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The importance of spiritual preacher - dattaswami - 09-17-2006
<b> The importance of spiritual preacher </b>
Smt. Uma Ramanath asked about the importance of spiritual preacher (Guru).
Swami gave the following reply:
A lecturer in Government College will teach you the syllabus and at the same time acts as the invigilator, valuer of the paper etc. and finally you are getting a valued degree from the college. Similarly, the Lord acting as Guru preaches the spiritual knowledge, guides you practically, tests your knowledge in practice and finally gives you the suitable divine fruit. A teacher conducting tuition home is just teaching you and is not connected to the examination, degree etc. Similarly, a human being acting as Guru preaches you the spiritual knowledge and not concerned with your practice and its fruit. The human guru may be able to deliver the knowledge of Satguru (Lord acting as Guru) as it is, but cannot clarify your doubts in the practical field as effectively as Satguru does.
If you are hearing the speech through a tape recorder, the clarification of doubts is not possible. Even in the speech, some parts may not be clear to you due to the defects in your grasping power only. The human guru serves as a messenger of the Lord only. He is just like a postman. Therefore, the guru you referred in the Sanskrit verse uttered by you means only Satguru. However, Satguru is not frequently available. Still the Lord will clarify your doubts through some body since the Lord has the super power. Therefore, you need not worry that your doubts will be remaining without clarification in the absence of Satguru. The Lord is always ready to explain your doubts either directly or indirectly. If you deserve to go to the upper level, you will certainly rise to the upper level by the direct or indirect guidance of God. However, if you are not capable of rising to the higher level, what is the use of even meeting Satguru directly? Therefore, you should not worry about the availability of Satguru. You should worry only about your spiritual progress to rise to the higher level and you must concentrate on removing the hurdles in your spiritual progress. If you are a tenth class candidate and even if you meet the president of the country, he can give you only the post of a peon.
If you have passed I.A.S examination, the appointment order for the post of District Collector comes to your home. Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa told that one need not search for Guru. God will send Gurus of various levels as and when you reach those levels. When you are ripened, Satguru will contact you at once. You may miss Satguru in your search. But Satguru will not miss you when the proper time comes. Satguru cannot do any good to any undeserving fellow. For the sake of majority, Satguru will not come down because He is not bothered about the fame. Krishna preached hundred Kauravas but of no use. Only the five Pandavas followed Krishna as their Satguru. Sakuni could become Satguru for Kauravas. But finally both the Sakuni and Kauravas were destroyed. A teacher in bogus institution gets you a bogus degree which has no value at all. Therefore, the Lord as Satguru and devotee of the Lord as a human guru are good. But the fraud Guru will destroy himself and yourself. It is better to confine to your family if you are not getting Satguru but you should be never trapped by a fraud Guru.
Satguru is the Lord in the human form. You should not see the external human form and should view the Lord only in Him. In the case of human guru, there is no Lord in him but you can treat the external human form as the possessor of power of God. In the first case you should understand the Lord as Guru and in the second case you should understand the Guru as the Lord. There is a difference between God as Guru and Guru as God. Your husband says “Guru Deva Datta” whenever he speaks to Me. The word Guru Deva has two meanings as per the Sanskrit Grammar. In one meaning God is treated as Guru and in the second meaning the Guru is treated as God. There is difference between these two meanings. The second word “Datta” clarifies that the first word is used strictly in the first sense only. Datta means God given to you in human form for the sake of your guidance. Guidance should be essential for your practice. Even clarification of your theoretical doubts should lead you to practice. Unless theory is clear practice cannot start. If there is no practice the entire theory is waste. If the theory is perfect, the practice is spontaneous. Therefore, the clarity in the theory and clarification of your doubts is very very important. Without understanding this, people mock at theory and stress on practice. Without complete and perfect theory, the practice cannot begin. Sometimes people practice due to fear or due to ambition for fulfilling the desires. The Satguru will never base on these two paths of fear and ambition. The false Guru exploits the people using either fear or ambition or both for some selfish gain like money, fame etc. But the followers are utterly deceived because such practice is not giving any good and complete fruit.
Satguru leads you to goal without any long time and deep strain. Suppose you have a bad quality like rigidity. Due to the same quality Duryodhana went to hell and Gopikas went to highest divine abode. In the first case rigidity was applied to worldly affairs (Pravrutti). In the second case the same quality is applied to the spiritual line (Nivrutti). A Satguru will direct your existing bad qualities to the spiritual line and will see that you will use those qualities positively for your real welfare. An ordinary human being acting as Guru will advise you to come to the spiritual line after removing bad qualities. The innocent and ignorant Guru does not know that millions of births are required even to shake a bad quality which was accumulated form the beginning of creation.
This is the difference between a Satguru and human Guru. Satguru generates the divine knowledge. The human guru carries on that knowledge in-to-to. Sometimes a practical problem arises in your spiritual path. The solution for that problem needs generation of divine knowledge, which is impossible for the human Guru. Therefore, if you get Satguru you are very lucky. But, if you do not use His guidance due to your blind attractions, in such case Satguru is useless for you like Sun for a blind man. If you have the maturity of mind to use the guidance, God will speak to you even through the human guru. Therefore, your determination to achieve the goal is the most important factor. If you have such determination, God will approach you in some human form and will guide you properly. Therefore, the problem lies on your side and not on the side of Satguru. How much lucky we are! We are directly talking with the Lord and getting the perfect spiritual guidance. The Lord is staying in My human body. There is no trace of any doubt about this.
When the devotees were calling Me as Lord Datta, I was confused and was very careful about the egoism that may trap Me. But slowly, I am convinced with this point on doing analysis from several angles. This wonderful divine knowledge cannot come from any human being except Lord Datta. These wonderful devotional songs which came spontaneously cannot be composed by any soul except Lord Datta. The vision of cosmic form (Viswa Roopam) can be given only by the Lord and such vision was given to two devotees simultaneously (Ajay and Seetamma) through this human body by Lord Datta. By the age of 16 years who can write hundred philosophical books in Sanskrit except Lord Datta through this human body? Lord Datta entered this human body even in the womb of My mother. Once My mother was telling Me that when she was carrying Me, she used to often get dreams in which she was finding various deities (various forms of God) with temple-bells ringing constantly.
There were two black-magicians in My village, who killed about hundred persons and three hundred children through their black magic in our village. In our joint family seven male issues before My birth were also killed by their black magic. The day I was born, both those demons were killed in violent way. All these factors led Me to conclude that the Lord is staying in My human body for His divine work of propagation of divine knowledge. I am just like all of you and there is no specialty in Me and no special favour is done to Me. The Lord is the speaker I am very very near to Him holding on the mike before His mouth. All His speech is common to all of us. After the war Arjuna asked Krishna to repeat Gita. Krishna expressed His inability to repeat because He also heard Gita from the Lord like Arjuna. When Arjuna pressed, Krishna told Gita again. But the second Gita (Anu Gita) stands nowhere before the first Gita. This is the concept of the human incarnation. The Lord enters the human body of a human being. The guest (Lord) and the owner of the house (devoted human being) are like the two birds and the body is like a tree. Like this Veda says (Dvaa Suparnaa). When the Lord said the first Gita, it is mentioned that the Lord spoke (Sri Bhagvan Uvacha). It is not said that Krishna spoke. Therefore, let all of us follow the Lord’s divine knowledge and get the eternal benefit. The Lord has to enter some human body and He entered this human body accidentally or incidentally. The divine knowledge spoken by the Lord (Satguru) is the guiding force, which clarifies all our doubts leading to determination, which results spontaneously in practice.
Satguru is the Lord in human form like Krishna. Even a liberated soul can be Satguru because He is directed by the Lord. He speaks as per the will of God. Swami Raghavendra, an incarnation of Prahlada is also a Satguru. He will speak whatever Lord wants to speak and thus there is no difference between the Lord and such top most devotees. In olden days the Guru tests the level of the devotee and used to expose that much knowledge only which is related to his level so that the devotee gets benefit. This is called as “Anubandha Chatushtaya” which means the level of the devotee (Adhikari), the portion of the knowledge (Vishaya) that is related to him (Sambandha) and the benefit (Prayojana). Suppose there are three devotees on the ground. One can climb ten steps only. The second one can climb fifty steps and the third devotee can climb all hundred steps. The Guru reveals ten steps only to the first devotee and says that the tenth step is the final step. If you reveal even the eleventh step he will be discouraged. Similarly for the second devotee only fifty steps should be revealed. For the third devotee the entire knowledge can be revealed.
But at present the Lord is revealing the entire divine knowledge through this computer. It is just like the booklet showing all the courses present in the University. According to the level one has to select the course. This facility was not there in the olden days. One need not be discouraged because if you are constantly putting the effort to climb the steps continuously, God will sanction any number of human births to reach the goal. The spiritual path has no physical significance. It is not like the journey to Bombay which needs the help of vehicles. The whole journey is related to your psychology or mental set-up which should act with full determination. The determination will spontaneously come through complete and real divine knowledge. The real knowledge can alone clarify all the doubts. When no doubt is left over the knowledge is complete, which immediately results in determination. Therefore, Guru is more important than even the God is because Guru is the guide and God is the goal. When God Himself comes to you as Guru, there is no need of any journey. He will guide you so that you will recognize Him. But His guidance is always delicate and critical because there is always a risk of your misunderstanding about Him. If somebody guides you to Him, such risk is not there. But such guidance will not be as clear as His guidance. Therefore, the issue gets mixed up.
When you recognize the God in human form, your concentration should be on the God present in Him. Since you cannot directly experience God, the medium is necessary. When you are experiencing God through the human form, the awareness of the external human form should disappear. When you touch an electric wire, your awareness is about the shock of current but not about the structure of the wire. Therefore, you have to see the aspect of God in Satguru and treat Him as directly the God (Guruh Sakshat Parabrahma). This means that you should find only God in Satguru. The case of a human Guru blessed by God is like the hot iron wire in the heater which was heated by the electricity but the current is put off. The effect of the current, which is the heat, remains in the wire.
The heat burns your finger but does not give a shock. Similarly, the human incarnation of a liberated soul has the power of God, though not directly God and is called as Guru. The third example is the wire in which neither the electricity nor the heat exists. To develop concentration in one direction you can treat such wire also as God and such worship is called as representative worship (Pratika Upasanam). There is no fruit from the object but there is fruit in the subject which is the development of concentration. The first two cases are direct and indirect worship of God resulting in the achievement of fruit from the object. For the representative worship you can select any human being you like as your Guru which has also the advantage of development of concentration in yourself.
At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami
Anil Antony
www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org
The importance of spiritual preacher - wel_mel_2 - 09-17-2006
Bismillah:
Quote:<b> The importance of spiritual preacher </b>
Thanks for sharing some of your beliefs with us and welcome to the board. so are you a GURU yourself?
Salam
Wael.
The importance of spiritual preacher - dattaswami - 09-18-2006
Quote:Bismillah:
Thanks for sharing some of your beliefs with us and welcome to the board. so are you a GURU yourself?
Salam
Wael.
Wel_me;
Thank you very much for your reply;
<b>Gurus</b>
Some people desire to become Guru (Preacher) when they fail in every business. They want to succeed in the spiritual business. Some other people have the itch to become the Guru to get the disciples around them. But, for preaching and to become a real Guru in this world there are three requirements.
1) You should discover a better truth in the scriptures.
2) Due to lack of knowledge of your discovery, people must be suffering already.
3) People should get benefit on knowing your discovery.
If these three points are satisfied preaching is meaningful and such a preacher is useful Guru (Satguru). If you can say, “here is a new method to get rid of the headache without a tablet,” you can be a Satguru and your discovery needs propagation. Such real preachers are Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavir, Vivekananda, Saibaba etc.
The second type of Guru is useless Guru who preaches, “Headache disappears if you take the medicine”. Everyone knows this. He preaches whatever is already present in books. He is wasting his time and energy. He is only a teacher but not a preacher.
The third type of Guru is harmful Guru who preaches, “If you swallow the poison headache will disappear”. He harms the people. He does not know even the bookish knowledge. He spreads his ignorance.
God will punish a harmful Guru. God does not punish a useless Guru, but he is wasting his time and energy just to satisfy his itch to become the Guru. Instead of wasting his lifetime like this, let him join the service to propagate the knowledge of the Lord, who came in human form (Satguru). But, jealousy and egoism hinder him to do so. He wants to become Sankaracharya and get his fame. He does not want to become a disciple of Sankaracharya who is a human being like him. He did not discover any theory like Sankaracharya but he wants to get the fame of Sankaracharya. His egoism does not allow him to become the disciple of Sankaracharya. He is very jealous at the fame of Sankaracharya. He wears the dress of Sankaracharya, and shaves his head similarly. He teaches the same theory of Sankaracharya. Then he is only a disciple of Sankaracharya but not the original Sankaracharya.
No one is greater than Hanuman in any aspect like knowledge, devotion, power, etc.. Such Hanuman participated in the service of the Lord in human form. He did not start his own new work to uplift the world by killing some other demon and did not want to become a hero like Rama. The reason is, he does not have even a trace of jealousy and egoism. So he recognized the Lord in human form and became His servant to participate in His work. Rama became Vishnu. Hanuman became the future Brahma. Vishnu is Brahma as Veda says ‘Brahmacha Narayanah’. This means Hanuman got the same position of Rama. So if you participate in the service of the Satguru you will get the same position of Satguru.
So never be a harmful Guru. Don’t waste time and energy by becoming a useless Guru. Participate in the service of the useful Guru (Satguru) as a disciple and get the same position of that Satguru. Let every Guru and everyone who has the itch to become Guru think about my advice and do self-examination sitting alone with peaceful mind.
THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH.
At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami
Anil Antony
I think I edited your posts once and tried to convey a message of not to post links to your site.
You are most welcome of course to discuss your beliefs with other. Thus I m mass moving your threads to discussion of beliefs.
However, still keep in mind that you are on an Islamic board, needing to learn
The importance of spiritual preacher - wel_mel_2 - 09-18-2006
Quote:Wel_me;
Thank you very much for your reply;
<b>Gurus</b>
Some people desire to become Guru (Preacher) when they fail in every business. They want to succeed in the spiritual business. Some other people have the itch to become the Guru to get the disciples around them. But, for preaching and to become a real Guru in this world there are three requirements.
1) You should discover a better truth in the scriptures.
2) Due to lack of knowledge of your discovery, people must be suffering already.
3) People should get benefit on knowing your discovery.
If these three points are satisfied preaching is meaningful and such a preacher is useful Guru (Satguru). If you can say, “here is a new method to get rid of the headache without a tablet,” you can be a Satguru and your discovery needs propagation. Such real preachers are Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Mahavir, Vivekananda, Saibaba etc.
The second type of Guru is useless Guru who preaches, “Headache disappears if you take the medicine”. Everyone knows this. He preaches whatever is already present in books. He is wasting his time and energy. He is only a teacher but not a preacher.
The third type of Guru is harmful Guru who preaches, “If you swallow the poison headache will disappear”. He harms the people. He does not know even the bookish knowledge. He spreads his ignorance.
God will punish a harmful Guru. God does not punish a useless Guru, but he is wasting his time and energy just to satisfy his itch to become the Guru. Instead of wasting his lifetime like this, let him join the service to propagate the knowledge of the Lord, who came in human form (Satguru). But, jealousy and egoism hinder him to do so. He wants to become Sankaracharya and get his fame. He does not want to become a disciple of Sankaracharya who is a human being like him. He did not discover any theory like Sankaracharya but he wants to get the fame of Sankaracharya. His egoism does not allow him to become the disciple of Sankaracharya. He is very jealous at the fame of Sankaracharya. He wears the dress of Sankaracharya, and shaves his head similarly. He teaches the same theory of Sankaracharya. Then he is only a disciple of Sankaracharya but not the original Sankaracharya.
No one is greater than Hanuman in any aspect like knowledge, devotion, power, etc.. Such Hanuman participated in the service of the Lord in human form. He did not start his own new work to uplift the world by killing some other demon and did not want to become a hero like Rama. The reason is, he does not have even a trace of jealousy and egoism. So he recognized the Lord in human form and became His servant to participate in His work. Rama became Vishnu. Hanuman became the future Brahma. Vishnu is Brahma as Veda says ‘Brahmacha Narayanah’. This means Hanuman got the same position of Rama. So if you participate in the service of the Satguru you will get the same position of Satguru.
So never be a harmful Guru. Don’t waste time and energy by becoming a useless Guru. Participate in the service of the useful Guru (Satguru) as a disciple and get the same position of that Satguru. Let every Guru and everyone who has the itch to become Guru think about my advice and do self-examination sitting alone with peaceful mind.
THEN YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH.
At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami
Anil Antony
www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org
Wow.. that was long "answer" which does not really answer my simple question!! are you a Guru?
Salam
Wael.
The importance of spiritual preacher - dattaswami - 09-19-2006
Quote:Wow.. that was long "answer" which does not really answer my simple question!! are you a Guru?
Salam
Wael.
When I said that God is in my human body, who is delivering the spiritual knowledge, my reference is my devotees who strongly believe me in spite of my several objections. My statements vary according to the level of the devotees. Some times I say that I am devotee or a messenger to ordinary people. I say that God is in me to the devotees who have partial faith in me. I say that the God pervaded all over my body and became one with me to strong devotees who have reached the climax of the faith. Jesus also told like this to different levels of devotees. He claimed himself as messenger of God to lower devotees. To the middle level He claimed that He is son of the God.
To the top devotees He claimed that He and His father are one and the same. You should not transfer one statement from one level to the other level. In my case, for your information, I say every one that I am just a devotee of God. But the devotees forced me with their opinions and finally I responded according to their firmness of faith. Even there I tried my level best to distort their faith through several tests. Therefore, you cannot generalise my statements to all the humanity. In fact you cannot generalise the statements of Jesus also to the entire humanity because all the human beings have not believed Jesus. Only some believed and His statements relate to such fraction of devotees only.
The importance of spiritual preacher - Dan - 09-19-2006
Bismillah
"When I said that God is in my human body, who is delivering the spiritual knowledge, my reference is my devotees who strongly believe me in spite of my several objections. My statements vary according to the level of the devotees. Some times I say that I am devotee or a messenger to ordinary people. I say that God is in me to the devotees who have partial faith in me. I say that the God pervaded all over my body and became one with me to strong devotees who have reached the climax of the faith. Jesus also told like this to different levels of devotees. He claimed himself as messenger of God to lower devotees. To the middle level He claimed that He is son of the God."
Why do you change your answer? Is not truth the same regardless of circumstances? To me it sounds like your postition changes in the eyes of your devotees according to their level of programming.
How many devotees do you have?
Why are you telling us all of this when I doubt any of us are devotees of yours?
The importance of spiritual preacher - dattaswami - 09-20-2006
Quote:Bismillah
"When I said that God is in my human body, who is delivering the spiritual knowledge, my reference is my devotees who strongly believe me in spite of my several objections. My statements vary according to the level of the devotees. Some times I say that I am devotee or a messenger to ordinary people. I say that God is in me to the devotees who have partial faith in me. I say that the God pervaded all over my body and became one with me to strong devotees who have reached the climax of the faith. Jesus also told like this to different levels of devotees. He claimed himself as messenger of God to lower devotees. To the middle level He claimed that He is son of the God."
Why do you change your answer? Is not truth the same regardless of circumstances? To me it sounds like your postition changes in the eyes of your devotees according to their level of programming.
How many devotees do you have?
Why are you telling us all of this when I doubt any of us are devotees of yours?
Thank you for your reply;
<b></b>
You say that you are Datta and again say that you are not Datta.
Why this contradiction?
If some body is eligible to digest the divine knowledge, the first statement is told. If some body does not deserve, the second statement is told. Krishna never told any body in His life that He is God. Krishna told only to Arjuna during the preaching of Gita that He is God and Arjuna was close to the Lord for the past several births as Nara with Narayana. Therefore Krishna did not face any danger. Sankara also did not face any danger because He told that every human being is God. Jesus told before a group of people that He and His father are one and the same.
Therefore, He was crucified. Egoism and jealousy existing in every human being oppose the acceptance of one human being as God. According to Islam there is no human incarnation. Therefore, the human beings accept either the concept of every human being as God or no human being as God. Even a great devotee will suspect the human incarnation in some time due to egoism and jealousy. Therefore, human incarnation uses these two sentences according to the context. Even in a devotee the second statement will pacify the egoism and jealousy hidden in the subconscious state.