1st day - No.08 “ I might have had at some time or other. And didn’t I sing hymns to Arunachala “? S.S. Cohen has recorded a conversation on this subject with Dilip Kumar Roy, the celebrated musician of Sri Aurobindo Ashram: Dilip.: Some people report Maharshi to deny the need of a Guru. Others say the reverse. What does Maharshi say? B.: I have never said that there is no need for a Guru. Dilip: Sri Aurobindo often refers to you as having had no Guru. B.: That depends on what you call Guru. He need not necessarily be in human form. Dattatreya had twenty-four Gurus – the elements, and so on. That means that any form in the world was his Guru. Guru is absolutely necessary. The Upanishads say that none but a Guru can take a man out of the jungle of mental and sense perceptions, so there must be a Guru. Dilip: I mean a human Guru. The Maharshi didn’t have one. B.: I might have had at some time or other. And didn’t I sing hymns to Arunachala? What is a Guru? Guru is God or the Self. First a man prays to God to fulfil his desires, then a time comes when he does not pray for the fulfilment of a desire, but for God Himself. So God appears to him in some form or other, human or non-human, to guide him as a Guru in answer to his prayer. It was only when some visitor brought up the subject that Sri Bhagavan himself had not had a Guru that he explained that the Guru need not necessarily take on a human form, and it was understood that this referred to very rare cases. D.: It is said that one look of a Mahatma is enough; that idols, pilgrimages, and so on, are not so effective; but I have been here for three months and still do not know how I have been benefitted by the look of the Maharshi. B.: The look has a purifying effect. Purification cannot be visualised. Just as a piece of coal takes a long time to ignite and a piece of charcoal a shorter time, while a heap of gunpowder is ignited instantaneously, so it is with different types of men coming in contact with a Mahatma. V.: I am told that according to your school I must find out the source of my thought. How am I to do it? B.: I have no school; however, it is true that one should trace the source of all thoughts. D.: May I be assured that there is nothing further to be learnt, so far as the technique of spiritual practice is concerned, than what is written in Bhagavan’s books? I ask because in all other systems, the Guru holds back some secret technique to reveal to his disciple at the time of initiation. B.: There is nothing more to be known than what you find in the books. No secret technique. It is all an open secret in this system. **************
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 10:28:35 +0000
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