Activity

Guru jahaaj ham pabna,
Guru mukh pari parai.
Guru jahaaj jane bina,
Robai ghat kharai.

I have got the ship of Guru, whosoever gets one will cross over the worldly sea
One who doesn’t have the ship of Guru will weep standing on the bank.

Kabir is talking regarding – Role Of The Guru In This World Of Maya.

This world of MAYA is not a world of MAYA for you; it is very real, and the role of the guru is to show you that it is not real. It is real for you, so how can you think that it is unreal? You can think about unreality only if you have a glimpse of the real; only then can you compare.

This world is not MAYA illusory, for you. You have heard, you have read that this world is MAYA, and you may have memorized it just like a parrot, so you also call this world illusory.

In the morning when the sleep has disappeared, and with it the dream, are you worried about the dream? Are you worried that in the dream you felt ill or that you were even dead? While the dream was there, you were worried, you were ill, you were asking for a doctor, for some medicine. But in the morning, the moment you are not asleep and the dream has disappeared, you are not worried.

Now you know it was a dream, and you are not ill.

In India, this parrot-like speech that “the whole world is illusory” has gone deep into the mind, but in the false center. It is not a growth. We have heard, the Upanishads, the Vedas and the RISHIS have been saying for centuries, that the world is illusory. They have propagated the idea so strongly that those who are asleep and dreaming, they think they are awake. The whole world is asleep, but their misery shows that the world is real, their anguish shows that the world is real.

The role of the guru is to give you a glimpse of the real – not a teaching, but an awakening. The guru is not a teacher: the guru is an awakener. He has not to give you doctrines. If he gives you doctrines, he is a philosopher. If he talks about the world as illusory and argues and proves that the world is illusory, if he discusses, debates, if he intellectually gives you a doctrine, he is not a guru, he is not a master. He may be a teacher, a teacher of a particular doctrine, but he is not a master, not a guru.

A guru is not a giver of doctrines. He is a giver of methods – of methods which can help you to come out of your sleep. That is why a guru is always a disturber of your dreams, and it is difficult to live with a guru. It is very easy to live with a teacher because he never disturbs you. Rather, he goes on increasing your accumulation of knowledge.