Firstly, it isn’t the disciples prerogative to join the Guru but it is the other way round. The Guru is the one who selects his disciples. It’s the same method employed outside in the material world too. Institutions like Harvard or Cambridge select the candidates. Everyone may aspire to join but hardly few get to. Likewise, the Guru selects his own disciples and trains them.
The training starts at the place where the Guru had left off earlier. This means the association of the Guru with his disciple is eternal. Whenever the disciple gets off his training, at that juncture he has to return back in some other life.
Here let me give you a story to understand the truth about Guru’s teachings.
Once a haughty Brahmin came to Swami Samarth Ramdas and demanded that the Swami teach him. Ramdas taught that Brahmin for some time. Everyday the disciples were supposed to go to the town to beg for food. That food was then distributed amongst all disciples and the Guru. The Brahmin didn’t like it one bit so one day he decided to go to another town leaving his Guru. In the nearby town he met a very rich Brahmin who looked like a prosperous teacher. This disciple Brahmin asked the rich one to teach him. The rich Brahmin said that if he had a previous teacher then the knowledge taken from the old teacher should be returned back before he could be taught anew.
Hearing that the young student decided to go and return back the knowledge to Ramdas. Now, how can someone return back the knowledge and in what way or form? Yet, when Ramdas saw this young person say that he had come to return back the knowledge to Ramdas since he had found a new teacher, Ramdas agreed to take it back.
He told that arrogant Brahmin to take some water in his mouth and gargle it and then spit it out. When he did that the water which fell on the floor turned into the Guru’s given initiation mantra. The words appeared in the water and sunk in the ground. Then Ramdas asked him to leave saying that he had returned that knowledge back.
Once back with the new Brahmin Guru, he related what had happened with Samarth Ramdas. The Brahmin Guru became very angry and shooed the young impudent student away. Ramdas was also the Guru of this prosperous Brahmin. What happened to the young Brahmin is anyone’s guess. He was left with no knowledge or Guru.
The reasons for leaving a Guru could be many. Some are not able to study hard enough, some cannot cope up with strict regimes, some have a very strong ego and don’t want to get trained, some get tainted by the Guru’s or other disciples behavior, some think that they have learnt enough, some believe they have understood everything and so on. Some fall for the usual reasons like anger, greed, lust, loss of faith and so on.
Whatever may be the cause of their fall, the disciple has to again meet the same Guru and start the process once again in some other life. There is no release for such an ingrate disciple in any life till he is able to overcome his personal ego and become supplicant under the same Guru. So the disciple has no choice but follow the path laid out by his own Guru. One may say, that’s not a good reason to have such a vindictive Guru but let’s understand that there aren’t very many Harvards and also the Masters! So it’s better to follow the rule book and stick around and get the best kind of knowledge from the designate Guru in one lifetime alone.
Image Credit: Pixabay
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