I read about the life of Sri Ramana Maharshi. I am strongly impressed.
This is the kind of guru I am talking about when I say the word guru.
The guru does not need you. The guru does not need anything. We need him, Even just being in his presence takes you forward on the path.
I recommend reading his biography, here. Just look in his eyes on the picture.
Yes Hubert That`s it and when you are prepared for it you will meet your guru at the rigth time.
Ramana was asked, can you show god to me" and he answered ,It is not the question if I can show god to you, but the question ist, are you willing to see him.
Sunny Greetings
Lars
[quote=Mukunda;2282]Also on a different subject in class tonight one of my student’s asked me if you could work on yourself and follow the yogic path to become self-realized, but without a guru. I explained the yogic tradition and remarked that I doubt it, but would ask you. I also talked about Raman Maharshi. And explained how some people are born with having done most of the work in another lifetime.
But I do believe one need’s a guru. What do you think? Suggestions what i should tell her, please?[/quote]
Guru and Shisya is a process where there is a seeking of knowledge (Shisya) and there is an answer (Guru). This forms a whole. On the level of duality all such wholes are only a part/fraction of knowledge and leaves man eternally seeking. Seeking ends when one realizes the ultimate whole (Non Dual, Adwait, Absolute single).
For a seeker of Knowledge “A” Guru may not be enough, It is said in the scriptures that " Madhu lbdho yatha bhrangah pushpat pushpantaram vrajet, Gyan labdho tatha shishya gurur guruwantaram vrajet". Meaning - Like a bee (Bhanwara) roams from flower to flower for seeking honey, likewise a shisya should roam from guru to guru to find/ seek Knowledg(GURU)
Aadil Palkhivala discusses the absolute necessity of having a teacher in our life to guide us on the path to enlightenment and keep us from allowing our own egos to interfere with our progress toward enlightenment.
Dear friends,
Namaste,
God is revealed by Guru only.As God is omniscient, formles and can not be seen by five senses under the spell of maya.A guru who is well versed with vedas coupled with hard practice of astanga yoga, realises God.Such gurus will enable you and guide you towards god realisation.A yogi is the one in whom god manifest because he is epitome of love for animals/humans every living organism, truthfulness,ahinsa(non violence) and forever in communion with God, he is free from spell of maya and all human vices , he is drawn inward to his self called atma.In this regard i will quote Swami nityananda 's word here the great siddha
[B]"In the Sri Guru Charitra, a sacred text that Bhagawan Nityananda himself told his devotees to read, there is a dialogue between Lord Ananta and Yudhishthira (Dharmaraja), one of the great heroes of the Mahabharata. This dialogue is narrated to a disciple of Lord Dattatreya named Saayamdeva, by Sri Narasimha Saraswathi, an incarnation of Lord Datta. This appears in Chapter 14 of some editions of Sri Guru Charitra and Chapter 20 in others. The Sri Guru Charitra is set forth in question and answer style with the Siddhamuni providing answers to his disciple, Namadharaka’s questions about the life of Lord Shiva in his incarnation on Earth as Lord Dattatreya.[/B]
[B]The lesson of this Chapter exactly matches the instruction that Bhagawan Nityananda gave to many of his disciples; That one’s Dharma as a yogi on the spitritual path is to find the means to serve the Guru while also leading one’s life in the world. Bhagawan Nityananda guaranteed the salvation of all those who worshipped him, served him and then remembered him with Love, while fulfilling their family and work obligations and leading their lives in the world. In fact, he granted His overwhelming Grace for the fulfillment of their worldly desires after testing their Devotion to him.[/B]
[B]Those of us who have taken Bhagawan Nityananda as our Gurudev, share the experience of this Chapter of the Sri Guru Charitra as a dialogue between Bhagawan Nityananda and each of us individually. It’s as if our Nitya is again speaking directly to us."[/B]
[B][/B]
[COLOR=black]Dear friends if you have not got a enlightened guru to satisfy you regard these siddhas as your guru Swami Nityananda, Shirdi sai baba, Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna, Lord Jesus, goddess Durga, Lord Ram, Lord hanuman, Lord Ganesha and do self study of vedas (authentic commenties from arya samaj) and follow yoga as sadhna, be devoted to your guru.All these great souls have taken birth when theculture in india was veda and sanatan dharma. Buy there photographs and place in your altari.e puja griha. As soul never dies so all these great souls are there in siddhalok when worshipped with full devotion, faith and purity they have to come as said by lord krishna in Gita and slowly with faith you will get divine guidance.[/COLOR]
That is how i have understood the life after practice of yoga and reading vedas.
Hari Om tat Sat
What does the word Nitya mean ?
Wait, I got it. It means eternal.
Do hindu saints get their names by their Masters ? Or do they chose it for themselves ?
Vivekananda, Lover of discernment, Sivananda, Worshipper of Shiva, Nityananda, Lover of Eternity …
Generally in india it was and is a custom to chose names from vedas with a beautiful meaning thats why if you read majority of names of saints will resemble with sanskrit words.Vedas are in divine sanskrit.Swami nityananda this name was given to him by his foster father Mr Iyyer, a lawyer, devout and spiritual person, when he was dying he expressed his desire to see the sun god (he was devout worshipper of sun God), as he was aware of the divinity of Swami nityanada.Swami nityananda fulfilled his desire.So he called him oh my blissfull you are my nityananda(nitya + ananda , ever blissful) and he left his mortal frame since then he was called swami nityananda.earlier swami nityananda was known as Rama.Once a famous astrologer who happened to come to mr iyers house prophesied that he will be the saviour of mankind .He is a reincarnation of shiva, he has got this opportunity to serve him due to his countless pious deeds in his previous births.Swami nityananda took samadhi in Ganeshpuri, there was a shiva temple in ganeshpuri, till the time he was alive the shiv linga was getting nonstop water on it, from where it was not known.The moment he took samadhi the water too stopped coming.Dear friends do read the biography of swami nityananda which is available on net. You will get a divine pleasure.
Second when you take initiation from a guru he gives you a name, as you are considered taking birth second time i.e dwij in sanskrit you guru is considered your world.as i have told you the root or mother of all languages in india is sanskrit.Even now scientists have proven all the languages of world can trace back their origin to sanskrit.
Like my own name is a sanskrit word which means sun rays.
i hope this satisfys your querry
And very much so. 
Thank you rashmi. I need time to read your other posts, thank you again for your efforts.
Om tat Sat…
I will share my opinion, as I am a bit sorry to hear so many people believe we need external gurus to show us the way. No Guru can ever make you realize your true Nature. You [B]are[/B] your true nature and it is nowhere to be found but in yourself.
If you believe that you need a guru to bring you to enlightenment, then please recognize this insecurity of your ego and either discard its wish for external gurus, or search for one anyway, but always remember that all the gurus outside of yourself are merely pointers pointing back to yourself. Why not start directly at yourself instead of walking over to them, only to be sent back to where you came from? It makes no sense, yet so many do so.
That’s why it seems to take so long, we believe we need all sorts of things, we have become dependent on the spiritual guidelines and gurus, while the true essence of Spiritual Realization is complete independence, complete freedom form every bondage. Would you not agree? In my opinion, the Spiritual community in this world has become one of the greatest bondages, obstacles. If you feel attacked by this sentence, or in any way offended, you can see first handedly that your attachment to spirituality and the community has become such an obstacle…
[B]About the guru seeking:[/B]
[I]It is like you are in your own house looking out of your front window. You see some traffic pointers/signs across the road but you cannot read what they say yet. Your insecurity and desire tempt you to go to them to see what’s on it. (This is the weakness of the mind, the uncontrolled fire of desire and insecurity.) You decide to go out of your front door and walk across the road. When you are there, as you read the signs, you see that they say: “Your Home” as they point towards the house you just came from. Now you can walk a the way back, crossing the same obstacles, only bigger, just to get back to the place you initially was.[/I]
[B]Its like Krishnamurti is saying:[/B]
“You cannot discover the path, because there is no path, Truth is a thing that is living, and to a living thing there is no path - it is only to dead things that there can be a path. Truth being pathless, to discover it you must be adventurous, ready for danger; and [B]do you think a guru will help you to be adventurous, to live in danger?[/B] To seek a guru obviously indicates that you are not adventurous, that you are merely seeking a path to reality [B]as a means of security[/B].”
[LEFT]“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. [B]Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself[/B].” [/LEFT]
Please dear fellow seekers, don’t seek too much. Don’t be dependent on the external sources. Listen to them for guidance, take what is useful and reject what is not, and blend it in with your own view and what your heart is telling you, never the other way around, you’ll only lose more of yourself, while you try so hard finding yourself.
[LEFT]Bentinho Massaro[/LEFT]
You [B]are[/B] your true nature and it is nowhere to be found but in yourself.
It is easy to say, find yourself, be your own master.
Tell, me, how ? I don’t know it.
It is easy to say, find yourself, be your own master.
Tell, me, how ? I don’t know it.
[B]Stop thinking.[/B]
It does not really have to be found. Finding something suggests you don’t have it yet or lost it somehow. How can one lose oneself? You don’t have to find anything, you have to be yourself.
As God supposedly said to Mohammed: [I]“There are 70.000 layers between you and me, but there are no layers between me and you.”[/I]
In other words, the deepest level of your soul sees and knows all lower levels of your being, but your lower levels of perception, have lost their perspective on the inner source.
[B]While Yoga and gurus and all other systems of teachings are of great help at times, they can never enlighten us,[/B] they can only adjust our mind and the way we think. But the entire Irony of this journey is that Enlightenment is found in not thinking.
[B]Yoga and other systems have detailed descriptions on how to remove these 70.000 layers one by one.[/B] And I have to admit, it is an amazingly accurate description which I like for teaching purposes, but once you realize that all these layers together form one layer alone… then you will likely stop or reduce the amount of searching you do in the uoter world, because you realize that all layers are in fact The Mind. Why take on one layer at a time from within this field of layers (from within the mind) while you can losen the grip of all these levels if you move beyond/outside of these 70.000 layers. Realize your Self by letting go of the struggle, the search, the desire and the systems of belief: they are all intrinsically connected with the nature of the mind.
[B]Even if you’dd make it from within the mind to the 70.000th and final layer, you’dd still not become fully enlightened[/B] because you are trying to discover the last layer from the perspective of that layer itself. You are trying to destroy the mind, while the mind itself is the nature of your desire to destroy it: It’s impossible to fight the nature of your wish to fighting in the first place. That’s what happens to many masters IMO: They have great knowledge, wisdom and power, yet they are still hikking up against that final piece of layer, that final cloud of illusion… until they realize that all struggle and all progression they made, is still only superficial and within the mind.
[B]I believe that the state of enlightenment does not need progression.[/B] On the contrary: It cannot progress, it is one. It [B]is[/B]. It doesn move, it is not dynamic. Only its expressions like Love and Ligth are dynamic. these experessions is what we use to create our manifested world, but consciousness itself, God itself… is not doing anything, is not going anywhere, it [B]Is[/B]. The mind will always be its opposite, so stop the mind’s activity, stop searching, and God will take over, because that will be all there is left.
[B]It is like Pata?jali sais in his Yoga Sutras: #1.2:[/B] [I]“Yoga is the restraint, or mastery over the modification of the mind.”[/I]
So In short: Yoga, or Union, or Enlightenment, is the mastery, or non-identification with the mind. Pata?jali could have stopped right here and he would have said everything anyone ever needs to understand. However, for those dependent on external sources and to those addicted to study, he writes another 195 sutras just to define every layer within the one layer called the mind.
While it can be helpful to recognize certain detailed aspects of mental activity in more depth, it still belongs to the mind, and as long as we don’t have the courage to jump in the deep and leave behind the mind in its entirity, we can go on purifying our minds forever and ever, to no end.
[B]So how to become your own guide? Your own master?[/B] In my experience: Don’t believe anything that has been said, don’t limit yourself by believing you need to take one hell of a long and difficult road of practice before you can ‘reach’ something. All you need to do is stop reaching out to something in the first place.
In other words: [B]Stop thinking[/B], explore yourself, your experience, your mind and your consicousness; Don’t explore more sutras and more books and more gurus… They all say the same thing essentially (If they are for real that is), which is something along the lines of:
[I]“Go into yourself, leave us be, I am not your guru, I am just a sign referring you to yourself. Stop being addicted and dependent on our signs and practices, they are only meant to bring you to the point of realizing that they all point to you. But you see these signs as a doorway to your Self, while all they do is refer you back to your own door. There is only one door and that is you. That’s the Irony of the external teachings. Thats the Hypocricy of Spirituality.”[/I]
[B]You[/B] are all you need. This is my experience and belief. Yoga can be a wonderful tool for the mind to understand, but before we can become the Buddha, we need to see things without the mind. When we fall back to the illusions of the mind, we got this wonderful system called Yoga to keep us on a certain level at least… until we once more realize it is still a system of the mind and move beyond.
Bentinho Massaro
[B]Stop thinking.[/B]
Did you succed in this ? Because I am far from it. There are obstacles. So while I agree with everything you said, I am incapable of realizing my Self in one giant leap, so I need a progressive approach.
I found yoga is a great way to do this. Why ?
Because my back hurts if I sit too much. If I lie down, I fall asleep. If I manage to have a steady comfortable position, my mind wonders to my things, and duties. So what I need first is good health, and second, order in my life so I can afford the time to meditate. I need constant awarness to not multiplicate the problems I already have. Yoga makes all this possible.
You must admit that your method needs preparations, don’t you ?
In fact what you say is not very different as the blind fate of some christians, who say, Just believe in Christ and you’ll be saved. (Yes, you are if you not just believe with your mind, but you put your own life and actions in accordance with His teachings.) But just saying I believe in Christ is not enough. Because if I ask the believer about little things what he did today, I will find him lacking if compared of what a follower of Christ should do. So that believer needs to make efforts to put him/herself where his/her mouth is.
Same here. You say, “Stop thinking.” Now, did you think today ? Why do you think if you teach not to ? So you must agree, in order to reach the “Stop thinking level”, one needs preparations. If you already are on this level, good for you. But others are not. Not yet.
Were you able to do this instanly as you were born ? Or arrived to this level by a slow process called life ?
As I am different from you, how do you expect me to be where you are ?
All this is great in theory, but it’s real value is in ones everyday’s life. So, how is this “stop thinking” reachable for me ?
You are right, but you are putting very high standards, what are not touchable for most people.
[B]It is like Pata?jali sais in his Yoga Sutras: #1.2:[/B] [I]“Yoga is the restraint, or mastery over the modification of the mind.”[/I]
So In short: Yoga, or Union, or Enlightenment, is the mastery, or non-identification with the mind. Pata?jali could have stopped right here and he would have said everything anyone ever needs to understand. However, for those dependent on external sources and to those addicted to study, he writes another 195 sutras just to define every layer within the one layer called the mind.
Yes, I am one of those dependent on external sources. But if you take away my external sources, do you think I will survive the stress ? Will I find my Self, or will I succomb to the darkness of ignorance ? Can you assume this responsability ?
thank you for taking the time to post this quote
"As God supposedly said to Mohammed: "There are 70.000 layers between you and me, but there are no layers between me and you."
seeker
Dear Hubert,
Did you succed in this ? Because I am far from it. There are obstacles. So while I agree with everything you said, I am incapable of realizing my Self in one giant leap, so I need a progressive approach.
I found yoga is a great way to do this. Why ?
Because my back hurts if I sit too much. If I lie down, I fall asleep. If I manage to have a steady comfortable position, my mind wonders to my things, and duties. So what I need first is [U]good health[/U], and second, order in my life so I can afford the time to meditate. I need constant awarness to not multiplicate the problems I already have. Yoga makes all this possible.
Yes I understand your situation and your choice for Yoga. Just to make clear to everyone, I love yoga science and its practices. However, ask yourself, to what purpose do you do all those things? What is it exactly you want to ‘reach’ or ‘become’? Is it the ultimate happiness? Well in my experience you don’t need a painless back, simply because you don’t have to meditate in the traditional way per se, you can meditate while walkinking, while sleeping. All you need is the courage to let go of everything considered [I]you[/I]. The courage to face your ego as something distinct form yourself. You have to stop believing yourself, your mind that is. At least, that is my view on things.
Because what you are doing is doing one thing to reach another thing to reach another thing to reach another thing… You are doing hatha yoga to strengthen your back and to improve your health in order to meditate. You are busy planning something to bring order in your life in order to have time to meditate. And why do you want to meditate? You want to meditate to reach something else… to be happy perhaps? I bet that just meditation is not enough in your mind’s belief as well… but my guess is that subconsciously and consciously you believe that you need years and years of mental exercise, concentrating on a flame, on the chakras, studying all the levels of the mind etc…? Only to reach something that comes close to ultimate happiness somewhere 50 years from now if you’re lucky? what if you are dead tomorrow…?
So please, reflect upon your mind’s tendency to push happiness forward into the future. No matter what you’ll do first, happiness is not something to achieve by doing something. Happiness is here, now. It is. The only way to ‘achieve’ the experience of happiness, is by letting go of all of that I just mentioned and your thoughts in general. Only then will beauty come forth. This is what Yoga states as well, only Yoga states you’ll have to do lifetimes of practice. Perhaps this is true, but I strongly believe there to be an exit for everyone at any time. All you need is the courage to stop thinking. Just ocasionally… and expand that ‘timeframe’ you spend in mindlessness. Be conscious without thought and all will come to you. Brahman will shine forth.
Only from the perspective of the mind do we need time(=illusion/maya), space(=maya) and progression(=maya) to reach happiness(=truth!). So you see? this is the mind’s prison, it does not like the Now, it likes study and insecurity… it wants to doubt and be concerned about the future… it wants to believe you need to do years of practice, if possible even in the exact order as suggested by some system. “Do this on monday, do that on tuesday, and so on wednesday…etc. And then in 40 years from now you’ll be happy…” the mind loves to find security. I say be brave, be adventurous. Defy the mind, stop believing it. Face it, confront it, call it to a halt. It is not taking you anywhere.
You must admit that your method needs preparations, don’t you ?
If you [I]think[/I] so, it does. If you stop thinking, you are doing it already. The only practice you need is to find your way out of your [B]s[/B]elf. Then you will enter your [B]S[/B]elf. preparation like focus and concentration might help you to maintain the state of no-thought, but please don’t practice on a flame in order to achieve a level of concentration in order to be able to meditate without the mind. Just practice to be without mind immediately. Stop thinking.
It does not work? You start thinking again? Good, recognize these thoughts and stop believing in them. Don;t believe yourself! Its the most freeing thing to do: To stop believing yourself and your beliefs. Then it becomes much easier to be without thought, because you dont pay credit to your thoughts excuses to not be in the Now, in your Self.
In fact what you say is not very different as the blind fate of some christians, who say, Just believe in Christ and you’ll be saved. (Yes, you are if you not just believe with your mind, but you put your own life and actions in accordance with His teachings.) But just saying I believe in Christ is not enough. Because if I ask the believer about little things what he did today, I will find him lacking if compared of what a follower of Christ should do. So that believer needs to make efforts to put him/herself where his/her mouth is.
I am not talking about christ or anyone to believe in. I’m just saying: stop thinking and become consicous.
Same here. You say, “Stop thinking.” Now, did you think today ? Why do you think if you teach not to ? So you must agree, in order to reach the “Stop thinking level”, one needs preparations. If you already are on this level, good for you. But others are not. Not yet.
Were you able to do this instanly as you were born ? Or arrived to this level by a slow process called life ?
As I am different from you, how do you expect me to be where you are ?
All this is great in theory, but it’s real value is in ones everyday’s life. So, how is this “stop thinking” reachable for me ?
By stop asking yourself so many questions to begin with. Please just read your message above and witness the many insecurities and limiting beliefs your mind is able to squeeze in one paragraph. Nice huh, the mind? Thats how we live continuously. The only thing you ever need to find, is your one-way-ticket out of your mind.
This is done by becoming alert and observing the thoughts and ignoring them or not believing them. By doing so you will establish a certain ‘space’ between yourself and the mind/thoughts. The more you stop thinking or start observing your thoughts without believing them and doing what they believe is right, the greater and more permanent this space will become. Then, when it is your time, you can let go of your ego much more easily, because there is this space between you and the ego now. Once you decide to fully let go of everything you think to be you, permanently, enlightenment occurs. I am sure.
You are right, but you are putting very high standards, what are not touchable for most people.
That’s what your mind thinks… now try to not believe it for a minute… In fact, don’t believe anything it sais or believes for some time… you see what happens? immediately there is this disconnection, no matter how small at first, between yourself and the mind… At one moment you are saying and believing: “That guy talks about very high standarts which are not touchable for most people” and the next moment when you stop believing it… you discover that you can actually stop believing it. Does this not mean that your very belief in itself is a fake? An illusion?
And suddenly your belief seems to fall apart because you are getting closer in touch with the field in which there is no belief, no mind.
Yes, I am one of those dependent on external sources. But if you take away my external sources, do you think I will survive the stress ? Will I find my Self, or will I succomb to the darkness of ignorance ? Can you assume this responsability ?
If you stay self-focussed… if you are completely alone… it is in your aloneness that you will find your enlightenment, your true center. No-one has ever found this place in something else. You need to experience your loneliness, the very source of your individuality. Without any excternal sources left… what will you be? Your mind will stress… sure, but look beyond. Its just your mind stressing… don’t believe it. What is it stressing for… [B]you[/B] are still here…
You are good. I admit I was a bit teasing you.
I like this uncompromising attitude towards the mind. It had a liberating effect on me.
Take care, it was good talking to you.
It was indeed. Thanks for your comments, questions, oppositions and agreements.
Take care,
Bentinho Massaro
And TubeSeeker: You are welcome.
haha! dead gurus don’t kick ass. THAT is true.
My best “guru” experience was from an ashram where people met several times a year, and on the last day of their retreats we had feedback. A good intuit said something to me which cut to the meat very quickly and a lot was revealed to me (I cried quite a bit, too). His advice stuck with me over the years… I never called him my guru, though. Another woman with whom I corresponded (along with several other women) also offered good advice, she was a spirit-mom, kind of. She seemed like more of a guru to me, but again it was never a formal thing. She was more of a role model, but she was also a very good mirror.
As far as having a formal guru goes, my gut advice is watch out. Putting someone in a higher position over yourself is a form of delusion. We’re all on the same playing field here, it’s just that not everyone knows it, and people spend their whole lives living up to weird ideals. (well, what the heck isn’t weird, huh?) If you can find a -group- of people on the other hand who don’t mind doing a little mutual deconstruction, then I think that is a safer bet.
And if someone wants to put themselves in a position of authority over you, tell them to go to a really really really hot place! (I read the forum rules! nothin I wouldn’t say to my grandma…)
“One needs an external guru to reveal the guru within.” - Sri Durga Devi, my beloved teacher once told me and how true.
Also she told me that we must never think that the begger on the corner can’t be a guru, because perhaps he has something to teach you. Question is, are you ready to be taught?
I reread post number 70, well put, a delightful read
on the journey, sometimes by myself, sometimes not
seeker
