1. ES 80 - 02 -2 Gururaj: for the child’s benefit and that is how the guru always acts. Sometimes he pats you on the back and sometimes he kicks you on the arse, your backside. That's why I say gurus are funny people. You can’t understand them, but when you will understand the guru is this, is when you become one with the guru. When the individual soul in you merges away in the universal soul of the guru and the result is this that you become the guru. A true guru never dies, never dies, he is immortal. I was invited to visit the Yogananda Ashram in Los Angeles America and they were just about closing, it was one minute to five, they close the gates at 5:00. So this man that looks after the place came and he saw me and invited me, we started talking for more than an hour. So he – he was from Switzerland and a very brilliant man who did away with his profession and just served there in this ashram and he was telling us a beautiful story. He went after Yogananda that passed away a long time ago, he went to another guru, so he says, “My guru Yogananda is dead so I have come to you.” So this guru replied, he said, “You are dead, but your guru is alive.” You see, so to reach immortality of the true guru, he makes you immortal also, because you merge into him and your mortality merges into immortality. And then you have found what is called pure consciousness. Therefore in Sanskrit, at our initiations, we have the prayer, Asato Maa Sad-Gamaya -- Asato Maa Sad-Gamaya, which means lead me from untruth to truth, Mrtyor-Maa Amrtam Gamaya, lead me from death to immortality. You see, how important these lines are, this is just part of the prayer. How important to be led from mortality to immortality and that is what the true guru teaches. So simple. You see, so simple. So in order to achieve this, one has to go through a bath – taking a bath and if a person is very dirty, then he got to use a hard brush and the guru brushes you, yeah even if the skin burns, and you won’t mind it because you are a true seeker, if you are a true seeker. The prayer would be that my guru, my beloved father and friend, help me, clean me so that I too could become one with the universal spirit, for the quicker I reach there, the better for me. So that I do not need to go through all these sufferings and miseries of life. I am just whirling around, tossed here to there like a boat without a radar that is tossed around on the ocean of life so guru give me the radar and those are the guru’s teachings and and techniques. Yeah, and he gives the radar, but he tells you, you direct the boat yourself. You see, and he teaches you how. You see, so then your boat reaches the shore of eternity. So those are the duties of the guru and obedience, listening, faith, trust and all the qualities we spoke of are necessary from the chela. In the beginning it could be a bit difficult and do you know why it is a bit difficult? Because you are not a true seeker, you only come because you got troubles. Yeah, not a true seeker for god, because then immediately the contact with the guru is made. Today’s world is like that and no one is to blame. Somebody comes to me with a toe ache, yeah someone comes with a heartache where he’s lost his girlfriend or someone’s wife has run away, like that ordinary mundane problems. So we do the best we can to get the person’s mind first at rest and when the mind gets to some rest,

2. ES 80 - 02 -2 and the gurushakti that pours from the guru unconsciously, because the true guru is always emanating, always emanating and if you are ready, you receive. Good. You receive and as you receive that great bond develops between guru and the chela. As for myself, that for a true chela I'm prepared to give my life, because I know that the spirit in the chela is the same spirit that is within me. There is no differentiation and no division. There is one vision and no division. Yeah, it’s difficult to translate that I know, play of words, yeah, yeah. That is from my point of view and I've got to bring you to that point of view also. Now you are forever permeated by and protected by gurushakti, but why does things go wrong sometimes? Perhaps you don’t deserve it. So this is the great chance, something is going wrong, I examine myself yeah and in that self- examination and self-analysis, the guru gives you a chance to progress. How will you know what it is to climb a mountain if you do not climb the mountain? It brings you to the montana and say climb. You see, so all these opportunities are created for your evolution and happiness. At first you might think that they are adversities, but they, in reality, are opportunities for it makes you face yourself in the mirror. I can’t look in the mirror for you to see your face, you must be made to look in the mirror yourself. So these are ways among so many ways. <0:16:36.4> Always remember that gurushakti or that universal force never deserts you. The fresh air is outside all the time, but if you do not open the window, how can the fresh air come in? So the hardest job of the guru is to make you open the window, the window of your heart so the fresh air of divine energy can flow into you and regenerate you, but once the window is opened a little, then it's easier to open more more more. You see, so that is the job and in the opening of the heart, such a great love develops, a total unselfish love where the guru has no selfish interest in you, his only interest is this, the interest of sharing, the interest of experiencing, -- experimental? Experiencing – oh there’s only one word? Um-hmm, right. Because every second of the day, the true guru is conscious of god and he feels very – very strongly as his life mission that this oneness I have with god, the experience I have with god, let me share it with all around me for all those around me are not separate from me, because if you can become one with the universe, then why not one with the entire humanity? All of the meanest creatures that crawls on the floor because it is the same divinity that flows through all. For all the separation you see around you are just like little waves on the ocean but still it is one ocean – un oceano. Namaste!