Guruvirahita aso naye (from Daasbodh) – one should not remain without Guru – advise saints. Having Guru is more a mental state than physical state. Nature already provides Guru to every human being. But to know this Guru requires great learning, blessings of elders and faith in scriptures and saints. Scriptures describe about this guru, given by nature, through three important sentences – maatrudevo bhava, pitrudevo bhava and acharya devo bhava. First guru for every person is his/her mother. With the blessings of mother one gets to know the second guru i.e. father and with the blessings of father one gets to know third guru i.e. acharya (teacher or preceptor) and through preceptor one gets on the path to the knowledge of Self – atmagyan, the ultimate knowledge that one can achieve in human birth.
Being born with human body is just a natural phenomenon. But the real birth is the birth of desire for moksha. If this birth does not take place then all the time spent on earth is a waste of time. Through mother’s body a human body is born, but with mother’s blessings a desire for moksha is born. The success of all great people can be attributed to their mother’s blessings. It was Mother Jijabai who, through story telling, instilled in her faithful son Shivaba the desire to establish a great ethical kingdom. Shivaba became known to the world as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. It was Mother Putlibai whose strict insistence on speaking truth instilled truthfulness in Mohandas who became known to the world as Mahatma Gandhi.
There are four goals prescribed for every human being – dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Through one’s own efforts one may be able to achieve success in first three goals i.e. dharma, artha, kama. We may find many examples who have achieved success in these goals. But it is very difficult to achieve success in the fourth goal i.e. moksha. The challenge is it is not possible to find examples of achievers of this goal or to put it in other words it is very difficult to recognize the achiever of this goal because it is about getting liberation from the cycle of birth and death. This is where the line of faith starts. One needs a great faith in understanding the importance of this goal and also faith in scriptures that prescribe this goal. In fact one may even read all scriptures that prescribe this goal, but to really appreciate and pursue this goal one needs grace of Guru.
To achieve grace or blessings of Guru it is important to remember Guru. And they say one remembers Guru only through Guru’s grace. The easiest way to attract grace or blessings of Guru is to stick to the upasana prescribed by him. It doesn’t matter if we have learned all scriptures or not, but it does matter if we are following or not following instructions of Guru. Guru instructs various upasana depending on personality of disciple. Instruction could be as short as lighting a lamp in front of God or as large as studying all scriptures. Difficulty or easiness of instruction does not matter, what matters is strict and sincere following of at least one instruction.
Guru Pournima is a day to examine ourselves and realign our efforts to perform upsasana. They say at least on this day if one does what Guru has instructed to do it helps in long way.
Wish you all Happy Guru Pournima which is occurring on this Friday July 31, 2015.