GURU PURNIMA

ON THE AUSPICIOUS OCCASION OF GURU PAURNIMAA.....

Glorious Immortal Self,

Salutations and Adorations!

Guru's (spiritual Master's) teaching is a mirror of words wherein we can see ourselves clearly.

A Master "takes away" only those things which you don't have but you think you have. And he goes on "giving" you things, which you already have but have forgotten completely.

He who robs you of possessions is a thief and he who robs you of a sense of possession is a Master.

A master does not raise the dead, but makes men dead to the world of ignorance and live in wisdom. A Master does not give light to the blind eyes, but blind men to the world of ephemeral objects and beings. 

An enlightened Master systematically destroys every doctrine, every belief and every concept of the divine, for these things, which were originally intended as pointers, were now being taken as descriptions. When the sage points to the moon, all that the idiot sees is the finger.

You cannot ask a Master to fit into your conceptions of holiness. It is one thing that a man be a saint. It is quite another that he should seem saintly to you.

A Master's quality can't be determined by the size of the crowd he draws.

Masters cannot be comprehended by even the most powerful intellect. They are beyond that, though they insist they are superior to none and inferior to none.

A Master's teaching is liberal education. In its truest sense, it "frees" a person from the prison house of his class, caste, creed, race, religion, place, nation, concepts, ideas, opinions, family, lineage, gender and even his / her body, mind and intellect equipment.

A sculptor, on a block of stone, pounds away at anything that doesn't look like the form he is sculpting. Similarly a Master’s task is to hammer away at everything that isn't who you really are: every thought, feeling, attitude, compulsion, identity that adheres to you from your culture and your past.

A Masters job is to teach people to laugh. A clown gets you to laugh at him, a Master teaches you to laugh at yourself.

A Master may appear very ordinary to a lay man. He may be seen going through the motions of life doing daily chores as anyone else. When God makes a Master, he does not unmake the man.

Masters go on teaching,   

for the same reason that the rose gives fragrance;

for the same reason that the sun gives warmth and light;

for the same reason that the hen goes on laying eggs;

for the same reason as the nightingale sings.

There is nothing else to do.

"It is very difficult for me to answer who is my Master, since I have learnt from almost everybody. From those I could not learn it was due to my inability. The whole existence has been my Master. I have learnt from every event that has happened in my life and I am grateful to all that has happened, because out of all that learning I have arrived."  

Too much dependency on the manifest Master would prevent the disciple from contacting the inner source. Three things there are that when too close are harmful, when too far are useless, and are best kept at middle distance: fire, the government and the Guru (spiritual Master).

The mediocre teacher tells

The good teacher explains

The superior teacher demonstrates

The great teacher inspires

May Param Pujya Gurudev bless you with health, long life, peace, prosperity and Kaivalya Moksha (Realization of non-dual Self). 

Lots of Love,

Avadhutananda