Says Swamiji: Human love is a stepping stone to divine love. Disc 142 track 7.
To listen to Swamiji speaking, please open the post fully, and then click on the link below.
So the first Guru is God himself in this sense. Krishna Bhagavan becomes the sishya [student], the student to show us the road. And in turn, he himself is advising and by advising what he’s doing? He’s teaching, so he becomes in turn our Guru. Krishnamurti said there’s no need for a guru. Meanwhile, when you took that advice, he became your guru. You get the idea? You hearing him saying you have no need of a Guru, you try to have no guru, he’s become your guru now. Yet now you’re saying you have no need of a guru? Swamiji reading Hindi…
The guru that you serve, that guru does not want your wealth. The guru does not want your money. But what this guru is in need of, is bhakti [divine love]. And this bhakti, later on, it grows and that bhakti is given to God himself. He’s like some kind of, what do you call it? An incubator. [Like preparing chicks to hatch] .Where you put all the items and get them prepared and then take it and offer it to God himself. So the guru is hungry for bhakti, prema, love, and God is also hungry for bhakti, prema and love. Swamiji reading Hindi again.
Krishna Bhagavan in the gopi-lila only wanted love from the gopis. And to draw attention like a naughty child, when the gopis didn’t give him love, he broke the [butter] pots. Attention needed. Where there is attention, there is detention. God detains your mind. The Lord detains your mind.
Now, Rama’s guru was like that, too. The hereditary guru was Vashisht-dev. And later on became Vishwamitra. So there were two gurus – But his real guru was Vashishtha-dev maharaj. Buddha had a guru. So did all the other incarnations [avataras] have gurus. The trouble is this, above the guru, the guru’s got two aspects. The body aspect, the mind aspect the human aspect, but then his greater aspect, just like a murti’s got two aspects, stone, and in it, spirituality is hidden. Swamiji speaking Hindi.
Just like the guru makes you think about the human and that which is above human, the atman – which is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Why the two? Why the two? Because if you can’t give human love, how can you give divine love? Human love is a stepping stone to divine love. So in the end you find they’re both combined. The human love you can give to become above your human nature. And he’s got the divine love which you will ultimately merge into. Hindi…
Gods’ love is selfless – while giving the guru human love it will make it selfless also, and you become equal to all, in thought, word and deed.
Now, it is not a simple thing to love a guru. It’s the most difficult thing. Because you and I are used so much to seeing human, that we see the human side of him. The person. We see the bodily side of the guru. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa himself had gurus. Different roads he was travelling, he took those ways. Tantric: Bhairavi Brahmanani, Advaita: Tota Puri. Like that you find each one he took and went above them. Ultimately he became above them and became their guru. Just like Krishna Bhagavan. The avataras [Incarnations] go under the guru and becomes above the guru. They go through all the gurus. They will never disobey any scriptural law. Never! Hindi…
The ordinary gurus teach, teach, teach, and suddenly he looks, like John the Baptist, ‘Oh no. This is the avatara! It is the Lord himself!’ But in the beginning Christ says no, let the scriptures be fulfilled. Don’t disobey the scriptures. Krishna says, Let the scriptures be fulfilled. Ramakrishna says, Let the scriptures be fulfilled. But Tota Puri later on asked himself, ‘Ah, who is this man? He’s not an ordinary man. He’s the Lord himself.’ Shastric dharma, shastric upadesh – scriptural law, scriptural instructions [gap in audio recording, making no sense – missing story – apologies.] Story about Guru. He said my son is dead ; Go bring him. So he goes and revives the dead son. Krishna Bhagavan did that. That’s the guru dakshina idea?]
You’re going to find a guru. You’ve got no knowledge of the guru, how are you going to find him? He’s got the knowledge. He has to find you! You are a cabbage farmer. You are going to look for a diamond. How can you ever get a diamond? The diamond has to find you. It is written in the scripture, that not by learning, not by wealth, not by children, not by wife, can you get the self. But the Self is got by whomsoever he chooses. Whomsoever the self chooses. The self is the guru. So he chooses you. You can’t choose it.
[Referring to parents in the congregation] What is the best advice you can give to Priya [their little daughter] when she gets lost in say, Calcutta traffic? Supposing that before that you have to give her advice? You’re going to Calcutta now. Watch. What advice will you give her? If she gets lost, what she must do? Devotee says: Find a policeman. Swamiji: Where you must find a policeman? If I were to give my child advice, I’d say, ‘If you get lost, you stand [remain] where you are. When I discover the child is lost, I’ll go look for him because I know where I lost [left] it. Somewhere here. But if at that time I look for you and you start looking for the child, and [the child is moving around] that will be chaos.
So Mother Sita was taken to Lanka. She was lost to Rama. She didn’t go looking for Rama, she remained in one place. Nay – he went to Lanka and he found her. The Guru – Hanuman – gave the message where she is. The Lord went to find her. She didn’t find Rama, but Rama found her.
The free-to-read, 396 page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE.
These recordings were made from the 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.
The image of Sri Tota Puri’s murti in today’s post is borrowed with gratitude, from here: https://www.advaitbrahmaashram.org/founding_father.html