Guru Poornima

The heavy monsoon rains abated and the sun broke through the clouds as Swamiji took his seat and began the celebration of this year’s Guru Poornima. The festival, which takes place on the full moon in the month of July, is the occasion for devotees throughout India and the rest of the world to honour Guru. And people from the local community, across India and many other countries came to hear and sing songs, present offerings, receive prasaad and, above all, to listen to Swamiji speak. This is a transcript of Swamiji’s opening talk.

You’ll be pleased to know that this is the festival of Guru Poornima. Everybody has different festivals, such as Divali, Krishna Janmaashtami, Christmas, and in India, it is a very, very old, ancient tradition to observe Guru Poornima.

These days, not many people understand the significance of Guru Poornima, but the word “guru” is heard by everyone—guru is a teacher, a coach, a professor, guru is giving driving lessons, guru is training pilots, in business also, they say guru and even in sports. That is why people have misunderstood the word guru.

Guru is a Sanskrit word: gu means darkness and ru means the one who cuts the darkness, removes the darkness. So Guru is like the light of the sun. As soon as the sun comes darkness runs away.

We have different departments of life. We have the prime minister and the political department; we have the chief judge and the judiciary department; we have chief engineer and the electricity department; we have householders where grandpa is a great department; in the family, the husband is another department. Wherever you go, life is in departments.

And in religion also, there are religious departments: the Christian religion; Buddhist religion; Jain; Hindu; and Muslim religions. Everyone has his own religion. What is the reason for this? The human mind works in departments.

The eyes are the department of seeing and the mind works with them. The ears are the department of hearing and the mind works with them. When gardens, flowers and air are there, the nose smells and breathes and the mind works with it. The tongue tastes food and the mind works with it. And when actions are performed by hands, feet and the other senses, the mind works with them.

So, the mind works with each department. But it is only one, while the departments are multiple. So what has happened to the mind? The mind became departmental. If one sees the forms—the beautiful sky, the rain, the beautiful sun, the shade—then one becomes an artist. And many human beings are artists. And those who hear melodies become musicians. There are so many departments.

What is the Guru department? That is the department of Oneness. As the sky is one. If storms come, the sky is one. If sun shines, the sky is one. If the ocean bubbles up, the sky is one. Whether the earth shakes or stays still, the sky is one.

So, Guru Consciousness, or Guru Chaytan, is equal to the Space, the sky. Guru Consciousness is not the consciousness of eyes, ears, mind, intellect or ego—because even the mind is divided into different departments. But the human being is the one who does not like to be in departments.

You can see with your own case when you were small children; I, too, was like that. As a child, I did not have a department of my mum or department of my dad. My eyes saw both of them, but I had a sense of Oneness. I saw the figures, the trees, the horses, the cows, the buffalos, the bullocks, the temples, but my eyes were one, so I had only Oneness.

It means that a child has a sense of Oneness, but he cannot retain it because he has to go to school and study and he has to grow in understanding. So a child cannot be made into a person with the sense of Oneness. That Oneness becomes a young boy, a young girl, then an old man and an old woman. It becomes different, though child was one. Who is that who is one? That is Life.

Guru is the one who knows what Life is. Life alone is everywhere just the same—whether with sentient beings or insentient beings. Life is always the same. If Life is the same, then why is it that human beings love one thing and hate another? Why are they for one thing and against another? That shows that there is something a human being wants to know.

What is it that a human being wants to know? He wants to know why he is hungry, why he is thirsty. And, watch, all the departments are based upon the strengths of human beings. And human beings are those who feel hungry and feel thirsty.

If children are born without hunger and thirst, nobody can control them. As is the case with animals, if they were born without hunger and thirst, nobody could control them. And if human beings are born without desires, nobody can control them.

That means that the human being has the weakness of hunger and the weakness of thirst. But no mother gave him hunger and no father gave him thirst. Nobody considers this: from where hunger came and from where thirst came, from where human beings came and from where animals came.

And why is that after only a hundred years the same beings do not remain and some other children are born? Why is it that time and space cause such changes in human life? It is taking place, but nobody is thinking about it.

What are people thinking? That they want to be satisfied on the level of hunger and thirst, on the level of their housing or protection, and to be secure on the level of their understanding that they understand everything. They want to be satisfied, though they get satisfied and then again become dissatisfied.

What does a human being want in toto? Satisfaction—that every desire should be fulfilled. And it has not been possible for a human being to have desire fulfilled. Why? Because he has ego, intellect, mind, and the constitution of senses and limbs.

And a human being has been given a hundred years and after that he is no more. So a human being is that who does not want change and death. He has a desire or sense that he should remain alive forever—or at least a longer time—but it doesn’t happen.

There should be somebody who has thought about what a human being wants. And that is a Guru. He has understood that a human being wants to be fulfilled; that he should not be weak; he should not grow old; he should not get cancer or other diseases; and he should have love and affection, not hate anyone and not be hated.

In a human life, this is not possible. Why? Every human being is bound to work because he is hungry and he is thirsty. If this is so, he has to find some way to be secure—by earning money, getting married, having children, making political contacts. So a human being wants security, but is there any way for him to be forever Pure and Free? Guru says yes.

Why does he say yes? Because he has come to know that Guru Consciousness can be achieved by a human being. The human being is the only species whose nervous system is made such that he can think. All animals cannot. They can run here and there, but not think when they are going to die or what diseases they might get.

So, we take the example of human beings. As soon as they are born, they do not know they are born. The child does not know he is born. Parents know that he is born. What do they see when the child is born? They see the child’s form. The form has appeared, so a human being has been born. When the form has not appeared, then a human being has not been born yet.

When the child’s form appears, it is small and it has to grow. So, our society protects children, the weak and those who want to grow older and gain knowledge. However, people are attacking them from all sides, making them miserable and exploiting them. This protection is one of the departments of government. There are other departments.

As I said, Guru is not departmental. Guru knows it is all Oneness. How has he come to know? He will tell you.

Why do you want to achieve the sense of Oneness? Because when birth and death are there you are in the sense of duality—that you are born and are going to end.

The sense of two came. Everywhere, whatever appears the source is two. Even when seed is there and the sprout grows, it cannot grow unless the two parts of the seed are there—male and female. So how did it happen that everywhere in the world there is the sense of two? Everything is two—the world is second to God and second to nature.

I am bringing in the awareness of Guru and Guru Poornima. Guru Poornima is the perfect state of consciousness, where consciousness is not weak and consciousness is not attuned to birth or death. Guru Consciousness is beyond birth and death and it cannot be found in a human being who knows he is born and he will die.

Each person wants to have that state of consciousness that he should not die. But if birth has taken place, then death will take place. If appearance has taken place, disappearance will take place. So, there must be something you need to know.

Guru knows what you need to know. He knows your own True Nature, the Truth that never changes. Truth is that which is never born and will never die, unchanging, invisible.

Where is that invisible Truth? A human being cannot see because whatever he sees is changing and dying. Whatever sound his ears hear stays for some time and then goes. Everything he sees, hears, smells, tastes or touches is changing and dying. And this is the mental world, which is of change. What does a human being want in reality? No change.

He needs such a freshness that will never change. And what is that? It is his Guru Consciousness that never changes. Eyes may change, ears may change, body will change, but your Knower never changes. In every form, it is found that I am. Even an ant knows I am. An elephant knows I am. All the sentient beings know I am. Even the mountains know I am.

But man has forgotten this: that there is one Knower, one Consciousness alone. That is where the Guru is, because he has come to know it is all one Reality. So, his eyes see everywhere just the same. His ears hear just the same sound, because before sound appeared it was no sound and Guru knows that. Before forms appeared it was Space and Guru knows that. Before mind, thinking and struggle appeared, Guru knows what that was.

So, that sense of Oneness is called Guru Consciousness and it is perfect.

So many people have come from different countries to hear what Guru has to say on Guru Poornima, to share the Guru Space. What is that Guru wants to inform people of, which they have forgotten? Everybody has forgotten Life.

They know only that blood is there, bones are there, hair is there, body is there. And they are trying to protect the body without knowing that Life is forever, Life is eternal, Life is immortal. If you want to know what a man wants, he wants peace, shaanti, noiselessness of mind, worrilessness of mind, a sense of selflessness.

What does a man want? He wants to be united with that Space that he has lost. A child when he was not born he had that. “He had that” means he was the Space. But the Space came like a child—as the fragrance becomes the form of the flower and its smell. Fragrance becomes the earth and then the smell. In the same way, when the essence becomes water, then it is water. When the essence becomes fire, then it is fire. When it becomes air, then it is air. And when it becomes sky, then it is sky.

And when all these five elements are not and the products of the elements are not, what is there? That is called Guru Consciousness, Guru Existence, Guru Space. It is Pure, Free, Forever. It is Amaram Hum, Madhuram Hum. It is Immortal. And you are tuned in to that. How would you know you are tuned in to it? Just close your eyes.

Just by closing the eyes, your world is dissolved. You are not worried about the world on the level of your eyes, but since, throughout your life, you have seen things and forms and relations, so your mind is still thinking: “I have left home, come here, I have to do this thing, I have to do this thing.” But nothing is going to be fulfilled, you can continue thinking but you are sitting over here.

Now, you came to know that body is sitting like a chair sits. And who is sitting in you the body seat? Who is that you should know? The Knower.

Check at heart: are you not the Knower? With closed eyes you can think of your relations. You know them. Think of the past, what you did ten years ago. You know it. Think of the ocean. You know it. Think of the ports. You know them. Think of the airports. You know them. Think of the passengers. You know them. Think of cars and machines. You know them. Think of the world. You know it. Think of millennia and history. You know them. Is your Knower small?

If you can know the history of thousands of years, is your Knower not ancient? And can you not conceive of when the world was not? How many millions and millions of years ago was it when the world was not, yet you know.

There was a time when the world was not, but as a human being you have not been given the power to know what that was. That is Guru Consciousness, who comes on earth as a human being just to tell you that you were there. That was you. That was I. That was he. That was she. Not as a form, it was the Knower.

He is a Knower. She is a Knower. A child is a Knower. A man is a Knower. An old man is a Knower. And that Knower has been; that Knower is; and that Knower always will be. That Knower is called Guru Consciousness, Guru Existence—Pure, Free, Forever. And it is found in you. Everybody has that infinite Guru, to whom I bow down, with whom I am one and whom I know from head to toe. That is the Knower.

Every single cell is filled with the Knower. If your hair is touched, your hair knows. Even if your toenail is touched, it knows. It means the Knower is the Reality. Love is the Reality. Knowledge is the Reality. Reality means Truth and Truth is the Knower.

But having been born as a child, a human being is trained differently. So, after four or five years, his language is different, his ideas are different, his family tradition is different from other families, his love and hate are different. Everything is different. That is what a human being has become. All over the world, you watch, every child is speaking his mother tongue. This means at the level of language there is difference, but, for the one who knows, there is no difference.

And that Knower is Guru, which is why having realized the Knower he loves everyone and everything, and he knows everyone and everything. He knows that everyone’s desire is not to die. No sentient being on earth, even a little mosquito, wants to die.

That deathlessness is called Amaram Hum, Madhuram Hum. That is the phrase that God has given to us, Guru has given to us, to radiate to all people. Just to know that you are That. You are missing That. You are saying, “I was born as a child. These are my relations. I am getting old. I am losing this, I am losing that. Somebody has died.” This is a very incorrect way of living life.

The correct way of living life is that each human being should know: I am that who never dies. The body dies, not I. Because without I, the Knower will not be there. I am the Knower. You can hear the Truth but without I or me, you cannot know the Truth. This means I am the Truth. Each one is the Truth. It is not that this body is speaking so I am the Truth, you are also the same Truth.

Here, on Guru Poornima Day, you are hearing the sound and voice of your own Being. Because, if I speak and you are listening, then you must be me. Otherwise, how could you hear the same words and the same sense and meaning? It is Sameness, Oneness. It is Guru-ness—and that is the celebration we are having today.

A Guru comes on earth, like me, and he holds the department of Oneness exclusively, not getting mixed with any other department—although he loves all the departments of life and all the people in those departments. Wherever the Universal Existence is, he loves it. But he has to hold the department where people can come and share the information that they are missing: I am immortal, I am blissful.

That is the mantr—Amaram Hum, Madhuram Hum. And you can see on Guru Poornima Day, very specifically, when you close your eyes and watch the Space. It is called Shyam Space, Krishna Space, Ram Space, Shiv Space, Kali Durga Space, Saraswati Space. Any name, any form, it is the Space.

Check this Space. In the Bhagavad Gita, they say: Nainam chindanti shastraani—this Space cannot be cut by weapons; I have come to know this and you will also come to know, because you are the same. Nainam dahati paavakah—this Space cannot be burnt by fire. Na chainam klaydayantyaapo—it cannot be made wet by water.

And, watch, this Space has not come from Bhuntar; it has not come from Delhi; it has not come from America; it has not come from England; it has not come from Norway, New Zealand, Australia or South Africa; it has not come from the sky, sun or moon. You just close your eyes and that is You.

It is You alone, which means You without any paraphernalia. Your chair and body are there, but You are exclusively Pure, Free, Forever. And now the difficulty comes that human beings are bound to the senses, mind and the ego and see the forms only. And forms are changing. So they know only birth and death, and are protecting themselves from death—though cannot do this, but they are trying.

However, if you become consciously aware that you are immortal and blissful, all your work will be very easy, your interactions will be very easy and your life will become a very blessed state. Provided you practise five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the evening.

Wherever you are, there I am. I sit on this chair to speak to you, but soon I will sit with you and we will hear the same songs. The same sound that the bird is singing or speaking, you are speaking. And who is the speaker, the Source? That is Guru, that is God. And Guru and God are One.