Swami Tejomayananda

One day, a lay man asked my guru, Swami Chinmayananda, “Swamiji, everything you teach is in the books. Then why do I need a guru?” In his usual humorous way, he replied: “Why don’t you ask the book this question?

The very fact that you are asking these questions clearly shows that we need teachers to teach us. Every great master has been under the guidance of a teacher. It is not true to say that one can reach the goal just through books.”
Only when one is suffering from a disease, does one need and search for a doctor. Similarly, there should first be an all-consuming and intense urge to gain knowledge. Do you feel the need for self-knowledge? If yes, only then is there the need for a guru. Otherwise, don’t waste your time looking for a guru. It should not be just one of the many casual desires of your life. If your search for a guru is intense, you will find that the law of demand and supply works. It is the job of the Lord to provide you a guru.
Next, one may ask, “How can one recognise that s/he is my guru?” Don’t worry. It will happen. I may not know the different nuances of music, but if I have an ear for music, I can recognise a good singer. Similarly, even if I am not spiritually evolved, if I have seriousness and deep longing, I will recognise my guru. And I will find exactly the guru I need for my present state of mental development. So, choose whichever guru comes to you, but understand that the only guru is He, the Lord, who expresses himself/herself in many forms.
Once a bhakta asked Swami Chinmayananda, “I wanted a guru, but the guru I found turned out to be fake. Why did this happen?” He answered, “Your desire for knowledge must have been fake too!” A fake guru will get scared of a very sincere disciple and will not accept him, as his falsehood will get exposed. If the disciple is highly evolved and the guru is a noble soul — even if he is not very advanced spiritually — the guru will tell the disciple, “I can take you this far and no further. You will have to go elsewhere.” When we go to a general practitioner, s/he may say, “Your case requires expert advice. You need to consult a specialist.”
Moreover, for the same disease one patient might opt for an allopathic doctor, another for an ayurvedic doctor and a third might trust homeopathy. For some people, allopathy may be helpful and for someone else ayurveda might be more beneficial. So, even though there are different kinds of doctors practising different systems of medicine and they appear to be prescribing different things, the goal is one — the patient should get cured. In the same way, when you have so many different kinds of people with different nature and aptitude, you need a variety of methods and different spiritual teachers to cater to all of them. But the goal of peace and happiness remains unchanged.
In India, the guru is revered, sometimes even more than God. The full moon day in the month of Ashadh (June 15 to July 15), which fell on July 15 this year, is observed as Guru Poornima. On that day, we prostrate in worship of the entire lineage of gurus from Sadashiva to our own guru. This day is also known as Vyasa Poornima — dedicated to Veda Vyasa, the propounder of Vaidika Dharma, compiler of the Vedas, the Mahabharata and the Puranas.
It is a day that is observed with prayer and meditation, dedicated to the guru and to the process of learning. The day heralds the beginning of the monsoons after a dry spell. All the water that had been collected as clouds in the hot summer now manifests as showers bringing in fresh life. Swami Sivananda likens this to man’s knowledge that had been stored, saying, “Let all that you have read, heard, seen and learnt become, through spiritual practices, transformed into a continuous outpouring of universal love, ceaseless loving service and continuous prayer and worship of the Lord seated in all beings.”

— The author, head of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide, is an orator, poet, singer, composer and storyteller. To find out more about Chinmaya Mission and Swamiji, visit www.chinmayamission.com.
© Central Chinmaya Mission Trust.