| Question:
What is the role of the spiritual teacher? Swamiji: Your individual innate desires are your own personal debt. The total of everyone’s innate desires is the national debt. Spiritual teachers function only at this total level. They come in response to the crying of the people for an escape from suffering and for an understanding of the meaning of life. The teacher comes to guide them. When I point out the direction to the bazaar, you must get up and go. If you sit here and hang on to my pointing finger, you will never experience the joys of the bazaar. When the teacher directs you, you cannot sit there hanging onto his words. Everyone has to go in that direction for himself; no guru can do it for him. When you put sugar in your coffee, you must stir it in or the coffee will still be bitter. I am putting the spiritual ideas into your mind, but to get the sweetness, you must stir them with the process of your own independent reflection, away from the support of a teacher. Q: Is it necessary for a guru to give us a mantra? S: If you understand Vedanta, it is not necessary. It would be like a person reading Shakespeare who suddenly asks his teacher to teach him the alphabet. Q: But gurus can give some experience of that reality beyond comprehension. There are many such reports. S: Experiences through a teacher are dependent on the teacher—a tourist visa. But the customs officials are always there at the gate. You are trying to sneak through with your load of vasanas [innate tendencies]. They will catch you and kick you back out. You have to make it on your own. You must become a citizen of that consciousness. So it could be that the teacher provides the environment so you are able to have some experience to make you wake up. In this way, you will have the courage to start the spiritual practices for yourself. Q: But how do you choose a spiritual teacher? We don’t really know enough to judge who is a true teacher. S: Yes, that is correct. Students can only measure the divinity of the teacher by their own divinity. It is the same with music or dance. You have to know your subject before you can distinguish who is a master. For this reason Adi Shankaracharya has described the qualifications of a guru in this work, Vivekachudamani. Today, many who teach do not know the ultimate experience themselves. Many know more of Shankara’s commentaries than Shankara himself. He may have forgotten something he wrote, but not these people; they are like tape recorders. Will a tape benefit from the words recorded on it? They never start spiritual practice themselves; they just talk about it. But don’t worry, you can still benefit if you listen to their words and apply them to your life and sadhana. The words of the scriptures themselves are the Guru. Q: What about these new techniques that some teachers have come up with? S: Avoid them! Sanatana Dharma [Eternal Truth] has no new techniques. The ancient sages discovered the laws of nature with their immaculate logic and sacred inspiration. These laws have never changed and never will. If, in your university physics class, a professor expounds his new theory of relativity, you will listen as if it is a joke, to humor him. But when you take the state exams, you will use Einstein’s reasoning, not the crackpot professor’s personal theory. If any Guru tells you of his great new technique—“Take off your clothes and dance”—you run! One year this self-proclaimed teacher has one technique and the next another one. We don't need new techniques. We need only to apply the knowledge that has been verified by generation after generation of sages. The problem is in ourselves; we want things to be easy and fun. That is why we run after these new methods. So spirituality is turned into a pursuit of sensual pleasures. You never improve, and the guru gets a couple of new cars. What has been accomplished? Q: In your early discourses, you said that your teacher, Swami Tapovanam, was speaking through you. Was that true? S: It was a means to keep me detached. The ego is ever ready to jump up and spoil any endeavor, particularly a spiritual one. Therefore by constantly giving credit to my guru, there was nothing with which to build up my ego. From another point of view, it is true—it is his wisdom speaking through me—his commentaries, his stories. My wisdom is not separate from his. Anyway, all true wisdom is one. . . not mine nor his. Q: Did you have a choice about your mission of teaching Vedanta? S: No, no choice. Not on one level. It was not really my plan or my decision. But that is not to say that we do not have free will. I could have said “No” to the urge. |