How to find the right Guru? || Acharya Prashant, on Ribhu Gita (2018)

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Video Information: Free Hearts Camp, 18.02.2018, Advait Bodhsthal, Noida, India

Context:
That realised person who abides in the Brahman-Self, and has lost all feelings of differentiation of self and non-self, is the Jnani or Mukta Purusha. Such a Jnani is rare to find even by searching among millions of people.
If one has the lucky opportunity of getting his darshan (personal view and contact) one attains purification from all his sins, and what is more, such a person's ego gets liquidated at once.

~ Ribhu Gita Chapter 19, Verse 10

~ Who is a disciple?
~ How to find the right Guru?
~ How do we know that quest for right Guru has ended?
~ Should our search ever end?
~ Can Guru and I exist together?
~ When does Guru reveal himself to us?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~

Transcript

00:00 Shat Shat Naman Acharya ji. Realized person who abides in the Brahm self and has lost

00:23 all feelings of differentiation of self and non-self is the Jnani or Mukta Purush. Such

00:31 a Jnani is rare to find through searching among millions of people. If one has the lucky

00:38 opportunity of getting his darshan, personal view and contact, one attains purification

00:47 from all his sins. And what is more, such a person's ego gets well set on the road

00:57 to its liquidation. Verse 10 of chapter 19. So Anup says I have one related and another

01:11 general question. The first question is how and when do we know that the quest for Sadguru

01:25 has ended? The water in which this I fish is living is very polluted and the thirst

01:35 for clean water continues. The question is how and when does one know that his search

01:47 for the Guru has ended? He says the life that I am living is very polluted and the thirst

01:57 for cleanliness continues. Anup, the search for the Guru must never end. If the searcher

02:19 has not ended, how can the search end? If the search ends and the searcher still remains,

02:29 then the search has gone waste. In other words, the search must end only with your end. If

02:37 you are still there, how can the search end? When you are still there, how is it possible

02:46 that you have found the Guru? Remember that the Guru is not one. Remember that your view

02:59 of the Guru is defined by who you are. And this is something very important. Listen to

03:05 this with all attention. The Guru is like the sky. If you look at the sky from a rat

03:26 hole, what will you see? A little bit of the sky. Now have you really met the Guru? If

03:36 you are still in your rat hole, have you really met the Guru? The Guru is there and still

03:42 not there because you are still looking at him from your little hole. The Guru hasn't

03:55 yet fully revealed himself to you. He might be saying the highest things but are they

04:04 still reaching you? Are they reaching you? They aren't reaching you because you are still

04:12 within your comfortable hole. And then you widen your domain. Now you are living inside

04:23 a well. The Guru is the sky as he always was. But now the sky has revealed itself a little

04:32 more to you. You could even say that now you have a new Guru. The sky is the same but for

04:41 you the sky is now more. Now the sky you can say is new for you. Are you getting it? Is

04:48 the Guru really new? No, the Guru is not new. But you have developed. Your liberation has

04:55 now progressed. So now you have a new Guru. A new Guru in the same person. He was always

05:03 saying maybe the same things but now his words have a deeper meaning for you and you have

05:09 found a new Guru. How have you found a new Guru? Because now you are relatively new.

05:15 Now you have moved from the hole to the well. Are you getting it? So the sky is revealing

05:22 itself more to you. So now you were a rabbit or a rat, then a frog. Now let's say you are

05:34 a human being and you are living in a house. Living in a house you look at the sky from

05:41 the window. And now how much is the sky revealing to you? A lot. A lot more than it used to

05:50 reveal through the hole or from the depths of the well. Now you are standing with your

05:58 face at the window and now quite a lot of sky is visible to you. Now you have a third

06:05 Guru. The Guru is new now. Has the Guru really changed? Has the Guru really changed? No,

06:13 the Guru hasn't changed. The sky hasn't changed. But because you have changed, you are gifted

06:17 now with a new Guru. You can even be bold enough to say that the Guru was not so gyani

06:31 earlier. Now the Guru has improved. That's alright. Even I have heard this from many

06:38 people. They come and say, "You know, sir, now I am really benefiting from you because

06:47 two years back you were not saying these things." I say, "Yes, you are right. I have improved."

06:58 What they don't understand is that because they kept listening, they have moved from

07:03 the hole to the well to the window. And so now they can appreciate me better. Now the

07:12 same words that I used to say earlier mean more to them. In other words, they have a

07:20 new Guru. Are you getting it? And then comes a time when you are not even an ordinary householder.

07:30 You decide to leave the house just as you had decided to leave the hole. And once you

07:34 have left the house and you are out in the open, how much does the sky reveal itself

07:39 to you? Probably totally. And now you have a fourth Guru. Now you say, "Now it's a new

07:47 sky. When I was in the hole, you know, the sky used to be very small." The fact is the

07:54 sky is the same. You have changed. Earlier you were listening with such a small ear.

08:01 Now you are really listening with elephant ears. But you still have your own ideas. So

08:13 you say to the Guru, "You know what? You are improving. Now you are saying things that

08:20 are really good. Earlier you used to talk of just little trivia." And the Guru modestly

08:28 says, "You are right. In your company, I have gained some betterment. Because you have listened

08:35 to me for four years. So some of your greatness has rubbed off on me. I have improved." What

08:45 do you mean by searching for the Guru? Have you even found 1% of the sky for yourself

08:53 and the sky is available? Do not look for the true Guru. Look for the true ear. And

09:03 the rat is sitting in the hole and what is he asking? "I want the full sky." You know

09:09 what? The full sky is hiding. The full sky is not hiding. You are in your hole. Please

09:19 get out of the hole. That is the only way the Guru will reveal himself to you. Don't

09:28 you see how it happens? Moses had to go to the mountain top and then God revealed himself

09:37 to him. Muhammad too had to go to the mountain top and then the Quran descended on him. Do

09:45 you understand the significance of this? You have to leave your little enclosures. You

09:53 must go to the mountain top and then the sky will come upon you. If you live in the city,

10:02 if you live in your little hole, how will the sky come to you? Though the sky is always

10:09 there, always willing, always waiting. But are you prepared to move out of your confinement?

10:21 That's the thing with love as well. Lovers keep rediscovering each other. Lovers keep

10:30 falling in love again and again. It is not as if the person is another one. It's just

10:40 that now you are able to look at him more clearly and because you are able to now look

10:46 at higher dimensions of his being, so now your love too is in a higher dimension. Maybe

10:53 initially you loved the other person but you loved only the body or the mannerisms. Then

10:59 you started loving the intellect. Now you say, "Ah, it's almost like falling in love

11:04 with a new person." And then comes a point when you have something higher than even intellect

11:13 to fall in love with. Now you are falling in love with a third person, though the body

11:20 is the same, separate. Are you getting it? So don't hunt from shop to shop. It's like

11:35 looking for 10 new chargers when your mobile has no battery. From shop to shop what are

11:43 you looking for? Something that can charge your dead mobile. Look at your mobile. The

11:51 charger that you have is in itself sufficient. But when you put in the battery and now the

12:01 charger is working, what do you say? The charger has now been prepared. The charger was always

12:11 alright. I hope the examples I am taking are serving their purpose. Looking for a new guru

12:27 doesn't help when you haven't yet exhausted the great potentiality of the one in front

12:36 of you. First of all exhaust him and in exhausting him you will find that you have exhausted.

12:48 And that is the whole purpose of being a disciple. To exhaust yourself, to liquidate yourself,

12:56 to finish yourself off. That is what is meant by exhaustion. Are you getting it? If the

13:06 guru is really a guru, he will have layers after layer. What you get depends on what

13:17 your level is. The real guru is like an infinite tree with branches at every level. And there

13:32 are fruits on each of the branches. It's just that the branches that are lower have lowly

13:45 fruits. The branches that are higher have higher and better fruits. As the height of

13:56 the branch increases, the sweetness of the fruit also increases. Now which fruit will

14:03 you get? That depends on your height. If you are getting a fruit that is not very sweet,

14:11 what does that mean about you? That your hands are not reaching those places of the tree

14:20 where there are sweeter fruits. It's not as if there is something wrong with the tree.

14:29 The tree is multi-layered and the tree has different things to offer to different seekers.

14:36 What you get depends on your capability, your height, your potential. Increase your potential.

14:45 That is why different people who come to a living guru get different things. So many

14:52 of you are listening to me. Some of you are totally immersed. They are getting fruits

14:59 from the higher branches. And some of you are busy in your own world, thinking about

15:06 this and that. What will they get? They will get fruits from the lower branches. It's almost

15:12 as if the two of them are listening to two different speakers. One will say I got a fruit

15:18 that was very ordinary. The other will say I got a fruit that was heavenly. The fruit

15:26 that you get depends on your level, your height. And the guru is capable of offering both the

15:34 fruits. The ordinary fruit as well as the highest fruit. If you want to get the higher

15:42 fruit, deepen your own attention, deepen your own devotion. That's how you get a new guru,

15:52 by reaching out to a higher branch. You become better, you see a higher face of the guru.

16:11 It's like a teacher teaching ABCD to the beginner and teaching the scripture to the advanced

16:20 seeker. It's the same teacher. What you get depends on who you are and where you are.

16:28 Thank you.

How to find the right Guru? || Acharya Prashant, on Ribhu Gita (2018)

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