The Spiritual Guru
Guru. The Sanskrit word can be split into two parts. 'Gu' meaning darkness and 'Ru' meaning to dispel. Thus, Guru is defined as something that dispels darkness, personified as light. Light, as you know, is an energy illumining everything that lies in its path. A Guru, similarly, is the sheer energy or 'shakti' which makes the events of a person's life unfold. It is the same shakti which caused the Universe to evolve over hundreds of millennia. Like the presence of heat, cold, geographical features and gravity enables snow to make its journey from the snow-capped mountains to the mighty oceans. The sheer will of this energy makes us go through the various stages that all matter and life have to pass in their journey. It is an ever-present force influencing your life, through all your previous lives, as well as the ones to come.
Swami Rama spent 40 years in the Himalayan caves as a Sanyasi under the tutelage of his Guru, Bengali Baba. One year before the birth of Swami Rama, his to-be parents were visited by Bengali Baba. He predicted the birth of their son, before informing them that he would have to be sent for training at a young age with the Baba. Bengali Baba became a prominent factor in the subsequent enlightenment of Swami Rama. In fact it was Bengali Baba who encouraged Swami Rama to go abroad to spread the Divine Truths in the west.
Ramana Maharishi, one of the premier Hindu Swamis in recent times, became spontaneously enlightened at the age of 16. He described it as an all-blinding light realization burning through his body. He then left home in search of his calling which he felt from the Arunachalam Hill. He described it as a living breathing entity and as the embodiment of his Guru. He lived in an ashram next to the Hill until he took Samadhi in 1950.
Now in both cases, it seems like a case of destiny, which caused the self-realization in both personalities. Embodied by a person in the former, and by a natural force in the latter. The Guru has such accounts scattered all over the world, with countless number of people. A Guru is known to alleviate the effects of karma, foresee future events, and even bring disciples back from the dead.
A story described by Swami Yogananda in 'The Autobiography of a Yogi' talks of a seeker, in search of his Guru, who one day reached the Himalayan abode of a Swami after 3 years of relentlessly searching. The Swami looked at the young aspirant and asked him to jump off the nearby cliff. The seeker instantly jumped to his certain death. The swami asked his disciples to fetch the body, and after incanting a mantra, revived him before accepting him as a disciple. The scriptures expound on how life is the occasion for the wiping off of the effects of karma. And this incident shows how a Guru can make an entire lifetime of karma disappear in an instant.
Guru is differently viewed by everyone. It is viewed in realized persons by some, in teachers by some, and even in God by others. And amazingly, all of them are correct. Regardless of one's beliefs, the shakti will keep flowing, keep guiding, giving unsurmountable strength and an ocean of mercy.
It is best summed up by the following verse from the Guru Gita written by sage Vyasa: Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu Guru Devo Maheshwara Guru Sakshat Parabrahma Tasmai Sri Gurave Namah. Guru is creation, preservation and destruction. Guru is verily the Divine Supreme. To you I offer my respects.