Salutations to Lord Narayana, the Adi Guru! Salutations to the Brahmavidya Gurus of ancient Bharatavarsha! Salutations to the illumined sages and seers of modern India
The age of the Upanishads was an age of intuitional perception. It was an age when intuitional experience was the guarantee of Truth. But the modern age is an age of questioning and criticism. Today the guarantee of truth is in the test of sense perception. What man can perceive through sense-organs he accepts as the reality. That which the senses cannot perceive he rejects as unreliable. Thus, many precious factors in our ancient cultural heritage have been rejected and set aside as superstition. The hoary and the most precious spiritual conception of the Guru is one such factor that has come to be misunderstood and misinterpreted in the present age.
The traditional concept of the Guru is a unique and wonderful gem in the cultural treasury of Bharatavarsha. It is our most precious possession. For, it is this conception that is to a large extent responsible for the safe and unbroken perpetuation of some of the most precious aspects of this great nation’s grand spiritual heritage. It is the institution of Guruparampara that has, from generation to generation, down the centuries, closely safe-guarded the living experiences of the Seers of the Upanishadic age and handed them down to succeeding ages. This sacred task it has performed in spite of many a violent vicissitude in our nation’s history.
But now! The modern man thinks the concept of the Guru has out lived its day.
There is much free -thinking and free-reasoning. This is because he lacks knowledge of what Life means, what its purpose is. It is because he is ignorant of what a significant role the Guru has in helping to work out life’s supreme purpose. The ignorance of the ordinary man is truly appalling. The vital importance and the deep inner significance of the Guru-Tattwa is completely lost to him. This is in deed a great loss. It has to be remedied. Man kind must reflect and try to understand the role of a preceptor in working out the individual’s spiritual evolution.
May the Supreme Lord, the Guru within you, lift the veil of ignorance and bestow upon you all the Light of the transcendental Knowledge. May the blessings of Sri Vyasa and other Brahmavidya-Gurus be your support and inspiration in the quest for Truth.
Swami Sivananda
Excerpts from an article published in the Sivananda Ashram Magazine
Guru Purnima Thoughts
The Guru is a transmitting medium, a transporting agent and transparent embodiment of the Divine Grace and Compassion, the focal point of the timeless Eternity and finite time. He not only points the direction to the goal but takes the consciousness of the surrendered disciple into his consciousness and makes the inflow of the Higher into the lower continuously, till the three consciousness of the Isvara, the Guru and the Atman of the disciple become one undifferentiated whole.
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