TALK 36 by Prabhuji (APR 20, 12.41)
Today let us contemplate on ‘Grace of Guru’. What is this Grace? We know about gravity, gravity pulls us down towards the earth. You throw anything up it comes down, water flows down from the mountains into the rivers due to gravity. Gravity always makes anything flow downwards. But Grace is something which makes us move upwards. It is not something about stone or water, but make the mind move upwards. Nature of the mind is to always to go outwards, towards the sense objects, because the world is very attractive and we chase objects in the world.
To make the mind go inwards and move upwards and to realise your divine nature, a force is required and that force is called Grace.
The natural tendency of mind is to go outwards. It is like a downfall because you get attracted to sense objects. And when you get attracted to sense objects you get involved in one sort of activity or other which will yield karmic fruits and karmic fruits are responsible for our life after life, taking birth again and again to experience the karmic cycle. The Grace uplifts us. First it helps the mind move inwards and then shift the mind towards the Self and help us to realize our own nature. This is called Grace.
Let us understand Grace in bit more detail.
‘dhyana mulam guror murthihi, puja mulam guror padam ,
Mantra mulam guror vakyam, moksha mulam guru kripa’
“dhyana mulam guror murthihi” – We are attracted to so many things in the world. When mind is attracted to anything it is a sort of meditation only. Somebody is attracted to a girl, somebody is attracted to a boy, and somebody is attracted to money or sports etc. These are all meditation states. Only difference is that it is meditating on the objects in the external world. So, we can call these as ‘girl mediation’, ‘money mediation’, ‘cricket meditation’, ‘sport meditation’ ‘movie meditation’ or ‘movie star meditation’ etc. Mind is engaged in so many different meditations. Will these meditations lead to our upliftment? Some of these may lead to our material improvement. But spiritual upliftment starts only when the mind is attracted to the form of Guru. When mind is attracted to the form of a Realized Master, that is the beginning of the inward journey of the mind. That is the beginning of the spiritual journey of the mind. You may go to holy places, still the spiritual journey has not begun, and many of them are more of a religious activities. The spiritual journey is our inward journey, and that starts when you meet a Realized Master.
‘Dhyana mulam Guror murthihi’, our mind is attracted by the form of the Realized person from the exuding peace throughy the words by the divinity which manifests in that person, that is the beginning of our spiritual journey.
‘Puja mulam guror padam’… puja means worship, we may worship lot of things in life. I may say I worship god, but that is only a half an hour a day in your puja room, but what you do rest of the time. Oh, rest of the time I think of making money, so you are worshipping money most of the time. No I am very attracted to sports, so you are worshipping the sports or the sports personality.
So we worship lot of things in life, but real worship starts when you worship the feet of the Master. Now the moment you say feet, do not confuse with the physical feet. The feet of a Realized Master is the path he takes, when we say feet it is more related to his stand. Realised person stands on love and wisdom. A Realized Master’s feet are Prema and Jnana, love and wisdom. And the footsteps of the Realized Master the path he takes which is the path of service the path of loka kalyana, path of wisdom. Your spiritual journey progresses when you are able to worship the feet of the Master – Jnana and Prema, wisdom and love. The journey continues, when you take the path of the Master which is the path of service.
Now what is this love, everybody experiences love. It is me and mine, whoever is related to me, we say, ‘I love them’. But the love of the Master is universal in nature, and not for a particular person or thing. The radiating love for the entire universe is one of the feet of the Master. The second feet of the Master is Jnana wisdom. The Jnana we have is about knowledge, ‘I have read hundreds of books thousands of novels, I have done my doctorate Ph.D. in such and such a subject.’ They all relate to outside materialistic things. Jnana here refers to Self-Knowledge, the knowledge that “You are the not the body, mind and intellect. You are that Pure Consciousness” and this uplifts you. These are the feet of the Master, love and wisdom. With these feet Master makes a move in the life and this move is for lokakalyana, path of service, bringing peace and love to all living beings. When you worshipping that feet, your spiritual progress will happen.
‘Mantra mulam guror vakyam’. We have heard so many different types of mantras. Today, when you go to a music shop you get so many packaged mantras. So you can get one CD with 14 mantras, another CD with 28 mantras. So the mantra means, ‘mananat trayate iti mantraha’. ‘trayate’ means ‘one which protects you’, ‘one which really uplifts you’ that is called mantra. What really protects you or uplifts you is the knowledge of the Self, Atmagyan. That is the real mantra. Now that is actually not a repetition or any syllable or a sentence, it is the essential teachings of all Scriptures, Upanishads that, ‘You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not the intellect, you are pure consciousness’
“naanu nanenbudu nanalla, ee deha manah buddhu nanall, satchidananda shiva nanu naane, shivoham shivoham.”
Realised Master is able to give this knowledge in a very clear and simple way with the examples that will help you understand so that you are able to realise your inner Self. That alone is mantra, one which protects you.
‘Moksha mulam Guru kirpa..’ .. The Grace of the Guru liberates you, now the Grace of the Guru comes in the clarity of the teaching. With absolute clarity the message of Upanishad and enlightenment is delivered which brings the conviction in you and which liberates you. The teaching is the real Grace of the Master.
“Meeting the Master is Grace, listening to the words of the Master is Grace, following the path of the Master is Grace”. Ultimate Grace is teaching received from Master. The teaching received from Master is called paroksha Jnana, when you experience that, then the teaching becomes internalised and you will have a direct experience of the truth. And that Aparoksha Jnana will liberate you. So this is the essence of Grace. The Grace is the teaching.
Transcription by Atmajyothi Satyavathi
Light of The Self Foundation 