Maharishi about Guru Dev
The Glory of Being near Guru Dev
…the priceless transcendental nectar in which saints and seekers lose themselves and forget everything during their deep meditations in silent barren places – when that same nectar, that very same experience is had in nearness to the lotus feet of Guru Dev, in an unmoving and stable manner, with the eyes open and in a completely wakeful state, the incomparably blissful transcendental torrent floods the inside and outside, and the mind is drowned in ecstasy.
Certainly this state in the nearness to the lotus feet of Guru Dev is much more desirable and enjoyable than the state where we forgot everything in samadhi. In that state at the lotus feet of Guru Dev, wave upon wave of the bliss of samadhi rises in myriads of forms and channels in complete wakefulness. That is the experience of jivan mukti, by the grace of the lotus feet of Guru Dev. The experience of the unshakable bliss of samadhi, when we are completely awake, is the jivan mukti, drowned in which the great Mahatmas become Brahman.
At this time in this silence, in the nearness to Guru Dev, that is the experience. There is an inexpressible happiness, a feeling of huge elation, the heart is overwhelmed by ecstatic feeling like the heaving of an ocean of love, an ocean of bliss, as if the blissfulness of pure consciousness is rising in powerful torrents to surface from somewhere deep inside; and outside, Guru Dev’s wordless, enchanting, inviting, nectar- like love is an infinitely large ocean.
Torrential waves are rising from this limitless ocean on the outside, and diving deep inside and having struck the deepest depths, are rising outwards again and again, and then falling at the lotus feet of Guru Dev in voiceless ripples softly heaving and vibrating in ecstasy. The hand and feet and ears and all the senses, together with the heart and mind and intellect, are bursting with the fullness of that ecstatic feeling.
Every tiny atom of the body is enveloped in that unbounded transcendental bliss of Brahmananda, and is melting into that experience as if into an indivisible, everlasting union with pure radiant love, untouched by time, space, or any other constraint. The limitless ocean of the heart bursts forth in wave upon torrential wave of invincibility and freedom.
That unchanging, eternally stable, and timeless bliss, which is beyond the senses and transcendental in every way, is being experienced at the surface value of life at one single time simultaneously by all the senses, by every part of the physical body, and by the entire heart, mind, and intellect – all this by the grace and love of Guru Dev. The whole of life, the gross physical body, the subtle body, the transcendental inner phase of life, is throbbing and heaving with ecstatic feeling that is only bliss, just ecstasy and the nearness of Guru Dev.
Outside on the terrace, it is as if the gentle ripples of the lake are nudging the sides and sleeping vegetation to awaken them to enjoy the tender moonlight. And there, on the terrace, the divine illumination of the lotus feet of Guru Dev is giving the power of life to the brilliant, inexpressible, transcendental sun of pure consciousness, to allow its waves to shake the heart of the ignorant disciple, to bring enlightenment and jivan mukti. The disciple is awakening from sleep. He is rising up. His ignorance and doubts are being erased. The fog facing him is lifting and the long journey is being quickly completed; the goal is becoming visible; it is right in front. Reaching it is all that is left. The other shore barely appears, and Guru Dev, the captain of the boat, throws a chain around the docking post to hasten his disciple’s arrival.
Great good fortune is needed to be able to experience the unbounded grace of Guru Dev and to continue to drink of that infinite ocean of bliss…
The point being brought out here is the blissfulness experienced in nearness to the true Master. The point to notice is how the Guru, by giving his disciples and other seekers the experience of the different and varied aspects of Brahman strengthens every disciple’s progress on the path of evolution and carries him to the pinnacle of perfection. The thing is the same, pure consciousness, but the Guru gives the disciple experiences of it in such a variety of ways that remove every shadow of doubt that could become an obstacle to the disciple’s progress.
This is the glory of being near Guru Dev.
This is from a talk Maharishi Mahesh Yogi gave in Hertenstein, Switzerland around 1974-1976
The Department of the Almighty
Question: Guru Dev must have been fully enlightened. Now after leaving the body nothing remains in the relative – just absolute. Then how do we invoke and to whom? And if there is nobody to be invoked, so what is the use?
MAHARISHI: Some such similar question I asked Guru Dev once. What happened was, naturally people came to the ashram from all over India to pay respect to Guru Dev, once or twice a year according to their own convenience. And when they were come, they were narrating all sorts of stories: the child was sick, they had a lawsuit, all sorts of difficulties. And then, thinking of Guru Dev, that thing disappeared.
Hearing all these things for a long time one night I asked Guru Dev:
‘What is this? These people don’t even write to Guru Dev. Guru Dev doesn’t know they are in difficulty on the surface of life. And then, how do they report they had a vision or some thought of Guru Dev and from that time everything started to be smooth? If they wrote a letter and the difficulty came to the notice of Guru Dev and then they got out of their difficulties, I could understand it. But they don’t write letters, they just have the devotion to Guru Dev and they have some thought of Guru Dev.’
And Guru Dev’s reply was: “It’s the department of the Almighty, and He takes care of it.”
It took me about two years to understand – because I quite remember the time – what was meant by “It is the department of the Almighty”.
How I understand it was this: * We have the picture of Guru Dev as when we do Puja. That form, that photo, that picture is the physical expression of the form which had a mind which was fully enlightened and omnipresent.
So once we see the form, our eyes associate with the form very naturally, because the physical and the mental run parallel. And once the form is in our vision, in our awareness, then naturally our mind gets in tune with the mind which occupied that form once upon a time. The form was occupied by a mind, that mind is an all-time reality, eternal. The barriers of time are no barrier for it – continuum. The body is no more, but the form is there. And once we tune our eyes, perception, vision and cognition to that – because that was held up by a mind that was enlightened – naturally our mind gets in tune.
And because that mind was and is and will forever be omnipresent, immediately our mind gets in tune with the omnipresent. And right away the help comes from where we are. Help comes from absolute being, which is the nature of our own mind.
But that image, that picture becomes a positive and concrete medium to have that mechanics performed for our mind. So help comes from our own being because it comes through that form naturally our devotion to that. That is ‘The department of the Almighty takes care of it’.
It is not the individual – it is the department. And it is only one way, it is not two ways. The help is not given, it is received. It is received by our ability to attune with that.
And that ability develops with devotion, surrender and service. These three things – automatically one is elevated to that level. And help doesn’t come from outside, it comes from right where we are, from our own being.
But those unaware of one’s own being have this mechanics to help them. And this is true for all the saints in all the times throughout the world.’ He was Maha Yogiraj in the family of Yogis in India and was held by the “Jnanies” (Realized) as the personified Brahmanandam (Universal Bliss Consciousness), the living expression of “pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ” (That Unmanifested is fullness and This Manifested is also fullness).
The divine radiance blooming forth from his shining personality revealed the truth of “Purnam idam” and His Sahaja-Samadhi (all time natural state of cosmic consciousness) brought home the truth of both — “pūrṇam adaḥ “and “pūrṇam idaṁ”.
It was the perfection of this great spiritual master which innovated a spiritual renaissance in Northern India and wherever He traveled.
His entire personality exhaled always the supreme perfume of spirituality. His face radiated that rare light which comprises love, authority, serenity and self-assuredness; the state that comes only by righteous living and Divine realization. His Darshan made the people feel as if some ancient Maharishi of Upanishadic fame had assumed human form again, and that it is worthwhile leading a good life and to strive for realization of the Divine.
His spiritual teachings are simple and clear and go straight home to the heart. He strictly adhered to the courses of inner development laid down by the systems of Indian philosophy and ethics and He raised His voice never in opposition but always in support of the truths and principles laid down in the concept of Dharma. He gave the people the spirit of religion and made them happy in every walk of life.”
Our Gratitude towards Guru Dev
What we can do to express our gratitude towards Him?
Even if the whole wealth of the world we could make available to ourselves and offer at his feet, it will be just an insignificant offering in comparison to what great Light of God that he has provided us.
Even if we could make available for us all the resources of the Almighty Nature and offer it at his feet, it won’t be an offering worth the great blessing that he has given us.
Even if we could make available to ourselves the eternity of time and offer at his feet that eternal life of ours, even that will not be worth that great blessing that he has given us.
There is nothing that we can possibly ever do to repay what we owe to him. But even then, from time to time we do feel to express our heart and the thought of our mind, placing ourselves at his feet in gratitude.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Norway, 1966
Life of Guru Dev was a Life of Silence
That is the gist of it. Silence, deep silence. It becomes very difficult to speak on the surface values of Guru Dev’s life, because on the surface it was the ideal of recluse life, of a monk’s life, deep in the forests, away from habitation, nothing, from the age of about eleven til about the age of about seventy. That was his life. But when I look upon it now, what I find is that a life was being designed, an individual life was being designed in deep silence and it was being designed to be lively, representing silence, so that the coming times of great activity could be infused with that value of silence, by this great centre of silence which was being developed in remote areas of deep forests and caves, so that that liveliness could then pulsate in the time when there’ll be hardly any silence in the active field of life. The need was there, because the tempo of life is increasing more and more. With all scientific researches everywhere, the surface of life becoming very, very dynamic, now it was necessary that the inner silence also should become lively. So there was that one individual personality as if hidden by Mother Nature, to secure the liveliness of that infinite silence deep within the individual life. And when it was made lively, and lively, and lively, then it started to penetrate in the environment and then it spread and spread, and now it’s going to overtake the whole human race.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi