They are only secondary aids, whereas the former is the primary and the essential cause. Question: Is a Master necessary for realisation?īhagavan: The realisation is the result of the Master’s grace more than teachings, lectures, meditation, etc. Unless we first obtain the divine grace of a Guru, a jivanmukta in whose perspective the triputi-differences have ended and who shines as the undivided and single essence, it will be impossible to obtain the life of liberation and live illustriously under the shade of God’s twin feet, that is all bliss and the highest of all benefits. You may have acquired all the virtues and renounced all the vices you may have renounced totally all your relationships and have no attachment you may have completely performed all the many penances enjoined upon the virtuous by the scriptures but however great you may be by virtue of your intellect and accomplishments, will you attain the experience, the state of kaivalyam that is wholly bliss, until you obtain, as a result of meritorious karma, the good fortune of seeing the jnana-Guru?
Enlightenment happens in these circumstances merely because the Guru is abiding in a state of absolute desirelessness.Īt the end of the section I have added chapter 59, ‘The Greatness of Devotees’ since it complements the material in the ‘Greatness of the Guru’ verses. You want to know who or what is doing the work when someone gets enlightened in the Guru’s presence. This idea is similar to a comment Papaji made, which I included in the ‘Power to Enlighten’ post: Verse 326, in which Bhagavan states that the jnani’s Self-abidance is the weapon that destroys the chit-jada knot, is highly relevant to the ‘Power to enlighten’ discussion that has been going on. The indented quote in verse 326 is in roman because it is part of Muruganar’s own explanation. Muruganar’s comments on the verses are flush with the margins and printed in roman.Ĭomments by the editors are in italics and are flush with both margins.Īdditional quotations added by the editors to illustrate points made in the verses are indented and in italics. The original chapter headings (in this case ‘57 The Greatness of the Guru’ ) are centered in bold type. The book should be available early next month. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and myself. The extract is from the new edition of the book that has been prepared by T. Today, as a rejoinder, I am posting a section from Guru Vachaka Kovai on ‘The Greatness of the Guru’. As I was going through the comments to the ‘Power to Enlighten’ post I noticed a tendency amongst a minority of contributors to minimise the role and importance of the Guru, particularly his transmitting power.