The truth is that the real guru is in everybody. Guru is not an external reality, I am not the guru, and nobody is a guru. We are indicators to the inner guru. Not only that, the inner guru is beyond the reach of everybody. The guru is within you. The external guru is not necessary. Can you talk to the internal guru, can you hear him, can you understand him? He is telling you so many things, he is guiding you, he is waking you up, but you don’t understand it. You are deaf and he speaks silently. This is the greatest gap, this is the greatest distance between you and your inner guru. This is with everybody in the world. Therefore, you must realize the truth in contradiction.
Number one, the guru is in me and not outside, but you are my guru. This is how we have to understand the truth in total contradiction, in total paradox. Many times I tell people, the external guru is the detonator, he helps you to explode, to awaken the inner guru. Just as you have a detonator for a bomb, if there is no detonator the bomb will never explode. In the same way, the role of external guru is clear. What does he do? He just explodes the awareness of your inner master. And that’s what we have been doing.
But at the same time we must remember, when a man approaches the aspirations of spiritual life, he approaches with incompleteness. Sometimes he is neurotic. Now do you think that a person who has no father or who has missed a father, or a person who has lost his beloved, or lover, or has no beloved and lover, should not go to a guru? No, this is not the condition. Anybody can go and approach a guru. And the guru will understand him.
First of all the guru will fill up the vacuum. It may be a psychological vacuum, it could be an emotional vacuum, it could be a philosophical vacuum. He could be your guide, your friend, your philosopher, he can play all the roles in your life so that you may not feel the vacuum which you had in your life. But gurus are very alert people. They understand their mission very well. While giving the love of a father, or lover, or beloved, while fulfilling the role of a friend, guide and philosopher, guru knows only one thing that they will have to awaken the guru inside the chap.
What is the meaning of guru? Master? No. Professor? No. Teacher? No. Preceptor? No. Guru is the lighter.
Guru means who lights the lamp; there is a candle, I light it, there is a lantern, I light it, there is the bulb, I put on the switch. That is the role of the guru. Where is the light? It is in everybody but you do not know where is the switch. The candle is in you, but you don’t have the matchbox. Therefore, guru is a combination of two letters. Gu means darkness, ru means dispeller, so the etymology is dispeller of darkness, remover of darkness, killer of darkness, this is the negative expression. What is the positive expression? The bringer of light, the lighter of light, so there are two aspects of guru. Do not miss these two aspects, do understand these two aspects.
One is the negative aspect, the other is the positive aspect.
The remover of ignorance or darkness is the negative aspect; harbinger of light is the positive aspect. When guru fulfils the role of a father etc., that is his negative aspect, that is his negative definition. When he becomes the instrument of inner light, that is his positive role. Therefore, you should be very clear in expressing who a guru is.
There is a story in the Upanishads: Once a great sage approached his master. The guru said, “Why have you come here?” The sage said, “I want knowledge from you.” He said, “Okay, come tomorrow.” He went back. Next morning what did he do? He filled his motor car or wagon, or whatever you may say, with a lot of books. There were the books on philosophy, theology, theosophy, yoga, tantra, etc. Thousands of books. He went to his guru and told his guru, “Sir, these books I have mastered, now you know what you should teach me.” The guru said, “What exactly you want tell me?” He said, “I want the inner light.” He said, “But what do the books have got to do with that?” The disciple could not answer, because so far he was thinking that books will light his lamp.
So long he was thinking that all the knowledge he was gathering would ultimately culminate into illumination. And here this guru is telling something else. Then he said, “All these books which I have been reading, have I been wasting my time?” The guru said, “No, no it has not wasted your time, these books have brought you to me.” There is a necessity of theoretical and intellectual knowledge. You can’t burn all the books. But if you think that books alone can make you a guru, impossible. And thus, the story goes that, the guru gave him enlightenment.
In the same way, the external guru has to be capable of helping you to light the inner lamp. Even as you see the subtle microbes through a microscope, without it you can never see them with the naked eyes, the inner eye has to be opened. If the inner eye is opened, then you can see the glory of your inner light. Of course, if the psychologists can give a spiritual turn to the life of the individual, and if they do not leave the individual half the way after treatment, and if they can definitely fill the vacuum created by the absence of father, if they can explain it to him at all, then they are also gurus. And if there are such psychologist gurus, I will remove my hat for them, in reverence, in worship.
After all there is so much of difficulties in our emotional life. Even if you have your father and mother living, if you are emotionally full, and intellectually full, and if you are financially full, if you are full and full and full, still you are incomplete unless the inner awareness is handled and grasped.
One has a beautiful body, good health, brilliant, obedient, lovable wife, eminence, fame, all over, and a lot of money in American and Swiss banks, but if one has not known the glory of guru and his role in life, these things are not going to make one complete.
I was given a poem this morning, it is in Sanskrit and it is a hymn to guru. There are six hymns, and these are addressed to the inner guru, not the physical guru, the guru that is beyond darkness, and the hymns say, “Guru is the creator, guru is the preserver and guru is the destroyer. There is no one beyond guru.” To such a guru I salute. What are the attributes of guru? Full of absolute bliss, transcendental ecstasy, and knowledge absolute beyond conflicts and controversies, without any fault, the totality of all emotion, whom the three gunas do not touch at all, who is the essence of man’s existence, to him I salute. You see this is the ode to the inner guru by the disciple.
First of all, we present this ode to the guru whom we know. We present these ideas to him, full of devotion and full of divine attitude. And through him the whole thing comes back to me and it goes deep into my spirit and that awakens the guru. So therefore, you can say the guru is my father, he is my lover or beloved, he is my son or brother, my boss or secretary, he is my friend, guide and philosopher. You can consider him whatever you like. But you must remember the ultimate purpose. If you forget that purpose, then all those relationships carry no meaning.
August 1981, Chamarande, France