Messages from Shibendu Lahiri

Click here to read, or download, Shibendu Lahiri's inspired messages.

Another opportunity to see the whole series

about Self-realisation and the non-dual (Advaita)

teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj.

First film at 18h30:

Second film at 21h:

Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi are considered to be the two greatest representatives of Self-realisation and Advaita (non-dualist understanding).

Contribution: €3

Bring your dinner :o)

Guiding Light - The Teacher (quoted from Feuerstein's 'The Yoga Tradition')

As Mircea Eliade pointed out in his well-known study on Yoga, "What characterizes Yoga is not only its practical side, but also its initiatory structure."

Yoga, like all forms of esotericism, presupposes the guidance of an initiate, a master who has firsthand experience of the phenomena and realizations of the yogic path. Ideally, he or she should have reached the ultimate spiritual destination of all yogic endeavor - enlightenment (bodha, bodhi), or liberation (moksha).

Thus, contrary to the "pop" Yoga espoused by a large number of Westerners, authentic Yoga is never a do-it-yourself enterprise. "One does not learn Yoga by oneself," observed Eliade. Rather, Yoga involves, as do all other traditional Indian systems, an actual pupilage during which a master imparts his or her secrets to the worthy disciple or devotee. And those secrets are not exhausted by the kind of knowledge that can be expressed in words or printed in books.

Much of what the teacher (guru) imparts to the disciple falls under the category of spiritual transmission (sancara). Such transmission, in which the guru literally empowers the student through a transference of "energy" or "consciousness" (corresponding to the "Holy Spirit" of Christian baptism), is the fulcrum of the initiatory process of Yoga. By means of it, the practitioner is blessed in his or her struggle for transcendental realization. As a result, the initiated yogin or yogini experiences the necessary conversion or "turn-about" that is crucial to the spiritual process: He or she begins to find the Real, or the Self beyond the ego, more attractive than the numerous possibilities of worldly experience. The basis for that attraction is a tacit intuition of the Self, which grows stronger in the course of practice."

The 'guru' and self-realisation (from 'The Yoga Tradition', by Feuerstein, PhD.)

"The God-realized teacher grants "divine knowledge" (divya-jnana), as the Yoga-Shikha-Upanishad puts it. It is knowldedge that springs from enlightenment and attracts to enlightenment.

The Advaya-Taraka-Upanishad gives an esoteric explanation of the word guru, deriving it from the syllable gu (indicating "darkness") and ru (indicating "dispeller").

Of all the teachers, God-realized adepts are even today given a special place in Hindu society, for they alone are capable of initiating the spiritual seeker into the supreme "knowledge of the Absolute" (brahma-vidya). They alone are sad-gurus (sat-gurus) - "teachers of the Real" or "true teachers." Here, the Sanskrit word sat connotes both "real" and "true". These teachers are celebrated as potent agents of grace. As the Shiva-Samhita states: "By the teacher's grace, everything auspicious for oneself is obtained." And the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika affirms that without a true teacher's compassion, the state of transcendental spontaneity (sahaja) is difficult to attain.

Because of his or her spiritual realization, the guru is considered to be an embodiment of the Divine itself. [...]

The teacher is not a specific deity but the all-encompassing Divine. This "deification" of the God-realized master must not be misunderstood. He or she is not God in any exclusive sense, but rather is coessential with the transcendental Reality. That is to say, he or she has abrogated the ordinary person's misidentification with a particular body-mind and abides purely as the transcendental Identity of all beings and things.

There is no trace of egoity in the truly enlightened being, for the ego has been replaced by the Self. The body-mind and personality continue for their alloted time, but the enlightened being is no longer implicated by his or her automaticities.

The unenlightened individual, by contrast, believes himself or herself to be a particular "entity", or individuated consciousness, somehow lodged within a body and associated with, possibly even driven by, a particular personality complex. This fatal illusion is gracefully shattered at the moment of enlightenment."

What is a true 'Guru'? (from the Kula-Arnava-Tantra)

"There are many gurus, like lamps in house after house,

but hard to find, O Devi,

is the guru who lights up all like the sun.

There are many gurus who are proficient in the Vedas and the Shastras,

but hard to find, O Devi,

is the guru who has attained to the supreme Truth.

There are many gurus on Earth who give what is other than the Self,

but hard to find in all the worlds, O Devi,

is the guru who reveals the Self.

Many are the gurus who rob the disciple of his wealth,

but rare is the guru who removes the afflictions of the disciple.

He is a [true] guru by whose very contact there flows the supreme Bliss.

The intelligent person should choose such a one as his guru and none other."

(Translation from Feuerstein's 'The Yoga Tradition')