 161. Teachers, Spiritual |
Bhakti is derived from the root, Bhaj, to serve, and means service of the Lord. It is loving attention to God. It is intense love for God. It is surrender in trusting appropriation of the grace of the lord.
It is a profound experience which negates all desire and fills the heart with love for God. Advocates of the way of devotion are not interested so much in supramundane redemption as in absolute subjection to the abiding will of God. The human soul draws near to the divine by contemplation of God's power, wisdom and goodness, by constant remembrance of "him" with a devout heart, by conversing about "His" qualities with others, by singing "His" praises with fellow men and woman and by doing all acts as "His" service. The devotee directs his whole being to God. Adoration is the essence of religion.
The divine spiritual teacher is not different (in consciousness) from the student.
"Out of discussion we call to vision, to those desiring to see we point the path, our teaching is a guiding in the "way." The seeing must be the very act of him who has made the choices."
-Pontius
No true spiritual teacher ever wanted to start a religion. Their only desire was to teach others how to attain what they themselves had achieved.
A true teacher never teaches. He/she only shares their spiritual knowledge. The true teacher is in the heart (consciousness) of the student or "listener."
It is the nature of the genuine "God Realized" teacher, master, guru, saint, etc. to be eternally present in the form of God for the sake of the disciple. This ego-less natural presence (as God) draws the disciple or devotee into the same spiritual condition as the teacher, which is, spiritual-self-realization and to know one's self as eternal spirit.
A true teacher is an example of what a human being can attain (actually return to).
The true teaching of any genuine teacher is: "Come follow me; I am the possibility of all mankind."
A true teacher is a loving reminder (or thorn) to his/her listeners of what they themselves can attain by "returning" to their true inner SELF-NATURE.
It is not the fault of Jesus that his followers did not understand him.
It is not the fault of Lao Tzu that his followers did not understand him.
It is not the fault of Mohammed that his followers did not understand him.
It is not the fault of the Buddha that his followers did not understand him.
It is not the fault of any "true" teacher that their followers do not understand them.
Facts of religious experience are found in different parts of the world and different periods of its history, attesting to the persistent unity and aspiration of the human spirit. The illuminations of the Hindu and the Buddhist seers, of Socrates and Plato, of Philo and Plotinus, of Christian and Muslim mystics, belong to the same family, through the theological attempts to account for them reflect the temperments of the race and the epoch.
