Question:

JGD Didi, Krishnamurty says you do NOT need a Guru or a Master to walk the spiritual path, you can get there on your own. Why is a Master required on the Spiritual path?

Answer:

There is a Rumi poem:

I died as a mineral and became a plant, 

I died as plant and rose to animal, 

I died as animal and I was Man. 

Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? 

Yet once more I shall die as Man,

To soar with angels blest;

But even from Angel-hood I must pass on:

All except God doth perish. 

When I have sacrificed my angel-soul, 

I shall become what no mind ever conceived. 

Oh, let me not exist! For Non-existence 

Proclaims in organ tones, ‘To Him we shall return.’

Rumi has summarized the highest Truth about life very beautifully in this poem. Every lifetime that we are given, is an actual test to rise higher in evolution. Even this human life is just a bridge, don’t make a home here, move on to Angelhood. But don’t keep the desire to stop there either. One must go beyond what the mind can conceive. One must have the courage to go beyond ‘Existence’.

This final proclamation ‘Oh, let me not exist’ instils fear in the mind. The mind only knows ‘existence’. It only understands ‘existence’. But the final home is in ‘Non-existence’. This is the toughest Truth to swallow. One who swallows this gathers the courage to reach the ultimate truth. But to get there, the mind needs some external support to be able to rise above the FEAR OF NON-EXISTENCE. This is where the Master comes in.

A Master cajoles you with techniques and discourses, to help you dive within your own-Self. He instills confidence in you to be able to look within. The mind likes to stay outside as it is familiar with ‘all that exists’. It is not comfortable going within where there is ‘non-existence’, where there is ‘mere formlessness’, where there is just ‘darkness’, where there is just ‘emptiness’.

A Guru comes into your life to make the mind die. Only when you die in your Master can you become ‘Divine’. A Master is Death as well as Resurrection. Only when the mind dies, can one truly be reborn.

Guru Poornima is a day of Death and Resurrection! When you die in your Master, you do not become ‘less’, you become ‘more’. Happy Guru Poornima…To Him we shall return!