strong spiritual teacher.  And that was the Tattwa I wanted to experience. In the beginning of the 40-Days that was my goal, and that was the instruction that I had gotten from that power inside. So my entire 40-Days was an experience of the realization of Guru Tattwa.

When we see the physical person, and when we have the experience of that person manifesting Guru Tattwa, it becomes a very powerful inspiration of how we should be, how we should think, how we should act, and what we should experience. So the final step of the Guru mantra “Gu Ru” is to come into the experience of that essential quality that we see in all Gurus – Guru Tattwa.   It is to come into the experience of that.

Become the Mantra
The mantra has to get to the state where it becomes Guro-ham, where we begin to think:  “I am That, I am that light.”  But the inspiration comes when we think of the physical person and the quality that is being manifested.  Then it is easier for us to come into that quality in this human body, because we are now seeing it in a human body.  If we have the opportunity to see Guru Tattwa expressed in fullness in a human person, then we have a way of meditating on that Guru Tattwa in our human being.  That is powerful. So the idea is if we are honouring the supreme teacher Krishna, then we should think we should be like Krishna. We are the Krishna Consciousness. Or if we are worshipping the supreme teacher Christ we should think that we are the Christ. We are the Christ Consciousness.  Or if we are honouring the supreme teacher, Shiva, in the Guru Gita we should think that we are the Tattwa in Shiva. That is the goal of the mantra, ultimately.

I am now going to give you two verses of Guru Gita that point in that direction very beautifully. These are verses that you can really meditate on. And if you consider me to be a teacher then my desire is for you to experience what I experience inside of me. Not just to honour me with your salutations but to experience what I experience inside of me – the Tattwa inside of me. That’s what my greatest desire is. Here are the verses.

The first one says:  

Evam vidham  Gurum dhyaatvaa   Gyaanam utpadyate swayam

Tadaa Guroopadeshena   Muktoham  iti bhaavayet

This says, by meditating on Guru we attain that supreme knowledge that takes us to freedom.

Evam vidham  Gurum dhyaatvaa   - Meditation on the Guru

 Gyaanam utpadyate swayam         - We experience that supreme knowledge

Tadaa Guroopadeshena                   - By the instructions of the Guru

Muktoham  iti bhaavayet                  - I realize my freedom.  I experience my freedom.

This tells us how important the instruction of the True Master is. ‘By the instructions of the Guru I experience that state of freedom.’

The next verse says:

Gurur dhyaanam  tathaa kritvaa    Swayam Brahma  mayo bhavet

Pinde pade tathaa rope    Muktaaste naatra samshayah

Gurur dhyaanam  tathaa kritvaa     -  By meditation on the Guru

Swayam Brahma  mayo bhavet         -  I attain that divine  Brahma consciousness

Pinde pade tathaa rope Muktaaste     - In this body I experience freedom

Naatra samshayah                               - There is no doubt

The essential thing is coming into the realization of what Guru is. There is the need to understand this Guru Tattwa – this special quality that we see in Guru – to study it and to begin to embrace that in our own being.

Begin to think how can I experience this in my own being? And that’s the essential meditation.  That’s what meditation on the Guru means. It means meditation on the Tattwa that we see inside of Guru.

This is a key meditation. I want you to have an experience of what this is.