The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Bhakti-Yoga/The Need of Guru
CHAPTER IV
THE NEED OF GURU
Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will
attain the state of perfection. Whatever we are now is the result of our
acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will
be the result of what we think and do now. But this, the shaping of our own
destinies, does not preclude our receiving help from outside; nay, in the
vast majority of cases such help is absolutely necessary. When it comes, the
higher powers and possibilities of the soul are quickened, spiritual life is
awakened, growth is animated, and man becomes holy and perfect in the end.
This quickening impulse cannot be derived from books. The soul can only
receive impulses from another soul, and from nothing else. We may study
books all our lives, we may become very intellectual, but in the end we find
that we have not developed at all spiritually. It is not true that a high
order of intellectual development always goes hand in hand with a
proportionate development of the spiritual side in Man. In studying books we
are sometimes deluded into thinking that thereby we are being spiritually
helped; but if we analyse the effect of the study of books on ourselves, we
shall find that at the utmost it is only our intellect that derives profit
from such studies, and not our inner spirit. This inadequacy of books to
quicken spiritual growth is the reason why, although almost every one of us
can speak most wonderfully on spiritual matters, when it comes to action and
the living of a truly spiritual life, we find ourselves so awfully
deficient. To quicken the spirit, the impulse must come from another soul.
The person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru — the
teacher; and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is called the
Shishya — the student. To convey such an impulse to any soul, in the first
place, the soul from which it proceeds must possess the power of
transmitting it, as it were, to another; and in the second place, the soul
to which it is transmitted must be fit to receive it. The seed must be a
living seed, and the field must be ready ploughed; and when both these
conditions are fulfilled, a wonderful growth of genuine religion takes
place. "The true preacher of religion has to be of wonderful capabilities,
and clever shall his hearer be" —
and when both of these are really wonderful and extraordinary, then will a splendid spiritual awakening result, and not otherwise. Such alone are the real teachers, and such alone are also the real students, the real aspirants. All others are only playing with spirituality. They have just a little curiosity awakened, just a little intellectual aspiration kindled in them, but are merely standing on the outward fringe of the horizon of religion. There is no doubt some value even in that, as it may in course of time result in the awakening of a real thirst for religion; and it is a mysterious law of nature that as soon as the field is ready, the seed must and does come; as soon as the soul earnestly desires to have religion, the transmitter of the religious force must and does appear to help that soul. When the power that attracts the light of religion in the receiving soul is full and strong, the power which answers to that attraction and sends in light does come as a matter of course.
There are, however, certain great dangers in the way. There is, for
instance, the danger to the receiving soul of its mistaking momentary
emotions for real religious yearning. We may study that in ourselves. Many a
time in our lives, somebody dies whom we loved; we receive a blow; we feel
that the world is slipping between our fingers, that we want something surer
and higher, and that we must become religious. In a few days that wave of
feeling has passed away, and we are left stranded just where we were before.
We are all of us often mistaking such impulses for real thirst after
religion; but as long as these momentary emotions are thus mistaken, that
continuous, real craving of the soul for religion will not come, and we
shall not find the true transmitter of spirituality into our nature. So
whenever we are tempted to complain of our search after the truth that we
desire so much, proving vain, instead of so complaining, our first duty
ought to be to look into our own souls and find whether the craving in the
heart is real. Then in the vast majority of cases it would be discovered
that we were not fit for receiving the truth, that there was no real thirst
for spirituality.
There are still greater dangers in regard to the transmitter, the Guru. There are many who, though immersed in ignorance, yet, in the pride of their
hearts, fancy they know everything, and not only do not stop there, but offer to take others on their shoulders; and thus the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch.