Upanishad: The Role of the Guru

Many Yogis in the West often pose the perennial question, "Do I need a Guru?" while in India, almost every child remembers being asked at least once, "If you find yourself before both God and Guru who to bow down to first?"

The answer they give is always the same. To the Guru, of course, because s/he is the one who brought you to God.

But how does the Guru bring one to God?

It's actually not a very pleasant method, which is why the Western Yogis are perhaps wise to question whether they need to deal with a Guru at all.

First, he lures you in with sweetness. He makes you feel like you are the most special seeker who ever lived. You are invited to witness many private moments that reveal wonderful things you never imagined existed spiritually. You cannot believe your fortune and spend much of your time basking in what you describe to your skeptical friends as "grace."

Next thing you've decided is that you don't ever want to be away from your Guru. You put all your belongings in storage, get on a plane, head to India in the hot season, and start wearing white. Nothing seems as important or worthwhile as what you are about to commit your life to.

As you arrive at the ashram gates, you hand over your passport, your money, and your plane ticket to the front office. You are shown your bunk in a room full of people with diarrhea. Your first act of service is to bring these people fresh sheets. Clean water. Plain rice. And strange, earthy Ayurvedic medicines your Guru's father (who you fear may be a bit of a quack, but you don't want to question. He's the Guru's father, after all!) gives you to distribute to all the sick Westerners. Your bunkmates hate you because they taste so bad and they groan in pain every time they see you.

Next you find yourself doing manual labor in the worst heat you've ever imagined. And the Guru decides to cancel breakfast indefinitely. "Just one glass of milk and a banana is enough!" you hear him declare. In one day, you spot a viper, a baby cobra, and three scorpions -- and then you remember, "I paid to be here."

And what's worse is that the Guru doesn't seem to think you're all that special anymore. He starts telling you things to do without any explanation or instruction like "Katy will feed all the people tomorrow -- and the next day, and the next day." (Of course he surely meant some other Katy! Because this Katy had never even buttered bread -- forget about cooking for 450 people who'd be visiting the ashram for a week.)

But of course he did mean this Katy.

You spend the entire night awake fretting about the impending disaster that you will be held responsible for. Yet the next day, an intelligence not your own takes over and you find things happening you never thought you could do before. Suddenly mountains of rice, perfect vegetables, golden dahl, and even lovely milk desserts emerge from your own hands.

Now when the Guru asks you to do ridiculous things like complex masonry projects and digging wells and greeting diplomats, you have faith in your untapped potential. You start to feel "puffed up" and proud of yourself.

But it doesn't last long because you realize that whenever you do something, the Guru or the other devotees criticize you. Soon you realize that even though it looks like you're doing everything right, you are being attacked for doing everything wrong. You start to feel angry that you aren't appreciated.

And it continues like this for a long, long time. The only thing that sustains you are your memories of being special and the hope that you may be restored to your special status soon -- and the moments you spend in deep meditation that get deeper and deeper as the months drag on.

A beautiful feeling of sweet detachment begins to grow inside. You find that you don't really care what anyone -- including the Guru -- has to say about the kind of job you are doing. You don't mind the food. You don't mind the cold bucket baths at 4 am. If someone is snoring, you hear it as a mantra repeating in your brain. You look upon everything with a tranquil and equal mind. You feel like you could live at this ashram, in this unbearable heat, forever.

Just when you decide that you are never going back to the West again, the Guru delivers the final blow of his method -- either move, be moved, or if necessary be re-moved. Either you decide on your own to leave. (This takes a great deal of courage because you aren't sure you could ever feel so peaceful "out in the world." And the other devotees criticize you mercilessly for "leaving the Master." Obviously you don't have any real faith and you were just a big mood-maker fake like they always believed.)

Or he asks you to leave. (Since he knows you won't believe him if he asks nicely, usually he doesn't ask -- he commands.)

Or a scandal erupts around you that you get blamed for and you're thrown out in disgrace. (Someone spreads a rumor that you were seen drinking shots of whisky with the villagers...or some such stuff.)

In that moment, you realize that there is only one thing left to turn to -- God.