Sharanagati

In the Upanishads it is said: “Acharyavan purusho veda.” “Van” means “to have”. “Those who have guru will know”. If somebody has a spiritual master, he will achieve knowledge, he will understand. How? If you stay too far away from the guru – no interaction. If you go too close – it’s burning. So there is an instruction that: “Don’t go too close to fire, to ladies and to guru. But don’t stay too far away from them.” Because if you go too close to the fire, it will burn you. But if you are too far away, you will not feel the warmth. If you go too close to the ladies, then you will have some troubles; but if you are too far away from the ladies, you will have no sons. So a certain golden middle path is recommended.

And the guru is the same: if you go too close – it’s burning! But if you are too far away, you don’t hear the instructions. How guru is burning… well, very much burning! Because guru is burning. Guru is light, fire! Of course if you go close to the fire it will burn you. Therefore it is suggested: only those should approach guru, who want to finish with their material attachments. Guru is necessary only for such person, who wants to go back. Because guru will not burn your soul, he will not burn your identity – only the false identity. But even to get rid of that is VERY painful.

The disciple is just like the ore down in the mine. And how to get the gold? First you have to go down, quite deep under the earth. Then you have to cut and take it out from the original hidden position. And a good gold mine is minimum 1000 meters deep. So your gold is hidden deep. But there are some people, who are ready to go so deep in order to mine. Then they bring it to the surface. And what to do with this big lump of ore? You have to crush it into powder.

So, guru goes down in the gold mine of your soul, takes your heart, brings it to the surface, squashes and crushes it. But it’s not the end of the story. When you get the ore, you have to put it in the fire. And what happens if guru puts our broken heart on fire? It will be burned. And what will come to the surface first? The dirt.

So purification mеans – your heart will be broken, you will be put on fire and all the dirt will be manifest immediately. But after that if you just wipe off the dirt – there is the molten gold.

This is the way the guru burns. If you still have some reservations – don’t go too close.