literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org

Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Thu Jul 31, 2003 5:44 am
Subject: Seeking a Guru

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=68003

Sitaram: Hello.... how are you

Seeker: Fit and fine as ever

Seeker: How about you?

Sitaram: I have been quite sick with flu, coughing,... that is why I
am up, cant sleep right now... 3:25am

Seeker: Its the right time to do your sadhana

Sitaram: Yes... good time.... illness helps sometimes

Seeker: I have few questions for you

Sitaram: Certainly

Seeker: I are not tired, may I take the privilege to ask you

Sitaram: Yes

Seeker: Do you have a guru

Sitaram: No

Seeker: Do you think its important to have guru in life?

Sitaram: For some people it is important, for others, it is
difficult or impossible... it depends on the individual and their
circumstances

Seeker: So you mean to say its not a must

Sitaram: It is not a must, in my estimation.... you see... let us
look at two human needs, side by side,... marriage, and spiritual
nurture... which are , one might say, I suppose, to different forms
of love

Sitaram: When we speak in general,.... we say that marriage and
family is necessary, and that spiritual guides and teachers are
necessary, both in the progress of human history, perpetuation of
species... and also, in a given individuals life

Sitaram: But.... when we shift our attention from generalities, to
some particular individual's circumstances.... why things change...
namely...

Sitaram: What I have in mind so say, with regard to love, marriage,
relationships,.... is that love is a gift, which happens to us, comes
to us... a mystery... we cannot make it happen, we cannot
necessarily make it last a lifetime, or hold onto it... (we can
reject or abuse the gift)... etc....

Sitaram: Analogously,.... the teacher/guru/ (or any educational
experience really) is a "gift", for certain people.... circumstances
become ripe for them, at a certain time, financial environment is
right (they have time and money, or leisure to pursue),... they have
individual gifts of aptitude,... they are inspired with a love for
pursuit... they are in the right place at the right time... etc etc
etc

Sitaram: We may look at those who benefited from Ramakrishna, and
Vivekananda, and Prabhupad as three random examples of Gurus who
affected certain peoples lives... and those people have written
extensively of their experience

Seeker: Good

Sitaram: You have asked an excellent question... I find much to say
on this topic

Sitaram: We may also include what is know of Buddha and his
disciples, and also Jesus...

Sitaram: There is a wealth of material for us to use in drawing our
conclusions...

Seeker: But the seeker never chooses a wordly life; a true seeker
seeks for liberation and not for wordly pleasures; to get out of the
karmic cycle what role can an individual play with out seeking a guru

Sitaram: It is important to note that, for abrahamic religions,
(Jews, Christians, etc), there is only one birth, one life, and then
resurrection and judgment,... whereas for jains, Hindus, Sikhs,
Buddhists and others... there are many rebirths, many chances for
spiritual growth

Seeker: What do you think, what the later preaches is right

Sitaram: and, of course, our desires are a source of bondage, and
suffering,... and it is a great irony that the very desire for
salvation, moksha, liberation, the desire itself is an impediment
(obstacle)

Sitaram: Love in the sense of family (spouse) is
a "relationship",.... the student/teacher/disciple/guru/chela is
also "a relationship"

Sitaram: We cannot pursue it and "make" it happen, and when it does
happen, we cannot easily escape it... it is "ineluctable,
irresistible"...

Sitaram: I will tell you a story, a true story, which I have
repeated elsewhere in my posts

Seeker: hmmmm!!! here I have a small contradiction

Seeker: before you proceed let me tell you

Sitaram: there was , in a certain city in India, a certain
guru/teacher.... with his students... and they would meet regularly
at a certain persons house for instruction/satsang...

Sitaram: yes... tell me

Seeker: a guru is like a bottle filled with wine; he says to drink
the wine and throw away the bottle

Seeker: what does this mean to you?

Sitaram: Contradictions are never difficult to find, there are no
shortage of contradictions,.... what is difficult and challenging, is
to grasp the whole, in its complexity, entirety, to go beyond the
contradictions.... in the sense that Jains with their doctrine
of "anekantavada" or "many-pointedness" go beyond the contradictions

Sitaram: I will answer your "bottle" question by making a reference
to a curious short story by J.D. Salinger, in his collection
entitled "Nine Short Stories".... about a small boy/prodigy who
claimed to be a guru reborn from a previous life

Sitaram: in the story, the boy is interviewed by a
journalist/writer.... the boy explains an insightful moment when he
sees his little sister pouring a glass of milk and drinking it....

Sitaram: He realized that, in seeing his little sister pouring a
glass of milk and drinking, he was seeing "God pouring God into God"

Sitaram: God and our lives are like that bottle, half empty/half
full, existent, non-existant... all the dualities of good/evil, truth
falsehood.... but.... woven into a tapestry of experience which
becomes "divine Lila" which has a drama...

Seeker: nice story

Sitaram: As we speak, various pages from my website come to mind,...
in no special order....

Seeker: is it a quote from bhagwath geetha

Sitaram: I shall mention some...

Sitaram: but consider this thought...

Sitaram: My consciousness, your consciousness, is finite and
linear...

Sitaram: We cannot cope with many ideas at once.... but proceed in a
linear fashion, a implies b, b implies c, very Aristotelian

Seeker: Is consciousness finite?

Seeker: ok!!!

Sitaram: Well, hmmm.... think of our consciousness as a
telescope,.... a finite field of vision (aiming at only one spot in
the sky at a time), but its object of study, the universe, is infinite

Sitaram: so... we collect data.... and... well, we PROJECT many
dimensions onto a mathematical model which is a smaller number of
dimensions,... something which we MAY cope with.... and not be
overwhelmed

Sitaram: So,... even though I have written for some years now,...
and can cite many pages which are pertinent to our discussion at my
website, still THAT virtual Sitaram of the writings is greater that
THIS Sitaram who sits here now (with the flu) trying to remember THAT
Sitaram

Seeker: hey I am a slow reader let me comprehend what you have
written

Sitaram: yes, do take your time... it is a vast topic

Sitaram: Before we conclude today's session, I shall refer you to
some pages at the website for further reading

Seeker: But you know the vision that I got

Sitaram: yes

Seeker: wait before referring let tell you its totally different

Sitaram: yes, tell me please

Seeker: A sound from no where but very pleasant with soothing breeze

Seeker: said mere study of books or study of Vedas cannot give you
anything but can make you a lip yjani (pseudo Yjani)

Sitaram: yes.... quite a problem, pseudo gurus, false teachers,
false prophets and lip-service

Seeker: one who has direct knowledge of atman through anubhava a
jivan mukta is a sat guru or liberated sage is none but me

Seeker: he s the knower of brahman; a word from him is a word from
God; he need not teach anything; but follow him the Vedas will be
revealed to you; he is the real one in the kaliyuga who gives you the
rope of knowledge and saves you when you are drowning in the ocean
of samsara. Do not consider him to be only a man

Seeker: if you take him as man then you are no less then pashu;
and many more things

Sitaram: HERE ARE some pages to look at from my website, which
pertain to our discussion: pg. 4, "Have
you made spiritual progress", page 6 "Beware the simple Yes/No", pg
19 "experiencing pure consciousness", pg 272 "crisis of
parampara/lineage", pg 373 "A guide to Gurus"

Sitaram: I wanted to be certain to make mention before we are cut off

Sitaram: http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/page373.htm "A
Guide to Gurus"

Seeker: Next time when we meet I would like to discuss with you on
the topic of bhaki; and singificance of a guru in life if at all
you permit me

Sitaram: excerpt from that page: What Prabuphad said about the
collected writings of an individual being "BETTER" than that
individual in person is quite a true and profound statement. That is
why I personally feel that a prospective devotee or seeker is better
off choosing what interests them, and then immersing themselves in
the writings for a period of months or years, rather than hastily
seeking some personal association with an individual that one hardly
knows, and who might have the wrong self-interests, or other
shortcomings.

Seeker: after reading few pages of your I really felt I need to
spend some time (which is equivalent to a satsang) with you

Sitaram: Another excerpt from page 373: Of course, all any book can
give you is INTELLECTUAL understanding and words. When it comes to
actualizing various principles and values in ones life and character,
then reading is only a start. Through reading, we may acquire a
VOCABULARY and some definition of those goals and values which we
should seek, but it will only be in the course of LIVING and
PRACTICING that we will have any hope of INTERNALIZING those words
and concepts into a way of life.

Seeker: By they way I am writing a short essay on bo-yang and lin-
tzu the founder of taoist and confusion

Sitaram: Another excerpt: Certainly, "fellowship" in the Christian
sense, or "sangha" and association in the Hindu/Buddhist sense, is
invaluable in helping us make the transition from "talking the talk"
to "walking the walk". It helps enormously to spend time with others
of maturity who have made some spiritual progress and advance along a
path. But the walk that we must walk is not the dirt roads of
Benares/Varanassi/Kashi, nor the camel trade routes of Arabia, nor
the narrow, winding alleys of Jerusalem. We walk our walk in subways
and airports and highways. But, although much scenery has changed
from those ancient times and the origins of religions, obscured in
the mists of antiquity, yet the human problems which we deal with are
unchanging.

Sitaram: No matter how fast computer chips might become, patience
will always be a virtue. The more powerful and effective weapons and
missiles become, the more essential it is to learn meekness and
nonviolent methods of resolving disputes. No matter what progress
science makes in birth control, genetics and cloning, our primordial
sexual desires will always present a profound challenge to us as a
source of temptation, misconduct and addictive behavior. No matter
how many continents or planets we conquer and colonize, we will
always have to face the emptiness and loneliness of a Universe in
which we seem out-of-place and extraneous. No matter how wise and
ancient we become, medically and genetically extending our lifespan
indefinitely, there will always remain buried somewhere deep within
us a weep

Sitaram: J. Krishnamurthi said it best. "The TRUTH is a PATHLESS
land." You must blaze your own path, or it shall never BE your own.
No one can do it for you, they can only point the way and give you a
map. No matter who is your teacher, they can never clone themselves
in you. You are a unique individual. There is only ONE Jesus, ONE
Buddha, ONE Krishna, ONE me, and ONE you. Each of us are unique.
Sitaram: We may strive to see the UNIverse as a UNI, a ONE, and even
seek to uncover some GUT or "Grand Unified Theory," but the Universe
will ever remain an infinite diversity. And each of us, in our
individuality is one facet of that diamond of diversity. That's what
makes it "sparkle" and glitter. That's what make it precious. That is
why free will is so important, and choices; to ALLOW that diversity
to thrive and manifest, but not to thrive and spread cancerously like
a disease, or as some sprawling wilderness of weeds without direction
and fruit, but in an orderly and disciplined and self-controlled
dignity, as CULTIVATED fields awaiting harvest.

Seeker: Hey bhrathi,as I told you I am a slow reader, and not at all
good in English so

Seeker: I will take time to read

Seeker: and I respect the other two religion; but em not a party to
it
Seeker: I don't quote ram nor Krishna
Seeker: bcoz I haven't seen them
Seeker: when the kundalini arises to the shasrara; when I get
immersed in the nectar of realization then I will speak out who
Krishna or ram was

Seeker: and is strongly believe that shall derive the relationship
between you and me bhrathi

Sitaram: We must be patient in life.... movies and media give us the
misconception that every moment is even-filled and exciting, and that
everything has a plot, story-line, and yet must of life is uneventful
and even boring (although there is a way we can make it non-boring in
our own minds)

Seeker: Sitaram do you do meditation, or some sort of yoga

Sitaram: The first time I owned a video camera, and made some
videos, I realized how slow everything is, (no chase-scenes)....

Seeker: Chasing whom; chasing God

Sitaram: I did meditation and yoga for a period of years,... but
once I began writing,... I did that full time (for 5 years now), and
it takes all my energy,.... but I draw upon the experiences of
meditation and monastery..

Sitaram: In movies, the "chase scene" is where the cars drive
recklessly, shooting at each other....

Seeker: I don't watch movies; mere waste of time

Seeker: I am more inclined to reading books on siddhas; and the
siddhas contribution to sir Einstein theory

Seeker: you know I recently found out that Einstein was helped by
siddha boghanather to find out E=mc2

Sitaram: to be honest with you, there are some people who want to be
Sitaram (me), but being me is quite boring and humdrum, it is a job,
a duty,... even being God is such a job, Krishna says, "although I
possess all things, and need nothing, yet I never cease my activity,
and if I were to cease my activity for the slightest moment,
countless worlds and beings would perish"

Seeker: that's exactly I want to find out "who are you"

Sitaram: If it is "good" to be a guru, then the guru's job is
ultimately to make the chela into a guru... otherwise, of what
earthly use is a guru...

Seeker: exactly there you are

Sitaram: People tend to romanticize gurus, writers, politicians,
religious leaders

Sitaram: The current pope , John Paul, said that in the first month,
after he was made pope, he had a dream in which there was some great
problem in the Catholic church, and the moment he woke up, he
said "Oh, I must speak to the Pope at once about this", but then
suddenly, he remembered, "oh, wait, I AM the Pope now"

Seeker: Atha-ato braham jijnasa; Janmadyasya yatha ; sastra
yonitvat; tat tu samanvayat

Sitaram: I am simply you, as you will be at some future time, you
are simply me as I once was, and a child drinking milk is God pouring
God into God.

Get your own free IRC Chat room