Guru Purnima is traditionally observed on the Full Moon day during Ashadha month (June-July) of the Hindu calendar. Guru Puja or Guru Worship is done on this day, as disciples traditionally offer puja and pay their obeisance to their Guru or teachers. Guru in Sanskrit is translated as “dispeller of darkness” and refers to a spiritual guide who enlightens his disciples through his knowledge and teachings.

Buddhists also celebrate Guru Purina to honour of Gauatam Buddha.  It is said that Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath in Uttar Pradesh on this day.

Who is your Guru?

In the West we experience divided impulses toward the idea of Guru. Many of us resist it vehemently, feeling protective of our independent nature. We have been told what to do too many times, have witnessed too many times when a leader has revealed his or her human failings, disappointing us deeply. An exposed Guru is more threatening to our faith than the absence of a Guru, for we respond with the vulnerability of betrayal, and often cast aside the wisdom of the fallen one, along with his human fumblings and lies.

Yet we Westerners also are pulled to the Guru ideal, often unknowingly.  We may reject the notion in a spiritual context, and then pursue a Guru relationship in our romantic lives, our business aspirations, or even in the idolatry of a sports or fitness hero, or a political or pop star. One could say that the rise of many Western celebrities including the Donald have resulted from the hunger left by the lack of a true Guru. Witness how tongue-tied most of us become in the presence of celebrity, and you are witnessing the Guru impulse.  Watch as many Westerners emulate Easterners by immersing themselves in a superficial yogic tradition that may hold no true nourishing heritage. We may honour that to which we aspire, yet often choose our role models unwisely, or with naiveté.

But of course, “the real guru is truly within. He is the one who dispels all fear and ignorance. As Ramakrishna  Paramahamsa says, ‘He alone is the true teacher who is illumined by the light of true knowledge.’ The outside world Gurus, help you connect to the Guru within. He resides in your Vishudha Chakra located on the throat and awakens when you surrender to your higher self.”  rudraksha-ratna.com

So if, on the way toward the light, a Guru brings us joy, or brings us pain, is it possible that each teacher is the right one for that moment, that place upon our karmic journey?  Our child’s heart wants only the teacher who is perfect, one whom we can elevate to place beyond our own human darkness.  Hence, we ask them to be the bringer of the light.  But what of the critical parent, what of the lover who spurns us, what of the illness that collapses our dreams, leaving us to find a strength or peace we would never have been able to touch, any other way?

Tony Robbins, in his documentary, I Am Not Your Guru, says “life is happening for us, not to us” and in this he reminds us of the profoundly guided nature of our every experience. And so, perhaps in this way, East meets West.  When we honour the entire spectrum of life experience, including loss, trauma, confusion and betrayal, we may find each one becomes a bringer of light, as we surrender our resistance to the teachings they hold. 

Within our community, our places of study, our chosen mentors, we may discover that one who has travelled just a bit further, a bit deeper than we have, has so much to offer us. She may lead the way, making our path a little kinder, a little more graceful as we discover we are not alone upon it. And as each student stumbles upon her own inner teacher, this awareness in itself rekindles the cycle and we wake up to our own capacity for genuine service, only after we have been well fed by the teachers who have guided our way. The best mother is one who has been well-mothered, if not by her own flesh and blood, by the experiences of her life, her own capacity for self love, and the beneficent guides who always surround her in their etheric presence.

We are never alone precisely because we are always held by our Divine teachers, Godly parents and our own inner Guru nature. Any idea that we walk this journey alone is a blindness that must lift. Any attachment to the idea of someone else holding power or permission over us is an illusion that must fall away. Every answer is eventually found within our own hearts, and it is the work of the teacher to guide us toward this truth.

Ever since the night so many years ago that my own guides chose to begin expressing their teachings through me, and I awakened to the honour of representing them, more and more I have witnessed that those who find me are their own teachers, whether they realize it or not.  They come seeking mastery, and in the process of letting go their fear of this truth about themselves, they may discover it, patiently waiting. When the student is ready, the teacher is born from within.

Today I honour the countless teachers in my life, those who taught me knowingly, and those who taught me helplessly, in a karmic whirlwind of purposeful magnetism. Today I release any distinction between those who taught with gifts, and those who taught with pain. Today I love them all, for there is no other reward necessary than the blessings of my inner Guru revealed. With deepest respect, I thank you all.