Guru and Disciple

Author(s): Dada Bhagwan
Publisher: Mahavideh Foundation

Page 19

The Guru and the Disciple
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The Guru and the Disciple
in your mind that she is your wife. Will she really become your wife? Does it work that way? Does that mean you are married to her? Will it be acceptable if you do not undergo the rituals of a marriage ceremony?
Questioner: Say, for example, a guru migrates permanently to another country and I want to believe in him as my guru. Can I not keep his photograph and think of him as my
guru?
Dadashri: No, you will not get anywhere doing that. A guru is someone who shows you the path. A photograph cannot show you the way so that guru is useless. If you become sick, and you worship the photograph of a doctor, will your illness go away?
Who is your Guru? Questioner: Gnan has manifest within you, did you have a
knowledge (updesh); such a person can be regarded as a guru. Had I met Krupadudev, even for just five minutes, I would have made him my guru; that is what I had understood. I have not made anyone my guru. I have done darshan (seen with reverence) of many other saints, but I will not make anyone my guru until my heart accepts him. There is no doubt that the saints I had met were true saints, but acceptance by the heart is also needed.
Respect for the Gurus of the past life I do not have a guru in this lifetime, but that does not mean I never had a guru before.
Questioner: So did you have a guru in your previous life?
Dadashri: Without a guru, man cannot progress. For that matter, no guru has progressed without a guru. What I am saying is that not a single person has been without a guru.
Questioner: Who was your guru in your previous life?
Dadashri: Whoever he was, he must have been good. How can I know more about him now?
Questioner: Even Shrimad Rajchandra had a guru, did he not?
guru too?
Dadashri: I have not met a living guru in this life. Whom can you call a true guru? A true guru is the one that is living and present (pratyaksh). Otherwise, all these are merely photographs. Lord Krishna would be useful if he was living. But people sell his pictures and people buy the pictures and frame them. In this life, I have not had the decided experience this is my guru' about anyone, One can only be defined a guru if he is living and present for you, and you absorb his teachings with unmatched intensity (dharan), such that over a few months there develops a gurushishya (master-disciple) relationship. I have not developed a relationship like that with anyone in this life; I have not met a living guru in this life.
I had more bhaav (attraction with devotion and reverence) for Krupadudev (Shrimad Rajchandra), but because he was not present, I could not accept him as my guru. Whom would I accept as a guru? The one who is present, the one who gives me direct aadesh (directives and instructions), the one who gives me
Dadashri: He did not meet a guru in his lifetime. He had said that if he had met a satguru, he would have followed him everywhere! His Gnan, however, was real. In his ultimate state, the Gnan that manifested within him was Atma Gnan.
Questioner: Even the Gnan that manifested in you, did so without a guru did it not?
Dadashri:I had brought such a karmic account from the past. In the past I met gurus, I met Gnanis and from them I have brought forth the merit karmas (punya). My progress must have halted due to some mistake on my part. I did not have a guru in this lifetime, but I must have had one in the previous life. In my