The real guru is within everybody. All of you must listen to this truth. Guru is not an external reality, he is within everybody. He keeps on guiding you all throughout life, but we are ignorant people and therefore we are not able to understand that voice or the guidance of the inner guru. The inner guru is known as satguru, and when you praise your guru, you are actually praising him. This is the truth which I am putting before you, how to commune with the inner guru. For that purpose, you have to have an outer guru. The external guru puts you in touch with the satguru.
The external guru is the medium through which you reach your inner guide. Therefore, it is important for you to have faith, devotion and understanding for the outer guru. He teaches you practices through which your mind becomes very subtle and begins to visualize the inner guru. The outer gurus are of two types. One is called the teacher and the other is called the guru or master. The teacher teaches your intellect, your mind, yoga or anything else, and the guru can transmit the knowledge into your spirit without teaching you.
The main duty of a guru is to remove the darkness within your mind. Within the mind there is no light, there is total darkness. You can remember things, you can think things, but you cannot experience your inner spirit. If all these lights go off just now and there is no moonlight outside, there will be total darkness in the hall. Then I cannot recognize any one of you. You cannot identify anyone here, because there is total darkness. Now you bring the light into this hall and you can identify everyone here. In the same way, within your mind, within your consciousness, within your spirit, there are many wonderful and beautiful experiences.
Within you is bliss and within you is light and within you is divine experience, but you cannot experience that, because there is darkness in your consciousness. Because of this darkness you are not able to experience your satguru, and for that an external guru comes and helps you remove the darkness. If there is a treasure of gold underneath the earth, you will have to dig it out. Without digging you cannot get the treasure, and for digging you need tools and you must also know where to dig. In the same way, in order to realize the satguru you will have to dig into your mind.
This tradition of guru and disciple relationship is very old.
The relationship, the link between them is not intellectual. It is emotional initially, but not totally emotional. You have a link with your children, that is paternal and maternal emotion. You have a relationship with your husband or your wife, which is a marital relationship. You have a relationship with your friends, which is a fraternal relationship. You have a relationship with your boss in the office or with your sub- ordinate and that is an intellectual relationship. In the same way, you have a relationship with your guru, and that is a spiritual relationship. It is neither physical, mental, intellectual or emotional. It is based on the purity of your faith or belief. This is one explanation.
Guru and disciple both make one circuit. When they come together, they create a polarity in the field of energy. Just as in the electrical cable you have two lines, positive and negative, in the same way there is a relationship between guru and disciple. Guru is the positive energy and disciple is the negative energy, when these two energies unite at some point, there is the manifestation of shakti. In fact, this is the true relationship between guru and disciple. It is very difficult to practise this relationship. Guru is pingala and disciple is ida. Guru is purusha and disciple is prakriti. Guru represents consciousness and disciple represents nature. Guru represents masculine energy and disciple represents feminine energy.
There is a third explanation. Guru is the operator and disciple is the medium. Guru uses the disciple as a field of the manifestation of his energy. I have tried this third explanation many times and I found that this relationship is very productive. I think I can project myself in my disciple and create things. This means my disciple is a medium.
There is one way of developing the relationship between guru and disciple and I can give you one example. Here are a number of lights. The moment I put off the main switch, all the lights will instantaneously go off. They won’t take time. They obey the law. The light will not think, ‘Okay, the switch has gone off but I can stay on for a minute.’ That is called obedience, and in the obedience of a disciple there is no place for reasoning, no provision or possibility for reasoning. Reason was the helper once upon a time, but if you want to be a disciple then reason is a barrier. Therefore, you have to transcend reason. If I tell the disciple to sit down, he should not say, ‘Why?’ If I say, ‘Go right now.’ He should not say, ‘What for? Have you gone crazy?’
There are many stories in the tradition of Christian, Hindu and Buddhist mysticism and I can recite one story here. In Tibet there was one boy called Milarepa. He went to his guru. His guru did not allow him to enter the house. Instead he abused him and ill-treated him. He misbehaved, and tortured him. Milarepa had completely dismissed his reasoning. One day when the guru had gone out, the guru’s wife brought Milarepa some fresh boiled meat to eat. Immediately the guru appeared and he said, ‘Ah, I know, what is going on between you two, you rascal get out of here.’ He made Milarepa carry stones to the top of the mountain from the road. The poor boy carried boulder after boulder, week after week, and month after month and built a little house for himself. One day his guru went to inspect the house. He found Milarepa relaxing. He said, ‘Hey you lazy boy, you are not going to stay here at all – dismantle the house and bring the boulders down.’ What would you do if I asked you to do this? You would say, ‘Crazy man, crazy man.’ You would say, ‘I think there is definitely something wrong with my guru.’
This is the way in which Gurus make disciples their mediums. If you cannot obey your guru, you cannot become a medium. If you analyse and assess the guru, you cannot be a medium. In history all great disciples have been mediums of their guru. But this third explanation is a very difficult one and not everybody can be like that.
6 December 1982, Medellín, Colombia