The student and teacher together are a cosmic process: a function or a capacity. One is not separate from the other. Student and teacher are one situation. The student and teacher together are an expression of the lila (game or play) of world Self-recognition.

Instead of thinking of a student and a teacher as people or entities, think of studenting and teachering. Studenting and teachering are dependent; one cannot exist without the other.

What we call a “student” is a person through whom the cosmic capacity for studenting is expressed. What we call a “teacher” is a person through whom teachering flows.

Students often ask themselves: “Is so-and-so my Guru?” Or they ask a teacher: “Are you my Guru?” Instead, they should ask: “Am I making myself available to studenting?” We should work to open to the world flow of studenting.

This is why Chogyal Namkhai Norbu says that teachers should not
condition students by trying to get participation. Students should
manifest this capacity themselves. Opening to and discovering this natural process is good for students.

A great Guru is greatly available to the world process of Guru. A great Guru is like a clear and clean pane of glass through which teachering becomes available to anyone who steps into that never-ending, compassionate flow.

A great Guru and a great disciple together, as one process, demonstrate all of the cosmic virtues. All compassion, all selflessness, all equanimity, all yoga.

A great Guru and a great disciple are really one and the same. Virtues of service, dedication, totally nondifferentiating compassion, and surrender to the world process (Self-full-ness), flow from this complete situation.

This cosmic studenting-teachering process serves everyone. The bhakti of devotion to one teacher ends in devotion to all. If this is not the case, then the process has not come to full fruition: the manifestation of cosmic virtues without impediment.

In our roles as students and teachers, we are nothing but the expressions of this world process.

Sri Anandamayi said to her disciples: You all have wanted it [me] and you have it now. So play with this doll for a little while.

Mataji is declaring that her availability, her manifestation is the responsiveness of the world to itself. She is a “doll,” a piece in the cosmic game. Now, let’s play! Make use of this process!

During my visit to Varanasi last year, one of my Gurujis there played this game of availability with me in a beautiful way. His subtle lila demonstrates how the cosmic process responds to a sincere student by creating opportunities for the student to recognize and play out her tensions and fixations.

Here is the story.

I arrived in Varanasi with plans to do a particular sadhana involving tens of thousands of mantras, days of seclusion, and a final all-day fire ceremony.

When I first told him of my plan, my Guruji immediately said: “This thing is not necessary.”

I replied that of course it was necessary. Such a sadhana is “required.”

He looked at me kindly. “Just do one day,” he said.

“Oh no!” I protested. “I must complete the whole thing!”

“Ok,” he agreed. “But only do 7,000 mantras a day.”

Once again, the “hero” said “No!”

At this point, my Guruji’s energy shifted.

“I will help you!” he announced with great enthusiasm. “I will do the yajna (the final fire ceremony) with you!”

“But it takes all day!” I pointed out. Guruji is not a young man.

“I will do it!” He jabbed his right index finger in the air, and this settled the point.

Guruji called one of his other students and began busily organizing everything as if my plan had all along been the best idea ever. Now, not only was I doing it, but the entire household was coming along for the ride!

I was to start the mantra practice the next morning. That night, I came down with a high fever of no discernible origin. I barely made it back to my room. Just before dawn, I dragged myself out of bed and began setting up for the first puja.

Somehow, that day I made it through the intended number of mantras.

But the next morning, still feeling sick, I started again. Suddenly, there was a tremendous noise of banging and people yelling on the ground floor. Workmen began dragging something up the steps of my landlady’s house. When they got to the floor above mine, the hammering and sawing commenced.

Tiredly, I interrupted my practice. The landlady was hovering just outside my door. She informed me that she was building an addition onto the top floor of her house.

“But, I told you I came here to do practice. You said it was quiet!”

“It will only be four or five days of construction,” she answered with a shrug.

I closed my door and sat down with a thump. I began doing the mantra once again. The noise continued, and it was soon joined by the clanging of industrial-sized pots and pans from the restaurant kitchen next door. I could feel my fever rising.

My fingers stopped turning the mala.

I completed exactly 7,000 mantras that day.

In the evening, I went to see my Guruji.

I felt some nervousness. Guruji had volunteered to conduct the yajna with me. I considered this to be an enormous blessing.

Not only this, but the whole neighborhood now knew about it.

Would Guruji be angry that I had stopped the practice? What would everyone think?

As I neared Guruji’s house, a young man I knew who worked at the shop next door yelled out: “What happened to your puja?”

I smiled wanly and kept going. My awareness of just how much ego was involved in this sadhana grew uncomfortably with every step.

Inside, Guruji sat in his usual chair. Several people were gathered around him.

He smiled at me with no apparent surprise.

“Guruji, may I speak with you?”

He motioned the others to move aside and indicated that I was to sit next to him.

“Tell me,” he said.

I told him that I had stopped the practice, that I was ill, and that I intended to leave Varanasi and go somewhere less urban.

I told him how grateful I was that he had offered to do the yajna. And I apologized profusely for any trouble I may have caused him or the other students.

Guruji looked at me with melting tenderness, his head moving gently back and forth in the Indian way.

He said simply, “There are no conditions. No boundaries. You are free.”

And then he added, placing both of his palms on his heart and looking into my eyes: “I am so happy for you.”

I am so happy for you.

But this is not the end of the story.

The next day, I went to say goodbye before I caught the train to Rishikesh.

“So, you are going to Rishikesh. What will you do there?” Guruji asked me.

“I will complete the mantra practice,” I answered, not yet having learned my lesson, even after all that had happened.

Without missing a beat, Guruji declared: “I will help you. I will help you from here!”

In Rishikesh, I got even sicker. I spent most of the remainder of my trip in bed. I never completed the sadhana.

What kind of “help” is this? I grumbled. But I knew.

The sickness, which turned out to be dengue fever, lasted for many months, during which my long-time habit of engaging in “sick effort” largely burnt itself out. Now I approached my sadhana with an attitude of play and devotion, rather than as something to be accomplished for the greater glory of “me.” The practice flowed easefully.

The beauty of this Guru-disciple process is that I was delayed from doing a fairly ambitious practice until I had relaxed more deeply and let go of some of my ambition.

When I saw Guruji again this year, he looked at me and said: “You are much improved. I am so happy for you.”

OM Shanti,

Shambhavi

Related Posts

• Spiritual Math
• Upset with Guru
• Varanasi Lights