“Believe nothing, merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believes and cling to, and take it as your guide.”
Guru is not one who merely teaches us worldly education or about the belongings of the materials. People consider a person who teaches the knowledge of the worldly possessions as a Guru. But most of them are mere teachers, not Gurus. The true meaning of Guru is “one who dispels the darkness of ignorance”. “GU” means “darkness of ignorance” and “Ru” means “one who removes”. The real Guru is the very embodiment of Heavenly principles, and He is the one who takes upon Himself a form to teach the same to the disciple; he is God Himself.
Principally the guru is a spiritual teacher leading the disciple on the path of “God-realization”. In essence, the guru is considered a respected person with godly qualities who enlightens the mind of his disciple, but in the real sense one should keep in mind while following spiritual masters, because it is not so easy to make anybody Guru in our daily life, one has to think and think several times about the backgrounds of the Guru and his followers, simply because he has a number of disciples (thousand lakhs), One should not follow blindly that a particular preacher. In our daily life when we need any commodities for household purposes we reject many shops and ask about the price of those commodities then and then we think that this prices and quality are moderate in the same way to make anybody Guru, it is difficult to identify with certainty who is a spiritually evolved guide or Guru. A Guru is very different to a teacher or a preacher. He is an inspiration of spiritual light in our world and teaches us the universal spiritual principles that underlie all religions and cultures. we should be very selective as we have to surrender our body, mind and our wealth also, to keep all above things in mind then only we should select who should be our real Guru in our life.
The priests /Guru always proclaim that whatever I say one should not believe it blindly as a correct one you should also use your common sense and brain to understand what the priest has said accordingly you follow.
A Priests / Guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge. In its purest form, this principle manifests on earth as a divine incarnation (saint), a person with supreme knowledge about God and all creation.
Priests / Guru are a Self-realized clairvoyant established in the Truth-Consciousness-Bliss Personified Supreme self and had guided many aspirants towards the same. His life is a source of divine inspiration for all living beings on earth. His each and every action is directed towards the welfare of the entire creation. His discourses would please the minds, the clouds of distress would get dispersed, and the depressed personalities get charged with zeal, and with the confusions of the confused ones being solved, a new life would possess them. His complete life is in a way a junction of the yoga of Karma (action), awareness, and devotion. He is a gifted yogi having marvelous powers.
Thus his entire life devotes. The feeling only of benevolence and divine love circulated in His each and every vein. The message of His life is, “As long as there is life, keep performing selfless activities. Know yourself; attain your supreme bliss which is beyond the burdens of a sense of doer-ship.”
He always performs out several public welfares works in different regions but never had the feeling of being the ‘doer’. He is a spirit of humanity and selflessness. He used to say, “These acts are accomplished by that one omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, at different places. ‘Priests /guru’ doesn`t do anything”.
The dispute whether there is God or not rarely leads to hatred and violence because the true atheist has no time left to spend on God and those who believe in God rarely fight with those who don’t. Those who believe in their God somehow get the feeling that the true God is of their own religions.
Religion though created to bring about peace, benevolence, and friendship amongst fellow human beings have almost failed in their mission due to more than one reason. First of all the failure of one religion is proven by the fact that a large religion splits into smaller sets each having a different set of views and approach. Even the people belonging to one religion can never tolerate the views of another. So religion today contrary to the original thought of its founder has more hatred to offer than love, more violence than peace and more hatred instead of friendship. The original purpose is almost lost.
Even though a person may belong to a certain religion he or she may not even know completely about their own religion even follow certain practices that are considered as the mark of that religion. Mostly it may be because the person is born into a family belonging to that religion. We may also wrongly conclude that a person belongs to a particular religion by the dress code.
In the religious sense, the term is commonly used in Hinduism, as well as in other Indian religions and new religious movements. Finding a true guru is often held to be a prerequisite for attaining self-realization. Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh religion said: “Even if a thousand suns and moons rose, they would be unable to remove the darkness of ignorance within the heart. This can only be removed through the grace of the Guru.”
A real Guru is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent, He is God Himself. The One who is beyond all attributes and forms is none other than the Supreme Self who is resident within each of us. Only God can be regarded as One who is beyond attributes and forms.
Saints and poets in India have expressed the following views about the relationship between Guru and God:
Kabir
Guru and God both appear before me. To whom should I prostrate?
I bow before Guru who introduced God to me.
Brahmanand
It is my great fortune that I found Satguru, all my doubts are removed.
I bow before Guru. Guru’s glory is greater than God’s.
Brahmanda Purana
Guru is Shiva without his three eyes,
Vishnu without his four arms
Brahma without his four heads.
He is Parama Shiva himself in human form
Adi Shankara begins his Gurustotram or Verses to the Guru with the following Sanskrit Sloka, that has become a widely sung Bhajan:
Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. Guru Sakshath Param Brahma, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namaha. (tr: Guru is the creator Brahma, Guru is the preserver Vishnu, Guru is the destroyer Siva. Guru is directly the supreme spirit — I offer my salutations to this Guru.)
The Inner Guru
Main article: Inner Guru
There is a subtle principle that resides within all of us, which is unborn and undying. It is a repository of infinite strength, wisdom, abundance, and auspiciousness. It is bliss infinite and the giver of supreme happiness. It is the support-less, infinite sky of supreme wisdom. It is the silent witness of everything. It is neither male nor female. It exists beyond all dualities. It is not bounded by time, space or conditions. This witnessing presence is pure and clear like the sky, luminous like the morning Sun. It is our inner Guru.