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Originally Posted by ajay00
Guru is a sanskrit word meaning 'remover of darkness'.
As the above excerpt by Ramana Maharshi states, the Guru can come in the form of a human or non-human.
Dattatreya's 24 Gurus were the elements, insects, animals. birds , natural formations , a girl and a child.
By contemplating on their charecterestics, he was able to discriminate between the real and unreal and attain enlightenment.
A human Guru or teacher can also be helpful. In every aspect of material life, we have teachers and same too is the case of spirituality, unless one is very gifted, as per Ramana and Bodhidharma.
As Emerson stated, 'A good teacher makes things easier to understand.'
Nisargadatta Maharaj, abided in the state of 'I Am' or Awareness, as taught by his guru Siddharameshwar , for three years, and attained enlightenment.
Mooji and Madhukar attained enlightenment through the aid of H.W.Poonja.
Some have attained enlightenment without Gurus too. A charecterestic among them is that they are blessed with excellent study and work habits, along with courage, which enables one to be successful in the material sphere as well.
Devamrita, a recent enlightened master, had no Guru, though he cleared his doubts and made his intellectual understanding precise through research and discussion with saints and scholars. Upon realising that Awareness was the key factor, he practiced it meticulously and attained enlightenment in six months.
Same is the case with Dada Gavand and Jed Mckenna.
The exceptional ones can forgo a Guru, but the problem is that almost everyone takes himself or herself to be an exceptional person or superman due to egotism, improper understanding of their capacities, and ends up nowhere. In fact, within the same time period, they could have attained a high spiritual level or enlightenment, if they had taken the help of an enlightened Guru with a good track record.
Theodore Roosevelt had stated that there are three kinds of marksmen...
My own experience as regards marksmanship was much the same as my experience as regards horsemanship. There are men whose eye and hand are so quick and so sure that they achieve a perfection of marksmanship to which no practice will enable ordinary men to attain. There are other men who cannot learn to shoot with any accuracy at all. In between come the mass of men of ordinary abilities who, if they choose resolutely to practice, can by sheer industry and judgment make themselves fair rifle shots. The men who show this requisite industry and judgment can without special difficulty raise themselves to the second class of respectable rifle shots; and it is to this class that I belong.
Through honesty and critical analysis, one should similarly gauge or assess oneself, and select a realistic course of action suitable to one's capacities and limitations, for attaining the maximum chances for success, in the field of one's endeavor.
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EXCELLENT, objective, and well researched post, ajay00. Thank you for that..
I'm reminded that Bodhidharma himself said:
"If you don’t understand by yourself, you’ll have to find a teacher to get to the bottom of life and death. But unless he sees his nature, such a person isn’t a teacher. Even if he can recite the Twelvefold Canon he can’t escape the Wheel of Birth and Death...
There’s no advantage in deceiving yourself. Even if you have mountains of jewels and as many servants as there are grains of sand along the Ganges, you see them when your eyes are open. But what about when your eyes are shut? You should realize then that everything you see is like a dream or illusion.
If you don’t find a teacher soon, you’ll live this life in vain. It’s true, you have the buddha-nature. But the help of a teacher you’ll never know it.
Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help. If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn’t need a teacher. Such a person has a natural awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you’re so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you’ll understand.
People who don’t understand and think they can do so without study are no different from those deluded souls who can’t tell white from black."