Read 2 points of view of 2 Masters
THE SPEAKING TREE
Wed, March 25th 2009-03-25
Transcending The Need For A Living Guru
Talk: Jiddu Krishnamurti
I wish you had never heard the word ‘guru’. That is a discredited
word... The true meaning is, one who dispels
ignorance, not adds the guru’s ignorance to
you... There have always been western gurus from
ancient times. The priest, acting between you
and whatever he calls god, or the saviour. This
has also existed in
India.
When the speaker asks to think together, he
is not setting himself up as a guru. It is not
agreeing. It is not to accept the ideas, the
conclusions... The speaker in fact has no
conclusions. But he says think together, in the
sense, let’s both of us observe together.
Observe, and let’s find out what it means to
observe. That doesn’t give him any authority.
You can make him into an authority, which would
be unfortunate, but he doesn’t accept any
authority, or have any authority... If he is
accepting conclusions, ideals and so on... and
is accepting disciples then he is in a state of
corruption, whoever it is.
So please don’t make me into a guru and i
won’t accept you as a disciple because the
disciple destroys the guru, the guru destroys
the pupil. So there is no sense of authority in
this. And when he says think together, it is
very simple: if i am prejudiced... and i say
let’s think, which means i want to force it on
you. But he says constantly, together, which
means share together what we are observing, out
there and in here. That’s all.
This desire, this longing for somebody to
tell us, that is the root of it. Somebody to
tell us how to live, how to love, how to think.
That is, education has been how to think: you
must think this way. And most of us
unfortunately, young and old, long for some
shelter, the more romantic, the more
pleasurable, the more satisfying, the better it
is. Apparently we seem to be incapable of
standing alone. You know that word ‘alone’ means
all one. When you are really alone, not
contaminated, not corrupt because you are
attached to something. Then you are alone
because being free you are that whole human
entity, human world, but we are frightened to be
alone. We all want to be with somebody, either
with a person or with an idea, an image.
You know what it means to be alone? To walk
alone in the woods, to walk alone along the
river, not hand in hand with somebody or other,
but to be alone — solitude, which is different
from aloneness. If you are walking by yourself,
you are watching the sky, the trees, the birds,
the flowers and all the beauty of the earth.
Also, perhaps you are watching yourself as you
casually watch the woods and the trees and the
flowers as you are walking along. Not having a
dialogue with yourself, not carrying your
burdens with you, you have left those at your
home.
So solitude reveals your loneliness, your
vanity, your sense of depression. And when you
have finished with solitude there is the other —
which is not a conclusion, belief, or doing
propaganda — telling you what it means to look.
That is not propaganda, that is not pushing you
in any direction.
When you are directed, guided, then you
become a slave and you lose freedom from the
very beginning. Freedom isn’t at the end, it is
at the beginning, contrary to what some
ideologies say, that freedom can only be given
to the disciplined who know how to live and so
on — they are the dictators who tell us how to
live, as the gurus do, so we become their
slaves. And where there is no freedom there is
no love and truth.
THE SPEAKING TREE
March 24th 2009
It Takes A Living Master To Bring Alive Sutras
Discourse: Sadhguru
A spiritual practice by itself is nothing. You have to breathe life
into it; otherwise, it will not become alive.
This is why traditionally, there is much
reverence for a live guru. Doing yoga without a
living guru is like stillbirth. If you are
looking for exercise, i would say go play
tennis, take a swim, take a walk or climb a
mountain.
The yogic system was not created as an
exercise form. It is a subtle manipulation of
your system to allow it to rise to a different
level. Yoga means ‘union’. Every asana, every
mudra, every way of breathing — is focused
towards ultimate union. If it has to become
alive, you have to breathe life into it. This is
why yoga was given in the form of sutras. The
word sutra literally means ‘thread’. Without a
thread, there is no garland, but you never wear
a garland for its thread. You wear it for the
fragrant flowers that it holds. But without a
thread, there is no garland.
When Patanjali gave the sutras, he only gave
the thread. It has been for each master to put
together the flowers, beads, pearls, or
diamonds, or whatever else he likes. But
Patanjali gave the thread; you cannot change the
thread, nobody can because it is a live thread.
This is not something that somebody thought up;
this is not an idea. This is a very deep
observation of life. So you cannot change that
because that is how life is made. But what kind
of garland one makes out of this thread is left
to each master or guru who comes along the way.
To make a garland out of this thread, he has to
have some stuff of his own; otherwise, it is not
possible to do this.
This cannot be done in a yoga studio.This
will not happen because you have a certificate
in yoga. Some subjectivity has to happen, which
needs sadhana. You must hold it above your life,
not as your profession, not as your hobby, not
as something that you do on the side. This must
be more important than your life, only then we
let you teach; because without subjectivity, you
cannot breathe life into it.
There are many ways to breathe life into the
spiritual process. The most rudimentary way is
through sacrifice. The simple technology of this
is to take a life which is young, a life which
is vibrant. When you break that life, it
releases a certain amount of energy. There is a
whole technology of using that energy to convert
it into another form.
Many idols are consecrated by this means.
Once you have a consecrated idol, every day you
must make the necessary offerings depending upon
how that particular energy form is created.
Because it is not a toy to play with, it is not
a toy for you to work out your emotions. It is
not a psychological tool. If you do not keep it
up all the time, it will die. Or it will become
a receding energy. When it becomes a receding
energy, it causes more harm than well-being.
So, constantly sacrifices were done. That is
very rudimentary technology. There are more
sophisticated ways of doing the same by using
one’s own energy system. This needs a certain
level of mastery and development of the energy
system.
If you were not restricted by the limitations
of logic, if all of you were simply open, i
would not waste your time and my time talking.
Everything that needs to happen, will happen,
just by the presence. My work is not about
changing your attitude but to touch you at your
core. A touch that will leave you transformed.
Not changed but transformed.
