"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."
Namaste everyone,
This will be quite a personal thread I am posting here, so in advance of this post I ask my kind friends on this forum to please indulge me the length of my ramblings and any schmaltziness that you might pick up from what I write. Everything I talk about here is genuine and has been on my mind for a long time.
This old saying "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear" has been echoing in my mind since the moment I first heard it on HDF. No doubt the topic of gurus and spiritual guides has been discussed about again and again here on these boards, and periodically the question "how do I find a guru?" pops up here on this forum. Usually, but not always, it is a newcomer to Sanatana Dharma, who is enthusiastic about learning more than what they themselves can garner from the scriptures. They are eager - one might even say impatient - to learn more. Those who hear this traditional proverb for the first time become almost disappointed that finding one's guru might not be as easy as they first thought it would be. I know I was, but I also realised that there was much wisdom in the saying. Certainly, if nothing else, it has taught me to be patient. And while I am still "guruless" I learned a lot from other great teachers, many of which are members of this very forum. It also finally made sense to me about what is taught in the scriptures - of renouncing the actions you mistake as being your own, and putting your trust completely in God's will. When the time is right, it will be right. In effect, I feel like I've aged lifetimes since I first began to delve more deeply into Hinduism.
So, this is my present situation. I have come back after some serious thinking about my spirituality, and I have decided that in this lifetime my faith is important to me, and that I know I cannot live agnostically for too long. I have tried denying that that's what makes me unhappy (the thought of living with a concept of no God), but I realise I was fooling myself and confounding my doubts. There has been some hiccups here and there since I've restarted my sadhana, but I know with the compassionate grace of Sri Ganesha and Divine Mother, these obstacles will dissolve in time. In the apathetic lapse of nearly 6 months of no sadhana, no prayers and great confusion about my beliefs, I had given up any hope of meeting a particular satguru who was going to come visit my small country. I had known for some time she going to make a stop here, and last year in my discovering her existence I was intent on meeting her. After I had realised that faith did matter to me and that my doubts were an integral part of my journey, I later resigned myself some months ago that if I missed my chance to meet this special person, that it was my fault. I would have to wait again, or else go find her myself (which isn't really in my financial means at the moment, having recently finished college and trying to get full-time employment).
A few weeks ago, I happened to see one of the local newspapers being delivered around door-to-door. It was not one I read regularly, but on a whim, I picked it up and began to flick through it. To my complete astonishment and awe, I see the satguru I have been waiting for smiling at me with eyes full of love and understanding. I could have cried, but instead I felt a great sense of happiness and in a way, relief that I was being given another chance. Call it coincidence, lucky timing, happenstance, whatever you want yourself, but I know Ganesha had brought this notice to my attention. I had asked for a sign around the time of Chaturthi in September about what to do, feeling as if I had hit a spiritual fork in the road, and I know it was He who gave me this one. I just didn't realise He would respond so fast! My beloved Ganesha, I didn't realise my love for You could increase any more than it already is, but it has expanded a thousand-fold in knowing You are always watching out for me.
Am I overreacting in interpreting the old saying in this way. Am I ready for a guru, and has my teacher really made her appearance through the benevolence of God? I know it will be different for everybody. I do believe that no two journeys to Ultimate Truth will ever be exactly the same. It's all so strange. Even as I relate this to you all, I feel great anticipation, hope and joy in my heart. I am generally quite a level-headed person, and while I'm certainly not emotionless, my personality in this lifetime has been shaped to be guarded with my feelings. You may have even noticed that I have apologised for any insincere-sounding sentimentality I express in this post. It all stems from my real-life nature of being careful with what I say and how I reveal my self to others. I have read this satguru's words before, seen and felt her aura (not even in person) and it has opened my heart chakra in a way never before opened. I won't go into any more detail here on this topic, but suffice to say it is a part of me that has badly needed release from a power outside my own efforts.
Please advise me on what I should do. Is it right to ask this satguru in so forthright a manner to be the beacon in my search for Truth? Actually, I'm not even sure if I will be able to make myself understood to her (I know her native language is Malayalam), but I feel confident she will understand me anyway. But most of all, I know that even if the time is not right, or it turns out she is not the right guru (although a part of me knows she is) or she tells me to continue to wait patiently etc., just to be given a second chance to see her is enough to make me happy and feel confident enough to finally choose which direction to take on this spiritual fork in the road and continue down it happy and knowing I am loved and taken care of. In a way, it will be the closing of a chapter in my spiritual journey.
Om namah Shivaya
"Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
ॐ गं गणपतये नमः
Om Gam Ganapataye namah
लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु ।
Lokaah SamastaaH Sukhino Bhavantu
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