6 - Role of the Guru Flashcards
What is the Guru (4 levels of accepting Him)
To some, having a guru is a mere formality.
To others, the guru is a teacher.
To some people, he is the teaching itself—its embodied, living example.
And then, there are those people for whom the guru is its very essence. Really, the guru is all of these.
Why is the teaching from the Guru his lowest function? Why is usually teaching not effective?
Teaching is limited because if a person does not truly crave divine knowledge, no teacher can make them learn. If they do crave it, then they will find hints everywhere, and teaching will become redundant.
the knowledge we receive through teaching is always secondhand knowledge. Secondhand knowledge doesn’t enlighten us very much. It is better to observe and experience something for yourself. Also, you always check a guru’s words against your own heart.
Why do people who come to see the guru miss his essence?
In order to assess anything and be conclusive about it, we must be subtler than the object under assessment. That is why the guru consistently eludes the student. His degree of subtlety prevents us from truly observing him. At most, we see a refined person who occasionally says something wise. The very subtlest thing is the Ultimate itself. So how can it ever be observed, and how can we ever conclude anything about it?
‘But through spiritual practice, we become subtler, too. Now, we start to grasp more of what the guru actually is. And to the extent that we can grasp the guru, we can pick up on things. As I said already, he will rarely teach us anything. We have to pick it up on our own.
