Guru Poornima 2009
The bright sun bathed the Valley of Gods in its brilliant light for the celebration of this year’s Guru Poornima. This festival, which takes place on the full moon in the month of July, is when devotees throughout India and the rest of the world come together to honour Guru. In Kullu, people from the local community, across India and many other countries came to enjoy the songs, dances and speeches presented on this special day. They made offerings, received prasaad and, of course, listened to Swamiji speak about the meaning of this festival. This is a transcript of Swamiji’s talk.
Today is the very important day of Guru Poornima. Why? Because Guru is never born and Guru never dies. Therefore, this is not the kind of day when the sun shines and you see day. It is the Eternal Existence, Eternal Consciousness, which is not in time and space. It makes time, it makes space, it makes all five tattwas [elements] and is prior to all the tattwas.
A human being, having all five tattwas, the body, got caught and cannot remember his Reality, because he is constituted such that he should remain a human being. He can do good things, he can help and serve others and try to remove the dukh, pain, of others. But he cannot succeed in removing his own pain and suffering, which is his forgetfulness, unless Guru comes on earth.
Guru reminds you that you are perfect, you are poorn. Guru is already there: without Guru, you cannot see; without Guru, you cannot hear; without Guru, you cannot eat; without Guru, you cannot drink; without Guru, you cannot walk; without Guru, you cannot be in any situation—waking, dreaming or deep sleep. That Guru, that mahanta, greatness, man has forgotten.
People say you’ll be great if you learn this thing or that thing, or this art. They say become a musician and you’ll be great. They say learn politics or economics and you’ll be great. But in this way, nobody attains greatness, and, ultimately, he dies. You can make efforts for greatness, but you cannot achieve it unless Guru comes on earth and says you do not have to waste your lifetime, you are already That.
How difficult it will be. Today, in half an hour, you cannot learn it. As a child you have grown. First of all, your body became big, and then you got some knowledge of things, forms and names. Nobody taught you that there is something beyond name and form, and that is your Sattaa, your Consciousness, your Awareness. So, this is the day of Awareness. All of you are filled with that joy and state of happiness. With that sense of happiness, you are celebrating Guru Poornima.
I came to know that in the body there is a feeling that “I should be happy,” and for the world it is the same thing, that it should be happy. How to make the world happy will not depend on the earth or the forest or rivers. It will be the duty of a being. If a being wants to help the world and make it happy, united and joyful, what should he do? He has to know that he should make himself happy.
The individual has to be happy, but what is being taught? That you are born for others, you are born for family, you are born for your country, you are born for the world and you should sacrifice everything for the sake of making others happy. This is what you have learnt: that you should do everything for others. But nobody told you that you cannot do for others unless you have something.
You should have something. If you have health, you can give to others. If you have love in your heart, you can give to others. If you have knowledge in your mind, you can give to others. If you have anything, wealth in your treasury, food, then you can give it to somebody.
It means you should have. This is not selfishness. It is self-fullness. It is not individual escapism; not being one little spider and being confined to your web. Self-fullness means develop yourself and attain Guru power, which is Oneness. If Oneness is achieved, then the sense of duality, otherness and hatred will be lost.
How to attain this sense of Oneness? On this Guru Poornima day, we are revealing to you how to go about it. Guru is that one who gives you a technique: while you are acting, he gives the technique of how to act; while you are learning, he gives you the technique of how to think; when you are deciding, he tells you how to develop your intellect to decide things; and he tells you how to develop your ego or I-sense so that it is one with the whole Universe. That is why it is called Guru Poornima. If the individual does not attain the sense of Oneness, the Wholeness, the Totality, he cannot observe Guru Poornima.
And today when I see all of you totally riveted in the space of Oneness, I appreciate and thank you. I pranaam, bow down, to that Guru who has given me the Guru eye. People have human eyes that see a rope and say a snake is there. Children have children’s eyes that see the darkness and say a ghost is there. And people see the earth is there and say the earth should be permanent. Whereas, for the one who is holding the earth, this eye [of ignorance] has not been given.
A human being can know this. He can conceive that there must be something. When the world forms are not there, there must be the Space, or one reality. But then immediately the mind says, “What is it to us if I have that one reality? You can tell me that when the world is dissolved, it is one reality, and that the world came from one reality. But what about in the middle?” The one who thinks about the middle is the mind. As long as the mind functioning has not been coloured by Guru mind, who knows that it is the Space, you cannot be free. Guru mind knows that out of the Space all the grass is coming, trees are coming, the mountain is rising, the volcano is happening. Then the human mind can understand, so such words are used. Otherwise, there is no necessity of words. You sit down quiet, I can sit down quiet, but you cannot be free from knowing. …
Guru is the one who opens the third eye, the Shiv naytr, the gyan chakshu, the Aatma chakshu. So when you are hearing me you are tuned in to the celebration of Oneness, Aykta, unity, happiness. Having attained that Oneness, all your actions become wonderful, all your art becomes wonderful, all your music becomes wonderful, all your work becomes wonderful, all your interactions with people become wonderful. Why? Because you have no fear of birth or death. Nor are you trying to get a good birth again and again—you already have the birth of a human being. And you have no fear of death, because you are not going to die. Guru Poornima is the message of Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum. Repeat Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum twenty-four times. Now close your eyes.
How easy this is to remember: it beings with “a.” And everybody can sing the last letter of the varnamala [the Sanskrit or Hindi alphabet], which is “m.” Between “a” and “m” the whole Universe came into existence. That which permeates Amaram is Pure Awareness. That is Hum [Swamiji makes a deep humming sound]. You do not have to utter any letter of the varnamaala, you can just have the lips closed and still you can say Hum, Hum, Hum. Even a man in hospital on his sick bed, if he remains quiet but utters the word Hum, his praan will become united, and if he was going to die he will get up and walk. That is Hum. Amaram Hum is the source of the whole sound field of existence. It is birthless and deathless, so it is Madhuram, full of delight; that which is amar, immortal, must be madhur, delightful. Our acharyas, or Gurus, have said So Hum [a mantra], Brahm [the Absolute]—everything ends with Hum.
It is the modern time of intelligence, and people will not believe in dogmas. There are different cultures, divisions; it is Kali Yug, the machine age. Everywhere machines are being developed. But in this age of machine development, where is the one who knows the machine? The Knower is missing. And Guru has come on earth to tell you that you are the Knower. Knower is birthless, deathless, Guru Poorn. This is the revival of the knowledge that you have forgotten by birth. And birth is important, because you can now revive the knowledge. Therefore, salutations to human beings, and salutations to those who have Guru in their hearts.
