Reading Spiritual Matters, Guru, etc

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Jyotisha wrote:

 

Who to your opinion is a real DIKSHA Guru, as you describe him here. You

make a difference between a guru on material matters like teaching astrology

and spiritual ones. I understand a Dikhsha-Guru can solve the whell of karma

and guide one to liberation, as he himself has reached final liberation.

 

So how to recognize him?

Where to find him?

Must he be a living one, or does it suffice you to prax to "krsna", who may

have been of much help for his discipless during lifetime.

 

How to read it in Jyotish,

1st: if a soul is destined to meet such a guru.

2nd: how he will react to him during this life

3rd: how many incarnations under the teaching of such Diksha gurus the soul

will still need.

4th: Where/country and when the soul will find him

 

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My answers:

 

I personally do not think that we know if our Diksha Guru is actually

liberated yet, but some Gurus who are acting that role, have chosen to

give Diksha, the Holy Name and Gayatri, etc., and lead their disciples

in spiritual life, are very helpful in this line.

 

My own Diksha Guru was first one of the original ISKCON eleven following

Bhaktivedanta Swami. But the one I took HariNamDiksha from, eventually

fell away from spiritual strength himself. So all his disciples

dispersed. Then I went to another of the eleven, in an attempt to stay

in ISKCON, but he too went away by and by. Both of them were white men.

 

Then I went to Prabhupada's Godbrother, an elderly Indian in Navadwip.

He never left the principles. He died in his dignity as a Sannyasi.

 

However, all of them taught me things, or at least the first one and the

last one. The middle one I was around only 4 months. So, I learned from both.

 

Learned what? I learned Spiritual things- mainly how to perform

austerities, all about the history of being a monk, a devout person. I

learned all the practices, about deities, the scriptures, so many

things.

 

The mood is important. A guru who is actually going to make it through

illusion for this whole life will have a different mood than one who is

destined to not make it, who will resume "normal" life. So this mood

that is conveyed to the disciple, will likewise be either very pure and

purifying, or it will be mixed, and a disciple cannot know the

difference, and that's why he's a disciple- because he's not a master,

so as my final Guru taught, it's up to Krishna if we are misled mostly,

as we ourselves cannot tell at that tender stage. So real sincerity is

our best guide. The more real we are about liberation, the more the

Divine will lead us to help in all forms, Guru and otherwise.

 

You can pray to not present Gurus and God, surely. This is actually what

a real Guru will have you do anyway. Truly this is, in the end, the

highest practice, to constantly serve God, by hearing his Name, seeing

his Form, hearing his Pastimes, and trying to be like his Qualities,

appreciate them, respect them, hear about them.

 

The Divine is the goal, and we are of the Divine. We are Divine, but our

consciousness is now taken up in thinking we are these temporary bodies,

and in that, all "hell breaks lose" as we say. Hell is based in the

temporary. Suffering is based on "loss", but loss can only take place in

a world that allows it. So the world of temporary bodies is potentially

VERY FULL of suffering. The more we think here, the more we suffer. The

more our thinking is based on eternal, the less we suffer.

 

A real Guru shakes up the disciples conceptions, especially at first, to

help them get freed from gross levels of bodily identifications. This is

best done when the person is young, such as late teens, or mid teens, or

early twenties. Like military groups, techniques like shaving the head,

wearing a uniform, such things, are employed and are helpful, because

they strip individuality, which is done to remove the attachements

already present from childhood. This is very liberating. Once one goes

through this initial surrender process, then finer things can be dealt with.

 

One can conceivably liberate themselves, conceivably, but scripture does

not really say this at all. The Vedic scriptures are emphatic about

surrendering to Guru and getting his grace.

 

Realistically speaking, the many years of surrender I went through, the

bowing, giving all, taking all instructions and so on, like a standard

Vedic disciple, I can see, have greatly separated me from most people in

a number of key ways.

 

I take the process of God Consciousness very seriously. The standard

"spiritual" people I know, are different. It's just different. I find it

really obvious to me, who has surrendered to God and Guru in a lineage,

and who has not. I can feel it.

 

When one surrenders, one becomes "property" of God. When you really

surrender, this is for real, for sure, and permanent. The teachings,

prayers, verses, and the reality around us most importantly, all

underline the need for this. Without becoming God's property willingly,

one has actually not made it very far yet. Spirituality is always good,

but the goal 'area' or realm of real progress begins AFTER one

surrenders. That is like being "let into" the school. Then you still

have to go through all the classes. But those who never surrender, are

like bees outside the bottle of honey, they never really taste it,

though they can look at it through the glass jar.

 

There are various types of initiation though. Take for example Saint

Francis of Assisi, whom I believe was quite liberated. His initiation

was done in a state of deadly fever. There are other examples like this.

Sometimes near death experiences make one wake up to the truth, and

sometimes, rarely, we see such persons never again leave the truth,

ever.

 

The way to tell if someone is a devotee of Divinity, is that they cause

it to spark up in others. This is taught. One who is Guru, is self

illumined. It takes nobody to point it out. If somebody sparks your

Divine consciousness, then they are Guru to you in some small fashion.

If they do it to many and always, then they are significant teachers. If

they cause others to become full fledged Theistic followers, faithfuls,

workers, lovers, of Divinity, then they are really excellent Gurus. The

more one is a real servant and lover of Divinity, the more he/she sparks

that in others. This is how you tell. It's a natural system of tasting

and seeing.

 

If a "Guru" is one based on paperwork, appointments, institutions, etc.,

but from them you do not get inspiration actually, then better to avoid

that connection.

 

You should get real inspiration from a Guru. And look carefully inside

when you feel you are being inspired. Is it really spiritual?

 

I knew the "devotees" who committed murder for "their Guru" in the Hare

Krishna movement. I met them once upon a time when living at the farm in

West Virginia. When they murdered their godbrothers "for their Guru",

they thought they were doing "devotional service (bhakti) to Guru and

Krishna". They saw themselves as Warriors, a legitimate varna or caste

within Vedic culture. But were they really?

 

That Guru they were serving, he WAS guilty of many wrongdoings actually.

The person they murdered was REVEALING those things to others. They

killed him to shut him up. If there Guru was really pure, still it would

have been a sin. But the fact that the Guru was not pure, makes it even

worse. I knew them, and can tell you, that they were simply very macho

boys, thinking very high of themselves. It wasn't really spiritual. They

were not of the qualities described for devotees, and neither was their

Guru, yet he was being worshipped, and even then, still collecting many

disciples unto himself.

 

So my point is, if they were able to, if they would have looked inside

themselves, they would have seen that they were insincere in their

devotions to "their Guru" because they would have noticed the ego and

macho feelings that were being aroused, the anger, fire, vengeance,

false ideas, and so on.

 

But when we are new, we may mistake one thing for another. A real Guru,

if we're fortunate to have one, can point this out.

 

For example, once my real Guru, the last one, wanted to build a temple

somewhere in India, but he did not have the money. He was a poor

Sannyasi living in the jungle basically. So, I offered to go to England,

rally his disciples, on a collecting mission for a few months, to raise

the meer 150,000 British pounds equivalent needed. I could have done

this no problem. I knew how using the base of disciples there, and a

business we all knew how to do involving selling paintings obtained in

Korea cheaply for high profits in Western countries like England/USA.

 

I could have don it, surely, and he would have had his money. My

previous experiences with "Gurus" was that they surely would have said

"Yes, great service attitude, go do it, I approve and bless you".

 

Not Sridhar Maharaj. He told me it was better for my small amount of

devotion to stay in the Holy Dham with him, and chant Hare Krishna,

praying to be more purified. I was shocked. Never had I seen a Guru turn

down money.

 

This experience completely altered my view of Vaisnava Gurus forever. It

was the first time I saw one turn down money. In ISKCON, cash was king.

There was even always a saying going around "Money is the Honey". Not

with Sridhar Maharaj.

 

Deep in my heart, if I was honest, I could see that I offered this to be

"a big guy" a "real accepted guy". I wanted "respect" which is not the

aim of serving the Guru. So he could sense this, and rejected the offer.

That is a real Guru. But it is humbling and hard to follow. We are not

used to having our material lives dismantled and frustrated, but that is

often what a real Guru does to us, he humbles us, for our own spiritual

good. He shows us for what we are Spiritually, and does not help us to

become puffed up moreso with ego and pride.

 

The more materially concrete of your above last four questions I will

leave to those who feel they know such concrete answers, as I surely do not.

 

I can say that one's relationship to Guru, the planet, and the ninth

house, are classically taken as telling on one's relationship to

Divinity, and Guru.

 

I have two planets in the ninth which is Sagittarius. One is the Lord,

Jupiter, and the other is Saturn. I have had thus mixed experiences with

these forces in my life as told by these two planets. Though I have had

the best experiences I feel, I have also had some of the worst possible.

Though my father was a great man, he was sick from war. Though I met a

Guru and got really very close to him and benefitted thereby (my first

Guru), he feel away when he hit his Saturn dasha. Though I met a really

great lifelong Guru, he soon died thereafter and was far away, and I

hardly got to be with him. Though I love ISKCON and it's teachings, I

have been too much in it's middle, during it's worst period, and

experienced terrible things thereby.

 

So in this way, we can judge something of this life's lessons about

Guru, from the ninth house.

 

 

 

 

--

 

 

Das Goravani

 

 

 

 

 

 

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