Wager of Ambrosia

Chapter 3

Glory be to the Guru

The traditional wisdom tells us that you have to give yourself to the Guru in order to be taken over entirely by him for your soul’s and your life’s fulfilment. The mother-child and the father-son are but only two types among the innumerable rela­tionships there can be with the relationless Divine. Not only Father or Mother, he is also Teacher, Master, Lord, Friend, Philosopher, Guide, Precep­tor, Playmate, Com­rade, Lover, even Antagonist. When on the battlefield Arjuna witnessed in the Avatar the aspect of the Dreadful Cosmic Spirit, he repented and spoke of the casualness with which he had behaved with him;* Ravana wished to merge into the Supreme by following the Path of Enmity; Kutsa attained such likeness with Indra that he was taken by him to his home; the help of heroic kings as colleagues was sought by the gods in the heavenly battles; the Bhakta surrenders entirely to the deity of his worship even as he practises devotion in the ninefold manner; the Jnani is ever absorbed in contemplation of the omnipresent Reality, while the Rishi does Tapas on the Truth-existent and takes a new birth in its spiritual fire; the Yogi gathers himself into the Divine Being, the Giver of Siddhis, Siddheshwar, and remains in its perfection. The One in the mode of the Many establishes as many contacts in the creative manifestation of his delight. Each is a soul-relationship with the Oversoul when projected in the terrestrial play, the play working itself out in the

*"For whatsoever I have spoken to thee in rash vehemence, thinking of thee only as a human friend and companion, 'O, Krishna, O Yadava, O Comrade,' not knowing this thy greatness, in negligent error or in love, and for whatsoever disrespect was shown by me to thee in jest, on the couch and the seat and in the banquet, alone or in thy presence, I pray forgiveness from thee the immeasurable. Thou art the father of all this world of the moving and unmoving; thou art one to be worshipped and the most solemn object of veneration. None is equal to thee, how then another greater in all the three worlds, O incomparable in might? Therefore I bow down before thee and prostrate my body and I demand grace of thee the adorable Lord. As a father to his son, as a friend to his friend and comrade, as one dear with him he loves, so shouldst thou, O Godhead, bear with me. I have seen what never was seen before and I rejoice, but my mind is troubled with fear. O Godhead, show me that other form of thine. I would see thee even as before crowned and with thy mace and discus. Assume thy four-armed shape, O thousand-armed, O Form universal." (The Gita: 11.41-46; Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, SABCL, Vol. 13, p. 375)

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world of death, Mrityuloka. Not self-oblivion or abolition of our individuality in the featureless Absolute should be the object of our true endeavour; but the perfection of free spirit in the divine nature and its conduct and happy expression in that law is what has to occur. Each one then becomes real-ideally his amsha, his part, a Vibhuti possessing correspondingly the aspect of him who is of infinite Quality, ananta guni; one Narayana is then present in every Nara. These divine souls indeed will be the denizens of the divine creation that is to come on the earth.

When such is the state, then in it all distances between the Guru and the Shishya disappear. The Preceptor is not seated high on a pedestal and the Disciple low on the ground at his feet. And yet in the evolving consciousness this separation has to be meaningfully and functionally recognised. In fact, according to the tradition, initiation of the aspirant into spiritual life is done in secrecy, with the tacit understanding that nothing of it will be spread around or disclosed to anybody. The Shishya lives in the physical presence of the Guru for three days and nights, as if taking a new birth in the warm luminous womb of the Initiator. The Dikshakar takes upon himself the entire burden when the Dikshita surrenders to him totally. For him “Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, Guru is the great God Shiva; Guru is the transcendental Eternal,” and before this auspicious and benedictive excellence does he ever bow.

is Viswasaratantra’s prayer offered to the greatness of the Guru. With his help even the lame can cross a mountain and the dumb pour out an ocean of knowledge in impeccable speech. According to the Veda the Teacher is the pathfinder who leads the pupil directly forward to the goal of whole-natured Awareness, vindatyajjasinam. There is also a tradition which recognises four types of Gurus: Guru, Param Guru, Parameshthi Guru, and Paratpara Guru—the Preceptor, the spiritual Teacher of one’s own Guru, the most excellent Guru, and he to whom is applied the description “Guru is verily the supreme Brahman, the Eternal”, gurursakshat parabrahma. To have the uttermost Guru, the Paratpara, the Supreme, is an exceptional privilege and one can never be sufficiently grateful to him when he happens to come to us.

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Rare is this relationship, possible only when the Divine incarnates as an Avatar and embraces the ready soul. But, and quite understandably, it is generally the initiator-aspect alone that we associate with the Guru. In the one we see the unborn disciple, aja, entering into spiritual life and in the other the already realised soul, pakva, living in the white radiance of the Benign.

What does the Guru do? He accepts the responsibility of the Shishya in every respect, spiritually and materially. All his past Karmas are dissolved, all his predisposi­tions or samskaras are removed. One gets the Guru by the grace of the Guru himself; that is grace itself. Truly, for the Shishya there is no God higher than the Guru, na devah sriguroh parah. Which then means that he should not do anything which will be harmful for his progress. Slippery also is the path and the result can be serious and grave. He has to remain in the protective atmosphere of the Guru and he has to be ever-vigilant. Wrong deeds done by him will accumulate fresh samskaras or Karmas which will be more difficult to overcome and discard—in fact, spiritually, the consequences can be even disastrous. The Shishya raising his hand against the Guru, in whatever manner or form it be, under whatever compulsions it be, particularly when the Guru is the Avatar, is the extreme perversity bearing its own calamity of consequence—unless there intervenes the Grace of the Guru. Complete sincerity is the only holiness, punya, that can help the seeker under the Guru’s care. Very often people forget why they have gone to a Guru. They start having or putting non-spiritual demands and get swayed by extraneous considerations. To hold the central aim of sadhana in focus is an obligation that rests entirely with the Shishya. His one main concern should be Godward progress. The Guru’s help is always for this purpose and not for satisfying his vitalistic desires and ambitions. How sad when the aim is lost! How wonderful when steadfast he remains in faith!

One of the methods by which the Guru initiates the Shishya is by giving him the Mantra, the Word of spiritual Power and Realisation, the Word that effects transforma­tion in his soul and spirit. The initiation by the Guru can even be by putting his hand on the head of the disciple, as Ramakrishna did in the case of Vivekananda. It can be the invisible Presence which can touch the aspirant,

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enter into his consciousness and lead him on the path. Even in his external activities, or in acquisition of skills, the Instructor can bring him up and make him an accomplished expert in the field. Ekalavya, of the Hill-Tribe, learnt the art of archery by worshipping the clay-image of Dronacharya who had refused to accept him as his disciple in the royal company of the Pandavas. For exceptional souls not the human Guru but the Great Spirit of Time, Mahakala, who manifests in him is the sovereign moulder of their destiny. When the Mantra is established in a definite way Peace, Light, Power, Knowledge, Joy course through the inner being of the receiver. In the silence of his mind the quiet listener gets the message and

The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:

Thought, vision, feeling, sense, the body’s self

Are seized unalterably and he endures

An ecstasy and an immortal change;

He feels a Wideness and becomes a Power,

All knowledge rushes on him like a sea:

Transmuted by the white spiritual ray

He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm,

Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech.

(Savitri, p. 375)

Happy is the man when this exceptional moment arrives for him. Happier still is he who lives in it. He who chooses the Guru has actually been chosen by the Guru.

Such a miracle of high order was wrought in Jnaneshwar by the power of his Guru Nivritti, his elder brother, who belonged to the Tantrik Nath Sect or Sampradaya, the Practitioners of the Occult Method. One day Nivritti, when he was hardly a ten-year-old boy,  lost his way in the Brahmagiri mountains around the Trimbakeshwara Temple. In that bewildered state he happened to enter a cave where a Yogi with a shining countenance was seated in deep medi­tation. When the Yogi opened his eyes he was struck by the boy and, smiling, spoke to him affectionately. Introducing himself as Gahininath, he told Nivritti that his Guru Gorakshanath had foreseen his coming and had instructed him to initiate the boy into the sacred Mystery.

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Gorakshanath was the preceptor of Nivritti’s great-grandfather Trimbakpant. Nivritti was given the Mantra Rama-Krishna-Hari and was further told that he should initiate his brother Jnaneshwar in the spiritual path. A mission for him was already marked out by the Yogi. In the epilogue to Jnaneshwari the author gives the lineage of his Gurus, starting from Matsyendranath who directly received the yogic lore of ancient times given to Goddess Parvati by Yogeshwar Shiva himself. Matsyendranath taught it to Goraksha­nath from whom it came down to Nivrittinath. Later, this Nath Sampradaya went from Maharashtra to Bengal and from there spread to other parts of the country. Many supernatural acts are attributed to these Naths.

In Jnaneshwari Jnaneshwar acknowledges at a number of places,—in fact almost at every important step,—the benedictive gifts he received from Nivritti. The way an empty pitcher gets filled up with water when dipped in the sea, or the way a wick gets lighted in the flame of a bright lamp, in that way, says Jnaneshwar, was he inspired by his Guru to undertake the composition of the Gita in Marathi. It is indeed by the glory of the Guru’s grace, by his lustrous majesty, krupeche vaibhava, that he has been able to accomplish this task, a task of such difficulty as was there to found the Roman race—to adapt Virgil. The Guru’s forbearance is that of the earth who ungrudgingly and tirelessly upholds the movable and immovable objects; from his ambrosia does the moon give soothing coolness to the world; his bright radiance is taken by the sun to remove darkness all around; from him the sea gets its supply of water, and the water its sweetness, and the sweetness its beauty; from him the wind derives its strength of impetuosity and the sky its blue wideness and knowledge its imperial glow and grandeur; the Vedas find their easy yet forceful utterance because of him, as does happiness its buoyant delight, and the universe its comely form:

(Jnaneshwari : 18.1723-28)

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Thus Jnaneshwar gives his obeisance to the rising sun who is the Guru, who dispels the night of ignorance and spreads the day of auspicious realisation. While singing this praise the transcendent (Para) and the articulate colloquial (Vaikhari) enter into the secrecy of the seen (Pashyanti) and the mature middle (Madhyama) tongues, the four divisions of speech joining together in one fulfilled expression. He offers such a Song of Adoration to the Preceptor and rests in him fully assured, without any fear. He has done Vak-Tapas in previous births and it is as the fruit of this Tapas’ Truth-Word that he is now ready to do Gita-recitation in a new language. His yogic preparation and yogic mission under the guidance of the Guru have arrived at this point; now both experience and expression flow mellifluously through the revelatory utterance of another mantric lyricism. As the Upanishad would say, ascetic effort (tapah-prabhava) and benedictive grace (guru-kripa) have given him this siddhi. We are fortunate to receive it through him.

Jnaneshwar raises the Guru to the height of the Supreme, not just because of a certain tradition but because of a definite fact of spiritual truth that is there behind it. However, it is not the same thing as the Supreme coming down and becoming a Guru. In other words, what Jnaneshwar is describing is the Guru-Shishya relationship and not, for instance, the Mother-Child or Father-Son relationship. If the one is austere and spiritually luminous, the other is warm with love, is endearingly sweet and felicitous. In the one there is the fulfilment of the Yoga of Self-Realisation, with the liberation of the soul in the Brahman as its complete siddhi; in the other the constitutional nature also comes into play and it works on the material level to bring about a transformative miracle. The one is for Swargaloka; the other is for Mrityuloka. This does not mean that the yogic stature of Jnaneshwar suffers in any way, just as the significance of the work of Rama or Krishna or Buddha does not get diminished in the later contexts. It simply means that we are living in New Time, Time that has come directly from Eternity, Time in which each individual finds his proper manifestive purpose and truth. To live and grow in it, in that multifold Reality, should be our commit­ment towards this New Time and we must accept it and fulfill ourselves in it. In it are the hundred relations with the Guru who is the Avataric Divine himself. Salutations be to the Guru!

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