Seeing Guru as God
To conceive of God Realization without recognizing another human
being as an Embodiment of the Divine is quite an absurd idea. Either
through second hand experience or from direct physical contact with a
God Realized Being can one imbibe the possibility of Realizing the
Eternal Self as ones essential nature.
What is the alternative? To say one is God Realized but that there is
no other before or after that has had the same Realization? One may think that it is enough just to say that God is acting
through the Realized soul and that we should only focus our awareness
on the abstract principle of Godhood somewhere in a cloudy heaven or
through an unknown insight. But this really takes the juice out of
the whole thing.
Even in the case of ordinary love infatuation, the items that the
beloved wears become objects of adoration, beautiful reminders that
fill the lover with the memory of the beloved. Millions around the
world worship relics and statues of the Buddha and Christ, yet how
many alive today would have the sensitivity to worship a living
Buddha or Christ in the flesh?
It is much easier for the mind to appreciate a dead thing, a thing of
the past- the more distant, the better. To worship and joyfully
appreciate a living, breathing human being as God in the flesh, seems
to be a near impossibility for many. This is a reflection of our own
lack of confidence in our inner capacity to realize the Supreme Goal
of life, our eternal oneness with God.
In modern times it is becoming more and more difficult to have
supreme trust in the Divinity of a living being. Either we are
clouded by materialistic ideas of cynicism towards any such claims,
or we are filled with empty spiritual platitudes like “everyone is
connected to God, let us just continue on with life.” Really this
is just a flattening out of experience.
Attachment to some abstract notion of equality removes the sense of
unique expression in life. This is the real danger that Avatars pose
to society. They smash to bits our limited notions of equality and
put us face to face with the uniqueness of all things, beings, and
experiences while deepening our understanding of the essential unity of mankind in the level of Being. Either we heed Their Call and raise ourselves to express
the infinite capacity of God in our lives, or we try to flatten Them
out, fix Them within our own notions of human potential and
limitation and carry on in flatland.
The devotees of such Beings however are immersed in a realm of
limitless horizons. They rejoice in peaks of total connection, gain
wisdom in valleys of painful separation, and are ever unsure of what
experience will be leveled on them next.
Somehow we have taken on the notion that the spiritual path is one in
which our experience becomes evened out as we try to force the mind
into a state of uniformity while we loose sight of the ups and downs
of existence. Divine Equanimity may come as a result of the spiritual
process, yet it is the play of extremes that ultimately makes one
move beyond the limited mind.
One moment you may feel exalted, infused in a blissful radiance, in
tune with a cosmic intelligence that permeates all things. The next
moment you are lost in the absurdity of human existence, questioning
the sacred scriptures as mere rantings of mad men. Blessed are those
that are brave enough to face such extremes and persevere to realize
not only the Divinity of the Guru, but the Divinity within ones very
being, and in all beings existing as unique waves of the Supremely
Auspicious Ocean of Eternal Life. OM
"Tad Niskala" by Adi Shankaracharya
Om. I am neither the mind,
Intelligence, ego nor chitta.
Neither the ears, the tongue,
Nor the senses of smell and sight.
Neither ether nor air.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
I am neither the prana,
Nor the five vital breaths.
Neither the seven elements of the body,
Nor its five sheaths,
Nor hands, nor feet, nor tongue,
Nor other organ of action.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
Neither fear, greed, delusion,
Loathing, nor liking have I.
Nothing of pride, or ego,
Or dharma or liberation.
Neither desire of the mind,
Nor object of its desiring.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
Nothing of pleasure or pain,
Or virtue or vice, do I know.
Of manta, of sacred place,
Of Vedas or sacrifice.
Neither I am the eater,
The food or the act of eating.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
Fear or death, I have none,
Nor any distinction of caste.
Neither father nor mother,
Not even a birth, have I.
Neither friend, nor comrade.
Neither disciple, nor Guru.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
I have no form or fancy.
The All-pervading am I.
Everywhere I exist,
Yet I am beyond the senses.
Neither salvation am I,
Nor anything to be known.
I am eternal bliss and awareness -
I am Shiva! I am Shiva!
