Who is a Guru?
गुरु कौन है?
This short video clip taken from a Question & Answer session with GSD gives a detailed explanation of “Who is a Guru?"
Baba Ji, Radha Soami.
How can we recognize a Puran Guru?
BABA JI
See, first of all we need to know who is a Guru,
whom do we call a Guru, who is the Guru?
Normally, in life whom we think is our teacher or whom we think is an evolved soul
we consider him as Guru.
Guru is not the body. Guru is the Shabd.
But, since we have not reached the Shabd,
from whomsoever we start, we start calling him a Guru.
In the Bani, it has been explained very well.
“Shabd Guru, Surat Dhun Chela.”
“The Word is the Guru; and the Surat (attuned to the Word) is the disciple.”
The body does not have the strength to become a Guru
nor does it have the strength to become a disciple.
But to start with, as our condition is physical,
a physical body teaches a physical body.
That’s why, whosoever teaches us, we call him a Guru.
Generally, when we want to learn a trade, we say:
I treat you as a Guru, you teach me.
So, the one who explained to us, who taught us,
in olden times, we would give the status
of a Guru to our teachers.
When children used to go to school, they used to bow down
before them and respect them.
Although nowadays this does not happen.
Previously, the teacher used to be treated as a Guru
because he imparted knowledge to you.
The meaning of ‘Guru’ is one who brings you
from darkness into light. We call him the Guru.
Now we come back to the lines of Gurubani,
the body does not have the strength,
as the body is made is made as per the karmas. (according to the karmas)
That’s why, the body can never be perfect, can never be complete.
But the start has to be made with the body.
So a good person, a saint, a mahatma, who has devotion,
who has more experience of life than us –
we accept him as our Guru. But that is the start.
He teaches us but the true Guru is Shabd.
When someone goes to such a wise person,
gets knowledge from him.
He tries to teach him:
your real being is not your body but your soul.
As long as you are in the sphere of the body,
you will be entrapped by your karmas.
You have been given this opportunity,
to rise above this physical bondage.
Enter the spiritual sphere. Recognize your true self.
This is an eternal question. Who am I?
From the beginning, we humans are searching for this
but we will get the answer within us,
not from outside. Western philosophers have said:
“I think therefore I am.”
From where does this thought come? From the mind.
Do we think that our sphere is limited to our mind?
So to realize this we have to awaken our surat,
awaken our consciousness.
When we awaken our surat, then it is the surat that
has the strength to become the disciple, not the body.
The body does not have the capacity.
Then the awakened surat catching the dhun,
realizes the Shabd Guru.
The Shabd Guru, not the physical Guru.
The physical teaches the physical.
As Huzur used to say: bricks and stones cannot talk to us.
The language of animals we do not understand.
That’s why, until someone like us does not come
amidst us to teach us in our language,
these things are beyond our understanding.
That’s why this human being is just like us.
He lives like us.
If he does not live like us, we cannot learn from him.
He comes as an example.
Not to have people devoted to him or
to be worshipped or to have people bow before him.
He comes only to guide us.
When we send our children to school, it is not that
the teacher fills them knowledge from outside.
But, by teaching them different subjects
he polishes the child’s intellect.
As a jeweler knows the value of different stones.
He chooses and polishes the stone, and after polishing,
the stone starts shining. Then it has value.
When we go in the company of Gurumukhs,
the spirituality which is already within us,
which is not put by anyone from outside, he polishes
our mind, he brings out the real form of the mind.
When we look at our mind, we see its impurities,
its defects, see its different forms but
the saints remind us that the mind is Light itself;
know your origin.
It’s current condition was not such originally.
We have made its condition this way.
As we came into this world, our desires, our actions,
are such that the mind’s condition became such.
Hence the saints had to say:
“Oh mind, you are filthy and blind. What do I say!”
We have made its condition this way.
So he tells us its real condition.
He tries to bring out the spirituality in us,
so that we realize that the soul is the disciple and not the body.
How far can the body go? What can it achieve?
Its scope is very limited.
But that very body, when it meditates and awkens the surat,
that surat has the strength to become the disciple.
Surat, the disciple, catching hold of the Dhun,
realizes the Shabd form of the Guru.
That’s why Guru Sahib said:
“Shabd Guru, Surat Dhun Chela.”
