‘The Guru is within. Why search for a Guru outside?' This is a common statement found nowadays all over the internet, printed media and other forms of media. Those who make these statements want their statements to be accepted implicitly by all people. They also want to be accepted as the Guru by their students. But they teach that the Guru is within!
The statement ‘Guru is within' is indeed true. Certainly the Guru is within! After a certain stage, the internal Guru guides the student. But to reach this internal Guru, we need the external Guru’s guidance and help. Else it proves to be very difficult to reach the internal Guru. God is the Primordial Guru. Only God knows God. Hence God assumes the form of Guru and is born amongst men to teach and guide them about The Supreme Power.
God is within. We have read this and have been told about it. Why is it that we are not able to realise the God who is within us? This is because hearing or reading about a truth is rather different from realizing the truth within us. When we realise the truth that God is within and experience it in ways which are totally convincing to us, then we will be able to feel the presence of God within us and around us. Consider this example:
A man needed butter desperately. He asked his neighbours to give him some. No one gave him any butter. Then someone told him: you have a cow in your home. Why don’t you make your own butter? I will show you how to do it. The man did not know that butter came from the milk of the cow. He learnt from the other person, the process of how to make butter from milk and got the required amount of butter!
We are like the man in the above example. He had a cow, he had milk. But he did not know how to separate the cream from the milk and churn it. He had to learn the technique from a person who knew it. We need to get the knowledge of how to separate the reality from lies. We need to learn the Truth from the Guru. We need the Guru’s touch and knowledge to go within us and still the mind. We need to learn and practise the spiritual techniques from the Guru to churn ourselves from within and get the butter in form of self realisation. We all carry the butter - the presence of God /Guru within us but don’t know how to churn and get the butter i.e. manifest the presence of God/Guru from within us. Hence we need the external Guru to show us the Internal Guru.
With time and effort any type of knowledge can be acquired. It can be worldly knowledge or spiritual. But it takes a lot of time and effort to do so by ourselves. We have to try many techniques and methods before we learn to do things in the right way. It is far easier to learn from a teacher who has the knowledge and experience. The teacher has learnt from his teacher and this knowledge, handed through the ages, has been time tested to give similar and correct results. By learning from a competent teacher, we get sufficient knowledge and learn the right techniques in a short time. Learning by self takes far too long and by the time we have tried and tested different techniques, especially in path of spirituality and found a method which gives us satisfactory results, we would have lost a huge amount of time and energy and will find it difficult to reach our goals before the end of our time.
Even Avatars like Rama and Krishna and great saints had gurus. Rama gave credit for all his knowledge and spiritual goodness to his Gurus. Being an Avatar he could have come in this world with all knowledge or learnt by himself. But he went to Guru Vashista to show the world the need and importance of Guru. Later on he acquired knowledge from Guru Vishwamitra and Sage Agastya. Krishna went to Guru Sandipani and acquired knowledge. The role of a Guru and his greatness are explained in the Guru Gita. The Guru Gita is a dialogue between Lord Shiva and his Shakti - Parvati Devi. In this the Lord explains the need of Guru, his powers and how to follow the Guru.
Very few people have the ability to tap into the Guru within by themselves. The Guru within remains a mystery until the intuitive eye is opened. We need a Guru to help us open our intuitive eye. Choose a Guru with great care. Then follow his teachings unconditionally. Your life will be transformed and you will live in this world with peace and joy and finally merge with the Supreme Bliss.
