Guru Purnima :July 2022

Man is a veritable dynamo of enormous spiritual power, says Swami Vivekananda. This spiritual power is normally latent. We need a Guru to unfold this power and also to harness it in a proper way. Our society has always laid a great emphasis on the relationship between Guru and Sishya. It is not something akin to the contemporary teacher student relationship. Our traditional system provided for not just educational support but also emotional and spiritual guidance from the Guru to the shishya. It is a divine bond which has withstood several millennia of uninterrupted continuity. Though the political landscape has seen several changes in the past this tradition has survived without any changes.

This tradition is said to be one which starts from the Mahadeva himself. For Example the invocation sloka for the smarthas says that,

 Sadasiva samarambham Sankaracharya madhyamam asmad acarya paryantam vande guru paramparam

Meaning salutation to the lineage starting with lord Sadasiva, with Adi Sankara in the middle and continuing up to my immediate teacher.  Veda Vyasa carried the mantle from Lord Shiva himself and he is considered as the first Human Guru. It will not be an over statement if we say that our nation was designed and sustained by our Guru tradition. Because the duty of a Guru is to make every student aware of his divine nature. This will refine them and make them good subjects. A society will change when all its individuals get transformed. When the society becomes good, the Nation becomes good. So to transform a Nation the work should start from the individual. In this guru’s influence becomes a tremendous value addition to the whole of humanity. This applies to the contemporary world too. The present-day world’s crisis is very much a creation of character deterioration. To come out of this problem we have to take refuge in the great teachings of our Gurus. If we want to see a resurgent world tomorrow, then this is the course which we have to follow for sure. This is one of the burning desires of Swami Vivekananda who wanted to see our country back in her saddle as the Jagat Guru. The voice of peace and benediction will flow from her for the benefit of the entire Humanity.

                                                                                                                                V.V.Balasubramanian

                                                                                                                                                        YB-ET