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Originally Posted by django
Questioner: If it is true that the Guru is one’s own Self, what is the principle underlying the doctrine which says that, however learned a disciple may be or whatever occult powers he may possess, he cannot attain Self-realisation without the grace of the Guru?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Although in absolute truth the state of the Guru is that of oneself (the Self), it is very hard for the self which has become the individual (jiva or embodied soul) through ignorance, to realise its true state or nature without the grace of the Guru.
Questioner: How then some great persons attain knowledge without a Guru?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: To a few mature persons the Lord shines as the formless light of knowledge and imparts awareness of the truth.
Questioner: Sri Aurobindo and others refer to you as having had no Guru.
Sri Ramana Maharshi: It all depends on what you call a Guru. He need not be in a human form. Dattatreya had twenty-four Gurus including the five elements- earth, water, etc. Every object in this world was his Guru. The Guru is absolutely necessary. The Upanishads say that none but a Guru can take a man out of the jungle of intellect and sense perceptions. So there must be a Guru.
Questioner: I mean a human Guru- Maharshi did not have one.
Sri Ramana Maharshi: I might have had one at one time or other. But did I not sing hymns to Arunachala? What is a Guru? Guru is God or the Self. First a man prays to God to fulfil his desires. A time comes when he will no more pray for the fulfilment of material desires but for God Himself. God then appears to him in some form or other, human or non-human, to guide him to Himself in answer to his prayer and according to his needs.
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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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