When you read the Tantras, you’ll find lists of qualities of ideal Gurus. Some of these lists make the ideal Guru sound like Adonis, Einstein, Arnold Swarzennegger, Ms. Manners, and Krishna all rolled into one. Lots of us feel our Guru, should we ever stoop to choosing one, must meet qualifications such as these. Or, we fill the Guru slot with a dead Guru we can idealize at will.

Then, there are contemporary books that argue no one should have a Guru because Gurus are inherently power trippers. Rejecting all Gurudom outright, and/or relying solely on one’s inner Guru or sangha (spiritual community), are common phenomena in the U.S. today.

Completing the triangle with Seeking the Impossible Ideal and No Guru Whatsoever, are people who seem to get all wrapped up with teachers you wouldn’t even want to chat with briefly at a dinner party. Such Gurus have a lot in common with The Bad Boyfriend. (Ok, ok, or “Girlfriend.”)

These three seem like different situations, but the reason we summarily reject “Guru,” the reason we attach to people calling themselves “Guru” who have no real accomplishment, and the reason we think we must have The Perfect Guru, are the same reason.

We are afraid and needy. We approach Gurus as if they were just any other person from whom we can “acquire” safety and get our needs fulfilled. This is the impoverished, materialistic way we tend to approach all of our relationships: the other is supposed to make me feel safe, build up my self image, and meet my needs. That’s modern romance in a nutshell.

OK. Imagine my needs are met, my self image is all shored up, and I feel safe. Now what? Is this all life is for? Zoning out inside a made-up lock box of safeness and satiation?

As long as we remain trapped at this level, we will always either find crummy teachers or reject real teachers altogether. Only crummy teachers who have their own needs will make the bargain to meet our needs exactly as we define them and help us build up a false sense of security.

However, as soon as our real yearning begins to be felt—that is our natural yearning for freedom—we can start to become real students and develop the discernment to recognize a real teacher when one shows up.

I can’t tell you how or when this happens. But it does happen.

So, what is “Guru?”

Guru is a process of Nature.

The Guru process engages, reflects, and reveals the reality of what we are. In contrast, most of us are trained by our culture to focus on who we are.

We spend most of our time cobbling together a “who.” This “who” is very limited.

A true Guru throws shards of mirrors into our “who” mechanism. Eventually we see ourselves reflected everywhere and in everyone. We realize our infinity.

Tat Tvam Asi. Thou Art That… Thou are That World, not a “who.” Thou art an entire world with all of its processes and flows.

Not “who,” but the arising of individual experience as an expressive flow pattern. The traditional image of this is a wave in the ocean. A wave has no real boundaries. If we tried to find the beginning of a wave, we would eventually have to include the entire ocean. Yet a wave is an oceanic process that expresses something individual.

How does “I” work? What are the ways and means of this self-referencing process, this individual experience pattern? How does the world Self make and unmake itself? These are the real questions. Tantrikas are researchers of Self, not self-psychotherapists.

The Guru peels back, layer by layer, the seemingly natural question of “Who am I?” and reveals the “I” to be a concept, a construction, a reference point with no stable referent.

Guru is a natural technology for waking up to the freedom of no fixed point. Guru is the gift of Shiva to Shiva.

Shibendu Lahiri says that “Guru is a phenomenon.” Guru is the never-ending abhisheka (blessing bath) of non-dual compassion. If Shiva were self-hating, there would be no Gurus.

Guru is one pervasive phenomenon: the phenomenon of the world realizing itself over and over again.

Guru is also a funny joke. The entire manifest world is hiding this secret in its folds. Dattatreya had twenty-four Gurus including a bracelet and a wasp. The majority of us need a lot of help recognizing just one Guru. This is kind of funny. I assure you, in the end, we will all laugh. Or even long before the end.

So, I am talking about Guru as world process of self-realization. But there are different sorts of Gurus. And different sampradayas (traditions) have varying lists of the kinds of Gurus.

I have found it useful to think of Gurus in these four categories.

An upaya (means ) Guru is a teacher who can correctly teach you methods and who has some accomplishment, but who has not necessarily realized the full fruit of those methods.

A diksha (initiation) Guru is a teacher who can correctly teach you methods of sadhana, and who has a high level of accomplishment, enough so that she or he can transmit the wisdom energy of mantra and can work with a student on deeper energetic levels. A diksha Guru can guide your sadhana and will generally have received permission from a lineage to act in this capacity.

A Satguru (true Guru) is a rare phenomena. A Satguru is one with a degree of self-realization (openness) that allows others to self-recognize their own true essence or essential freedom reflected in her or him. One of the meanings of “Guru” is “dispeller of darkness.” This means dispeller of ignorance of Reality. A Satguru is one whose very way of being in the world is a transmission of the natural state. A Satguru is a gateway to freedom.

There are other, rarer, beings who have been called “Jagad Gurus” or “World Gurus.” Some of those who have been called Jagad Guru are Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri and Sri Ma Anandamayi. I can’t really define what this means other than to point to their great compassion and to phenomena beyond space and time that seem to occur as a result of their presence in the world.

I believe it is very useful to understand that every authentic teacher is grace in our lives, of whatever level of accomplishment.

The topic of Guru is one that has been written, talked, and taught
about for thousands of years. What I have written here is a microscopic drop. I have recently added several articles and books to Living Tantra that can help you to explore this further.

OM Shanti,
Shambhavi

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