Buddha poornima

…contd…

In this spiritual level again, there are different levels of Gurus.

Preachers: These are the people who preach people on ‘the right way of living’. They usually quote some scriptures and give discourses that give an understanding of right way of living. They are highly revered by their disciples as they consider them to be highly knowledgeable persons and ‘knowledge’ of few scriptures and some language is always considered to be special and a rare skill. So many people especially over Tv are well known to do a wonderful job of this.  

People who become Gurus as they give discourses: This, I am sure you all are aware of. I mean the Gurus who give just discourses and are considered ‘Gurus’ by their cult devotees and disciples. These people or Gurus are very important in this world, infact I would say they the most important type of Gurus in this world because they reach out to maximum number of people and generate that ‘desire’ to walk the path of spirituality and inquisitiveness of being with God, knowing God or for that matter about after life.

The seed sown by previous types Gurus is watered by these Gurus and ‘tendencies’ to reach out to Guru is made strong by these Gurus. These Gurus usually are religious and sometimes very fanatic too. But still just the fact that the thought of ‘higher being’ and ‘Supreme’ is established in ‘human mind’ is enough to thank these people for 1000 janmas. 

The soul at the start of spiritual of it's journey has to first meet lots of such ‘gurus interact with them, get knowledge from them, sit on their thoughts and then ingest it in his character before becoming eligible to receive the next level of Guru.

The first three levels of Gurus proficiency doesn’t get affected by their personal character. Their knowledge in their field of mastery like dance, archery etc doesn’t demean their ability to teach their art. But unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, in spiritual field character of the master is so very important in the quality of his growth and knowledge. And hence the master who thinks he is great and rubs the same assumption onto his students falls into the quagmire of negative qualities like lies, hypocrisy, manipulation, ego, greed, envy, anger and what not. No doubt he becomes bad to worst over the years. And to follow such a master taking him for a Guru, well, God save such a student.

From here, Guru takes a different ‘connotation’. Guru now becomes a ‘ship’ that takes you across the ocean of life and death. He becomes a ‘fire’ that burns all your karmic imprints and your tendencies. He is the ‘mirror’ who shows you your ‘true self’. He is the ‘beacon of light’ that lights your path. He doesn’t walk it for you but yes he lights it for you.

As written in Guru Granth Sahib "What's in your destiny no body can take it away from you, but what is not written is also got by Guru's grace"
 

With this explanation it becomes self-evident as to the qualities of the Guru from this level.

...contd...