4. SA77- 42 that great impact of a two tonne ball falling upon you. You wi ll feel it in the form of little pebbles that does not hurt you really very much. You’ll feel cold but its snowflakes, its not hail . So that is how spiritual forces work. Good. Now the guru having realised the mechanics and the forces that are in the universe has the ability to send forth those energies which will create a balance in man and that is also if the man is receptive to it. It is also if the man is receptive to it for the man has to light the fire himself. You can hire the finest chef from The Dorchester or one of your better hotels, but if you have not the stove here or the heat that's required to cook, that chef will not be able to do anything. So here is a two way relationship and the chela has to do things for himself which we call self help to open the doors of this divine force to enter him or the divine force that is already there really to be activated. So you can have the finest seed, but if the ground is not tilled, that seed won’t grow. So we do have this in our organisation where people come with the utmost scepticism -- sceptics -- real sceptics. I remember receiving a form in the early stages. This man is an author, he's written a few very lovely books and he studied various philosophies and he is a senior lecturer or a professor, I think, in literature and poetry. I don’t need a guru, I don’t need a teacher but I'm curious if I'm sending the form. I say, “very good -- very good -- very good -- very good, nothing wrong -- nothing wrong, we need all kinds of people, we need sceptics too.” Actually sceptics are the ones tha t keeps the world turning round. Yes, we need those doubters, we need them, they are the ones that push. Good. And today this very man is a very -- very devout follower of our practices and is totally -- totally devoted and he now feel that though I've put all my literature aside and just want to experience th e power and the glory of God. So you have that as well, then you have some chelas going to a guru who are just ripe to meet their teacher. Even as the saying goes when the disciple is ready, the master appears. There's some truth in it, not total truth, but some truth. Umm -- and then some people are just ready and immediately they start realising themselves, realisations dawn, they have these experiences within themselves. By experiences I don’t mean the flashy ones or seeing lights and stars and things like that, I don’t mean that, but an experience inside, an opening and awakening, that's the real experience, that warmth and that love that one feels inside towards oneself and towards others. So those that are just about ready, they are ripe and they feel it more quickly. Others again have a yearning but have not -- have done nothing so far to appease that earning for peace within themselves. So they are trying and they come along to the guru and the guru has to make them ready with the help of cause. They can’t do anything on his own, he needs two forces. The true guru needs two forces, he needs God and he needs man for him to be able to operate. Good. So those that are not so ready take a bit longer. So there again it’s a gradual process depending upon the amount of imbalance. You might have to go to hospital and stay for three days, another person with a more severe problem might
5. SA77- 42 have to stay in hospital for three months but every one is affected to a certain measure according to his capacity towards a gr eater and greater integration. Now this process also applies to the guru, the ordinary good teacher. It applies to him also and when he finds that integration within himself, then he becomes automatically non -attached to the mundane changing world. He sees everything changing -- changing all the time and having come to a realisation, he knows the permanence of life and the impermanence that is superimposed upon it. So then without any goading or pre-planning, he just starts teaching. He does not need to go to theological colleges and -- and things like that. I've told you many times I've never read the Bible because I know if I do read the Bible I’ll be influenced by someone else's thoughts while my thoughts has to be original and on the spot. I teach of the creative intelligence which is another word for divinity. I teach of creative intelligence in man and I should be an example of it. So therefore when they have questions I tell them please don’t tell me anything about them, I don’t know them, ask me when I'm in the satsang room. So a true teacher is normally and should be an example of his teachings. If a teacher is creative intelligence, let him display that creative intelligence. A true teacher will never tell you to do that which he does not do himself. I enjoy a cigarette, its fun for me, keeps me down to earth instead of floating away into meditation all the time . That would be fine if I was living in some Himalayan cave. The difference between someone else that smokes and I that would light a cigarette is this that that person requires refinement and stopping to smoke perhaps will help him refine himself better. I require grossification to be down to earth, to be able to relate to you to do the actual work that is required to be done and it’s a pretty full day and every moment is joy in its own fullness. For if we live every moment in its fullness, then your full day is filled with fullness, you see how beautiful and everything becomes enjoyable. So now when the person, the guru , comes to find that integration and finds the permanency within himself, finds the permanency that I am immortal, that I am one with the divine. Then all the happenings in his life would be gared in such a way that automatically he just can’t help helping. All the circumstances would be such that he will just do the work that he has to do. That very work he has to do is a joy to him. Yet there are certain moments that comes in the life of a guru. There's always a divine force, a divine finger pushing him on because of certain family and political situations in India, I left India. Good. Now there wa s a purpose for it. At that time I don’t know. The purpose was this that I was a teacher for the west mostly and by living in a western country I learnt the ways of the western world, I learnt how the minds work and all various things connected with a person who’s brought up in the west. So that was one thing pushing -- pushing me to South Africa. And with the injunctions of my guru, he wanted me to enter the householder's life, get married and have children. That was an experience, a very -- very valuable experience for me today. A person that has lived as a householder would be in a better position than a monk to be of assistance, guidance and act as an advisor to householders. If a husband and wife comes to me with some problem, I'd know immediately and know what their problem
7. SA77- 42 you're doing?” Say “I'm fine” (Laughs) they say “Why don’t you rest?” I say, “W hy do in need a rest for? I am rested as it is, can I go home?” they said, “Uh -- uh, we’re not gonna let you go home because as soon as we send you home you're gonna start working again”, yeah. So they kept me for a month and I <0:34:44.8>of a time. It was lovely because most of these you know cardiologists and surgeons, as soon as I had the free time, they used to surround my bed and sit around you know about 8 or 9 chairs permanently placed around my bed. So they used to come in and we used to talk about this that and the other and had tons of fun. Good. But during these quiet moments I came to the conclusion that this is not my life, I've been through it all -- been through it, I had the best of everything, everything you could imagine. Used to be the biggest playboy in Cape Town, not ashamed of it because I'm passed that now, when you -- when you passed a thing you can talk about it. That's a sign of having gone beyond it. Right! The biggest playboy in Cape Town and it was nothing for me to jump onto a plane for a long weekend and come to Paris and attend a party, some film party, fly back, things like that. Right, but here the realisation totally dawned and I made up my mind that no more business, nothing at all and I have to do the work which I want to do. So slowly we started in someone's home and we used to meet regul arly every Saturday afternoons and we used to listen to him and we used to talk and the crowd started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and it was quite out of town, and people used to travel distances to come and then we -- they all felt that look we should have a centre in the centre of town which could make it convenient for people and that's how its started and from there BMS and AMS and <0:36:58.5> you know the -- you know all about that and that's how it started. So although the true guru or a guru has that build-up in his life, undergoing and going through various experiences, he can, by a divine force be made to lie down. Do you know it is good to be sick? Yes, those few days or a week you spent in bed, you can do a lot of thinking about yourself you know, really analyse yourself and say “Wait a minute -- wait a minute. What is wrong?” Analyse yourself and if you act upon the -- your discrimination which at that moment could be very powerful, because even while you're sick and depleted of physical energies, you will find a compensation of spiritual energies. There's always a balance. Doctors have not verified this yet, I suppose they will one day, but when the body becomes weak or ill, it has his mental counterpart, but one thing happens that is sur e that the spiritual force is more awakened temporarily. That is why you find in the case of death, when a person is dying, just a few moments or half an hour before the person leaves the body, he becomes strong before he leaves his body and it could give so many instructions and what have you? So this is spiritual surgeons of the spiritual force within man. So to repeat again, lying in hospital, umm -- I decided there and then that no more business and I'm dedicating my life and the abilities given to me b y divinity, knowing divinity being one with him, let me teach the word so that I that have found
8. SA77- 42 the integration, why should it not be shared with others? Because once that integration is achieved, the old selfishness goes. You -- you become selfless. That’s how being in big business I had five other partners and -- and I thought while look financially I could be independent because of my shares in the company that pay me out, but the film business is the most crookedest game in the world, believe you me an d up to now the thing is still dangling and may shares have not been paid out, yet I don’t care, I don't give a damn. Selfishness is gone, if someone else would say “ Oh , I've been caught by almost 2 million rand, but to me it’s nothing that it happened. Perhaps I should live a life of poverty so that I would also know the poorness of poor people.” So gurus also, if they are meant to do their work, if they have the necessary build up and the training that they themselves have achieved, lead them on to do the work that they do and that of course I'm talking of true gurus, then you have shams all over the world which start up movements and trade on the gullibility of people. They do that and a mass, millions, I have no objection to that. But don’t put it away on your name in a bank account, use it for good purposes, there’s many things required in this world today that will, even if it temporarily elevate the misery, many -- many people, we have countries where they have famines and plaques and all these things and - - and all these, after all its -- its not the money of those gurus, its public money and it must be used for the public. The true guru will always forever shift energies. Money is an energy, it’s a force, its nothing else but an energy. Now it could b e shifted to the areas where it is required most. So that is the difference between business gurus and spiritual gurus. Okay? Now you wanted half an hour, is that half an hour?
1. SA77- 42 Public: Beloved Guruji, when did you realise your role as guru? How did you as an individual -- Gururaj: When did I realise? Public: When did you realise your role as a guru? Gururaj: Um -hmm Public: How did you, as an individual relate to the realisation of the guru? And are there any individuals now going through a similar process to help you or others in that role? Gururaj: I don’t know. Next question (laughs). Yes, when -- you should least read -- listen to the tape that we made of my relationship with my guru, the tape on Swami Pavitarananda . You should listen to that because that practically answers your question. When does a person realise that he is a guru? He does not realise he is a guru, he never does. But all his actions were such that become those of a teacher. It is not something that one switches on or off that “Oh now I passed my final medical exam and now I'm a doctor” or “I've passed my final law exam and now I'm a lawyer.” It does not work that way. It is a build up over ages and ages and ages where the soul goes through various transformations on the path of evolution. I'm not talking of myself in specifically. I'm talking of a guru, that be remembered because there and gurus and gurus and gurus, there are gurus that are born to do a certain kind of work and there are gurus that through the progress of ages, evolutionary progress that eventually become teachers. Now in many countries we have something which is -- we have a saying which is false and that saying is this that I had a calling, it is totally false. A person might have a glimpse of something like many of you in your practices you have glimpses of this or that or the other which are not totally necessary and that they regard to be a calling and at -- and yet they are so unfit to teach the word of God. The person best qualified to teach the word of God is to know the word and by knowing the word, he knows God. So a true teacher does not rely on books. He might use them in the beginning to stimulate his intellect through reading various philosophies and things, but that in the end is a very little help to him, his greatest help and source of inspiration is the practical experience he has gained for the true guru has a direct link from his conscious mind to that super conscious level, to that universal level, the storehouse of all knowledge, he develops this by spiritual practices for one and by his very evolutionary status where he at anytime and at will can draw upon this vast computer and he presses a button and everything he needs to know is there.
2. SA77- 42 Now the true guru, a spiritual teacher is one who will not tune his mind to ordinary mundane things because he realises these are all transitory and the present form of existence is but a dream like existence that is real within its own dimension but beyond the dimension of this present so called existence, beyond that dimension and into another dimension this is all but a dream so his mind is always filled, absorbed in divinity . I give an example of what happened to me now in Bristol an d they all had a big laugh and of course I enjoyed the laughter which I laughed with it, so beautiful. I went into bathroom to have a bath, of course the last thing you take off is your underpants and as I absorbed, to me the bath seemed like god and the water is god and the taps were god and everything was divine and this was at <0:06:15.6> home and everything was just covered in gold for me, it was so beautiful. I was so absorbed in this that I got into the bath with my underpants (laughs) because I thought I don’t like to travel too heavy going from place to place so I thought <0:06:47.9> this thing dr ied, after a hot bath to put on a cold underpants (laughs) so I put it in front of the heater and of course the underpants fell in love with the heat and got burnt (laughs). Yes, so the underpants fell in love with the heat or the other way around, who knows, and got burnt. Right! So the mind and heart of a true guru is always absorbed in that which we call divine and because of that absorption, everything he sees around him assumes the form of divinity. Now if he feels himself one with divinity and everything he sees around him is divine, then a total identification occurs that you are totally identified with the object of your sight. So here in this identification, the subject and the object become one. They become one and that is why -- that is why you feel so strongly of the power of gurushakti. That's the secret behind it. It is the ability of the guru to identify himself totally with his chela and that is not a physical identification. That identification is on a different dimension, on a more subtler level and practically all of you reading your progress forms, I see you experience this where you -- as you say in your progress forms, you either could see or feel the presence or that -- so that just proves that in that other dimension there is no space and no time. It is all there, all here and now -- now , but it is always beneficial to be in the presence of one's guru in the physical as well for there is a word in Sanskrit called “darshan” which literally means “to see” but its figurative meaning is “to be in the presence of”, because the man of god, the man that is absorbed in god he emanates a certain force or spiritual force that would have some effect upon you and therefore all meditators do say normally when they write to me or on the forms <0:10:04.5> I came to different realisations and different understandings and so many things have changed and that is why the officials of the BMS always insists or -- or try their best to tell people to attend courses. Those four five days could be very very valuable and could even be the turning point in one's life. Now remember one thing very clearly, it is not I that does anything, it is the divine force that does it all. Good. So the question was, when does the guru realise that he is a guru? There's no realisation that dawns all of a sudden, it’s a
3. SA77- 42 gradual build up from childhood where even the true guru, even an avatara and incarnation has to unfold him although he is unfolded but coming through this vastness of the universe into a -- from the formlessness into a formed being, has undergone through all the various stages of evolution like a normal person, an ordinary person who take millions of years to reach t he stage of man while the avatara, the incarnation would do it in split of a second because there's no time in that dimension but yet he has to go through all that process. So when this full force descends on earth, the incarnation, that incarnation still has to go through the mineral kingdom and the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom and then to man, for in the stage of man one requires, as I've said this before, a man to impart the impulse and this impulse is greatly imparted on courses and that is darshan. So -- so the guru he keeps on developing and unfolding himself until he comes to some form of realisation. Now this realisation is not something that's just overnight. It comes with the realisation that all these transitoriness of life of what use is it? Let us try and find the permanency of life for life is permanent. The self-realised man or the true guru is beyond the laws of change, he becomes a law unto himself and that does not mean a licence to kill. It does not mean that. But he becomes law unto himself because knowing the entire universe and what constitutes the universe , he could manipulate where necessary the various energies where various imbalances are he could create balances. He has not the ability and neither has God, the ability to add one ounce of extra energy to this universe and neither has he the power to detract a single ounce of energy. But what can be done and is done through gurushakti and spiritual practices is that where there is an imbalance, a greater balance is brought about so that life becomes harmonious. Now this too for the chela is not an overnight thing. Like I've heard of gurus here in England that says, “You attend the satsang, in two hours you’d be enlightened .” Now this does makes no sense to me whatsoever. You have built up, you are what you are through all the ages that you have lived and you cannot change overnight. The change must take place gradually for it to have some value, and this applies in everything in life. For example a doctor gives you a bottle of medicine, three teaspoons a day. Why not take th e whole bottle at the same time and you’ll be cured? You’ll be cured. You’d have to find the doctor again, he will give a certificate which will be taken to the undertaker (laughs). Yeah. So you see there is this gradual healing process like, to use the analogy of the doctor again, my apologies to you Dr. Pane. To use the analogy of the doctor again, he does not cure you. He only gives you the required medicines to stimulate the powers within you to cure yoursel f. Now a doctor is a doctor of the body, a true guru is a doctor of the spirit. He gives you the medicines to cure yourself. He cannot take any of your karma away. Whatever you have sown, you have to reap. But because of the power of the spiritual medicine, the reaction to the actions you have performed becomes smoother and you not -- and you do not feel
6. SA77- 42 is, I could -- I could see it because I have gone through it all and if a person comes with any other kind of you know material, worldly problem, I would know about it and I don’t only try and help in spiritual matters, when someone comes to me with a business problem, someone comes to me with a legal problem because I have a training in all these various aspects. They come with all these problems and these problems are real for the person involved. They are real for that person, to me I see the unreality and the transitoriness of it, but having gained the experience as a householder, I know that this problem this person talks about is real for him at the moment and because of the experience I have gained, I'm in a position to advise the person what to do. People -- I qualified as an accountant, that's how I started life. Then went into business. So person has an accounting problem with his books, I could advise him. A person has business problems and at one time I was director of about 20 different companies. So I know the various facets of business and things. See, I could advise on that and if there is some area that I do not know of, I would have the sense to refer that person to a person who is an expert in that particular area. If a person wants to have a haircut, I wouldn’t cut it myself, I know nothing about haircutting, I' ll send her to Jenna, right. Like that -- like that -- like that. So the whole aim is this, is to become a practical person by having gained these experiences. Now I was so involved in business with all these various companies and -- and doing two trips a year to Europe for business. This <0:31:43.5> is my 21 st trip to England. It might be about ten or twelve for BMS. Public: < 0:31:52.2 > Gururaj: Yeah, before that for business I used to come a lot here and I was so involved for business, in business that although the yearning was in me to just throw up business and teach, I felt I was now ready through this build up -- build up and coming to certain realisations and knowing that what is this business all about. The real business is living, life is business, not <0:32:34.3>in finances and textiles and films and film productions and distributions , all these things. So another finger pushed me and this time it pushed me very hard to have a heart attack. Working 20 hours in business, no joke and having your finger in on the pulse of everything that any department or from any area of the business world, one of the managers could find me I could tell him offhand without referring to anything do this -- to that -- do that -- do that. I’d have in the pulse. Now the body is limited, the body has its own limitations and if you overstrain it -- if you overstrain it, naturally you’d feel the consequences. If you're capable of running for a mile and you try and run five miles, your body will feel it, yeah. And so I was pushed to have a heart attack. That is a great thing that happened, I'm grateful. You see how attitude plays such an important part. So lying there in hospital and they did this open heart surgery and in three days of intensive care, was up and about cheering up patients and when I used to meet <0:34:13.0> and Professor Sanchez and all these guys, you know the team, the heart team, professor Beck and all these fellows in the passages. They say, “What