May 10, 2016 at 11:03 am

Guru means ” one who dispels the darkness of ignorance.”  Guru or the spiritual master is the one who is our spiritual guide and helps us in advancing on the spiritual path.

My first brush with spirituality was when I did my basic course of Art of Living. That was when I was introduced to my spiritual master H.H.Sri Sri Ravishankar ji. I am really thankful to my Guru for being an inspiration and helping me in finding my true purpose of life.

Do you have a Guru?

May 10, 2016 at 12:42 pm

I have always been rather uncomfortable with the idea of following a single spiritual guru. While I know some people who have found this helpful to them, I have seen far too many cases in both Eastern and Western style communities where the spiritual leader was either ill equipped to give the guidance sought, or was outright corrupt and just using people for money, free labour, etc.

I am a NeoPagan. In my religion, it is very uncommon to see anyone following a single guru. We do have our spiritual Elders, who have helped us to explore our path and shared their experiences so we can learn from them. But for most of us, the Elders are just a number of older or more experienced people we have met along the way, and whom we respect because of the way they conduct themselves. They need not belong to the same spiritual path as the individual, just a related one 🙂

I respect a handful of Elders whom I have known personally. But there are also Elders whom I have met only peripherally, or have only encountered through their writings. I still count these people among my Elders. But ultimately, I make up my own mind about all things spiritual. Any teachings of my Elders (or teaching I give, now that I am an Elder in my own tradition) are offered for consideration only. There is no attempt to tell others what they should or should not believe, or what moral standards they should follow. Ours is a religion based very much in personal responsibility and free choice. It does not lend itself well to the hero worship prevalent in many other religions.

May 10, 2016 at 1:01 pm

I do not have a Guru. I know it’s good to have one who can really guide and inspire us. I am quite new in this spiritual journey. I usually just read from books or online articles to get more information on this area.

I was not brought up in a religious family, and now I am a Buddhist as I am interested in Buddha teachings but I am also open to other religious teachings. I became a Buddhist last year after I attended a short meditation class in a Buddhist organization. The teachings there really resonate with me. To be frank, there are other Buddhist organizations, but not all interest me. So, now I always like to follow and read from the masters of that particular Buddhist organization that I joined.

Besides Buddha teachings, I am interested in learning more about Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy too. He was actually the man who inspired me to start to explore this spiritual journey.

May 12, 2016 at 5:54 am

I do not have a Guru too. This is the first time I learned about this. I only know to read the Bible and pray to God to guide me. I know he is guiding me all the way, i just need to learn to listen to him. I am a Catholic but recently, as I get older, I am not a follower of some religious activities. For me it is enough to have a relationship with God, though I cannot justify on this one.

May 12, 2016 at 6:55 am

Me too, I don’t have a guru.

I don’t have anyone that brings me out of the dark.

I had to come out on my own.

However,I remembered once that my younger brother was “possessed”.

He was acting weirdly, he wasn’t himself, he was alike a zombie at home.

He even wanted to eat flies instead of food.

My mom was worried, went to church asked the priest to give her a bottle of holy water.

Holy water is the water from the rain, blessed by the priest.

She came back home with a palm leaf , dip into the holy water and sprinkled on my brother.

Then she made him to drink that holy water.

He came himself again the next day.

He couldn’t remembered at all what had happened to him.

So, is the Holy water my brother’s GURU????

Well, it did brought him out of the dark after all

May 12, 2016 at 10:20 am

@peachpurple  ‘Guru’ is derived from the Sanskrit language and has a deep spiritual meaning. It is made up of two syllables Gu and Ru:

Gu represents the spiritual ignorance that most humans are in.
Ru denotes the radiance of spiritual knowledge that dispels the ignorance and darkness. Here by darkness/ ignorance, we mean lack of spiritual knowledge.

So the Guru is the one who dispels the darkness of spiritual ignorance and bestow spiritual knowledge to his disciples. Guru has a deep connection with his disciples- something which I can’t explain in words.

And now coming back to your experience, Holy water cannot be considered as a Guru.It worked as a remedy to cure your brother but Guru is not an instant cure. He revives spiritual love lying dormant in us and brings us closer to God.

May 12, 2016 at 10:46 am

@shaloo

wow! thanks for breaking Gu-Ru down for us! that is indeed great to know. Another word added to my vocabulary. Thanks! Anyway,. I don’t have someone currently who I can consider as my own personal GURU because I actually am learning from different people. I read books, write up and even biographies of people and I learn from those writers and authors.

May 13, 2016 at 12:36 pm

@Christi Ann Tonel Espinola  In Vedic tradition, there are two kinds of Gurus: Shiksha Guru and Deeksha Guru. Shiksha Guru is the one who brings you on the path of spiritual knowledge or someone from whom you learn spiritual knowledge while Deeksha Guru is the one from who you receive initiation.

You can have several Shiksha Gurus but Deeksha Guru is only one.

May 13, 2016 at 5:24 pm

@swalia I love that you have explained the etymology of the word guru. I like to begin any kind of exploration with a look at the vocabulary and the origins of the words. I find it helps to deepen our understanding of any subject.

But much the same as I reject the Christian concept of sin, I cannot accept the concept of humans just naturally being in a sort of spiritual darkness. Most religious and spiritual paths have some sort of concept that humans are created by and imbued with the divine spark of something that transcends the physical world. If we accept this, there is no reason to believe we are naturally in the dark or that we need anyone outside ourselves to enlighten us.

If we observe small children, we often remark how naturally spiritual they are and how unspoiled. How often do we say children are wise in unexpected ways? The child is not in darkness as many adults are. Rather the darkness comes over us as we spend time in the workaday world, focus too much on the material and neglect the emotional/intellectual/spiritual. It grows as we are exposed to, and even sometimes try to fit in with, people who have accepted to live in darkness.

Some people who become this way may indeed benefit from the guidance of a spiritual teacher. But no, I cannot accept that this is a natural state for all human beings.

May 13, 2016 at 6:10 pm

@swalia Thank you for explaining that to us. I always thought it’s a whole word, but didn’t really go and find out more about it. There’s a term in Malay language which is the same spelling, guru means teacher. So, I thought they might be the same.

So is the Guru you mentioned your Deeksha Guru?

I am really new in this spiritual journey. I started to be inspired to learn more about this because of Rudolf Steiner, and I learned that because of the education I would like to learn and teach my children, so I am totally new here. I am only learning from books or online resources, but not really following any teachers or Guru.

May 14, 2016 at 12:26 pm

 @Kyla Matton Osborne (Ruby3881)  Very few are spiritually enlightened. Most of us are so involved in the daily grind that we don’t even have the time to delve into the finer aspects of life. How often do we think of our true purpose in life or about the questions like life after death or existence of soul and so on? Here darkness means the darkness of ignorance. All the answers are within us but we being the conditioned souls are in a state of ignorance. 

May 14, 2016 at 12:33 pm

@Lee Ka  My Guru His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar ji is my shiksha guru. I have not taken initiation yet and so I don’t have deeksha guru for now.

@Grecy Garcia  In Vedic culture, Guru has a prominent place. Guru is revered and worshippable as He is the one who makes it possible for the disciple to realize God.

May 28, 2016 at 8:14 pm

My gurus are my mother and dad.  My dad foremost.  His name is the Reverend Clarence Alonzo Williams Jr.   Both of my parents are extremely educated; especially in the subject of theology and other subject matters.  My dad was a baptist minister and the most laid back religious leader that I have ever met in my whole life.  As a minister’s daughter I have had the privilege, because of my parents, to experience different types of religions; from Catholicism to Judaism.  It was a wonderful learning experience.  I completely and totally respect all beliefs but at present I am non denominational.  The reason being, I guess because of my past involvements, I feel in my heart that God is a “everyone’s” Father.  With that being said; it reminds me of the commandment, “To Love Thy Neighbor”.  Throughout my life, God has brought me through some rough times and I am so and completely thankful to Him for everything.  There have been previous life experiences of mine that you would not believe it unless you saw it for yourself.   I know that there is a God and if it were not for Him I would not be alive today. 

One thing I have to address is the old stereotypical statement; “Oh! She is a “minister’s kid”.  I am honored to be a child of my parents.  My mother and sister are also ministers.  Again back to the stereotyping statement.  I believe wholeheartedly it depends on how a person is raised.  If they were raised by a single parent or were they raised by both parents or did they grow up in a corrupt household?   I was raised by both of my parents and they did an awesome job.  No one is perfect and sometimes I go back in my mind and say to myself that if I had just listened at times then certain things would not have happened in my life that were detrimental; not only to me but to my parents.  As I aged, I made sure that whatever it was I did in the past to hurt my parents I apologized for but I am also thankful to God for bringing me this far by faith to modify my life and do so for the better.  

Another quality of my parents is that they have always taught all of their children to treat everyone with the utmost respect and to treat people the way that we want to be treated.  This learning tool is so valuable because I also believe in karma.  I treat people the way I want to be treated but when others don’t treat me the same; I have seen firsthand what karma can do to a person.  Some may call it karma, others may call it the will of God.  Whatever the belief may be I get complete satisfaction out of knowing that I am the type of person that gets along with most people; just like my dad, he had this special personality that just attracted people from different ethnicities and us being his family had the pleasure of coming in contact with these experiences.

May 29, 2016 at 8:31 pm

@ Yvette  Wow! What a blessing to have a spiritual environment at home while growing up! Parents are the one who inculcate in the kids the belief in God.

June 19, 2016 at 9:28 pm

I  am curious to meet a guru. Unfortonately, I haven’t met someone. In my country, it wasn’t that popular. It would be nice what’s really my purpose here on earth. Personally, I know what’s my role. Although I wanted to know what a guru will say to me.