An interesting interpretation of Guru on the eve of Guru Purnima – who is a Guru? Can anyone be a guru? The famous Kabir Doha:
Guru Govind dau khade, kake lagun payen
balihari Guru apne, Govind dio milay.
MEANING: “Guru (Teacher) and Govind (the God) are standing before you, then whose feet you will touch and give honor? Guru deserves the first right to get the honor as it is he who has introduced God. Therefore, the importance of Guru is more than God!”.
The above looks very touching and sentimental. Yet the question remains unanswered – Who is a Guru? Traditionally a guru is a person who initiates, transmits, guides, illuminates, debates and corrects a student in the journey of knowledge.
For me this is an incomplete description and there can never be such special person called Guru. In a way everyone is a Guru. There is no one in the world who is not a Guru. Everyone teaches initiates and transmits knowledge others at some point of time or the other!
Thus, Guru as is in the ‘Guru Purnima’ is an ancient concept; there is an all-knowing guru who sits on a high pedestal; he read everything; understood everything; and there is nothing further to learn! He has achieved all knowledge. The importance to a guru has reached new heights when it is said:
| GururBrahma GururVishnuh Gururdevo Maheshvarah, Guru Sakshat Param Brahm Tasmai Shree Gurve Namaha MEANING: Realize that the Guru is Brahma Himself. He is Vishnu and He is also Shiva. Guru is Supreme God. With this knowledge, I offer my obeisance to the Guru. | maatru devo bhava pitru devo bhava aachaarya devo bhava atithi devo bhava (Taittiriya Upanishad) MEANING: Respects to Mother, Father, Guru and Guest. They are all forms of God. |
In so far I am concerned… I have learnt that no one can be a true Guru. Everyone can at most be a student… a lifelong learner. No one can be is an exalted position, including the God. If I were to believe in God and also to subscribe to the Theory of Evolution of Darwin, it invariably follows that God is slowly perfecting His creation. He created the monkey and from it He evolved the man. His perfection continuous. It is still incomplete. He too is learning. How can we call Him a Guru when the Govind is also a student?
To glorify the guru in the manner described above is like lighting a lamp in front of the sun. The glory of that guru does not lie in removing the darkness of ignorance in our mind and illuminates our life with the light of knowledge but in the fact of his being a lifelong learner. I am that lifelong student learner who tries to learn the method of living a breath more on my death bed.
Hence you do not have to bow to any guru unless you see in him the quality of a life-long learner. There are no Jagat-Gurus or Sat-Gurus or Vishva-Gurus. Be a life-long student learner. The traditional presentation of Guru Purnima is but disguised Guru Amavasya!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
