Role of a guru

Many times, I keep having discussions with friends on the role of the guru on the spiritual path. The question is especially relevant in today's context where the world is full of cheaters. We see so many people around being cheated by the so-called gurus. They target the weak minds and manipulate them. We have seen many such gurus behind the bar in recent times.

On the other hand, I am not denying that there may be some genuine people who have pursued the path of spirituality and trying to take others along with them. However, there may be some who feel that they have understood the reality but have actually not. They may genuinely claim that they have understood the reality and may themselves be under an illusion or hallucination.

How do we choose a guru in such a world? I feel that we need to phrase the question a bit differently. The question should be: why do I need a guru? Is it that I want to achieve something? I am tempted to achieve something called enlightenment or realization? Or I am unhappy with my life and seeking some way out to come out of my miseries? The moment our question is clear, we will get a clear answer. 

The entire process of spirituality is about dropping the fixations and in the name of spirituality, we create another fixation. We drop the fixation on wealth, body, power, knowledge, and social approval because we realize that all these fixations result in pain and misery. We see that howsoever we accumulate these, we never feel satisfied. We don't need a guru to see that. Unless we see this ourselves, no guru can make us realize this. We get fixated on these things because we feel lonely and insecure in this world and the brain feels that all these things will give us security. The concept of realization or enlightenment sold by some gurus is just an exchange program. It's like hypnotizing the brain to let go of all fixations and to fix the entire energy on the concept of realization. Realization is advertised heavily, as if it is an out-of-the-world product as if life is meaningless, without this product.

Krishna did not ask Arjuna to leave the battle and do meditation. He just cleared his mind of Arjuna of the confusions and fixations on the battlefield itself. I feel that each and every thing around us can teach us so many things, the moment we allow our mind to observe. The mind can either be fixated or free to observe. It's a choice. The more often we exercise this choice in favor of observation, the better our understanding of life becomes. 

Running after "enlightenment" may be just another defense mechanism of the mind to run away from reality. The starting point of this journey is Vairagya and no guru can inculcate Vairagya unless we ourselves observe ourselves. If a person approaches a guru without vairagya, it simply means that he has some other expectations from the guru. He wants a quick pill or placebo to get rid of worldly pains. That is where many of the gurus start playing with the weak mind. 

So, I would say that one just needs to ask the right questions to oneself. We need to observe our thoughts. Fears and insecurities are driving these thoughts. We just need to be honest with ourselves. The moment we are serious about getting a solution, we start enquiring into the reason for the unrest within us. We understand the tricks played by our emotional mind. We realize the half-baked stories it has created to make us feel insecure and fearful. We see clearly how it has put so much of a premium on certain worldly solutions ignoring their temporariness. We realize how these worldly solutions sold hard by the emotional mind have resulted in our fixations with them. 

The moment we realize that we are accumulating rotten fruits in our fridge, we just throw them out. We don't need a guru to tell us that the fruits are rotten. Nature has given all of us that much intelligence. The moment we exercise the choice of dropping the fixations, we are free. The problem is probably that we don't want to throw the rotten fruits and want some magic trick to make them fresh again. We know that is not possible and yet some gurus sell us the perfume to spray on the rotten fruits so that they smell fresh. 

We just need to observe whether the guru is selling the perfume or asking us to throw the rotten fruits.