GURU

[Giri]

On Fri, 13 Sep 1996, Chelluri Nageswar Rao wrote:

> student is ready the guru himself comes to him.   Present day guru's want
> money upfront and I have no intention of going to them.   Not that I can not
> pay them but it is a principle. Once money is involved the next question is

        However, even in the olden days, a young person used to work for
a Guru, doing some household duties. This also is some form of payment, if
you look at it. The validity of a guru may not be judged whether money is
required or not (sometimes, all that is requested is a hour's pay or
less). And no one will refuse to teach you if you genuinely are short of
money. Since Devi is your Ishta Devata, you may consider one of the
various Kundalini yoga schools (many are free of cost).
        Secondly, there are numerous gurus, including direct disciples of
nisargadatta maharaj, ramana maharshi, ramakrishna, lahari mahasya and
many others. Most of them don't request any money at all but some of them
do. After all these Gurus are just external manifestations of your Self
only.
        Finally, as Nisargadatta Maharaj put it there are lot of worthy
Gurus, but very few worthy disciples who are ready.

Namaste.
>From  Sat Sep 14 05:20:27 1996
Message-Id: <SAT.14.SEP.1996.052027.GMT.>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 05:20:27 GMT
Reply-To: kstuart at mail.telis.org
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ken Stuart <kstuart at MAIL.TELIS.ORG>
Subject: Re: GURU
Comments: To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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Hello,

On Fri, 13 Sep 1996 22:23:49 -0400, Chelluri Nageswar Rao
<Chelluri at AOL.COM> wrote:

>I am looking for a qualified Guru.  I heard from my elders that when a
>student is ready the guru himself comes to him.   Present day guru's want
>money upfront and I have no intention of going to them.   Not that I can not
>pay them but it is a principle. Once money is involved the next question is
>how much.  I am disgusted of the thought paying some one even before the
>first lesson.  It is understandable in normal education not in spiritual
>pursuits.

I find that this is one of the most misunderstood concepts these days.

I think the problem is that a fake guru is indeed after your money.

Thus, one becomes conditioned that money equals fake.

However, organizations that develop around real gurus do have
legitimate reasons for charging money - namely costs.

> It is understandable in normal education not in spiritual pursuits.

Isn't studying with a guru education?

Having said all this, I haven't come across any true guru who doesn't
have some sort of free access, whereby one can have darshan without
paying a fee (even if their organization has other courses that do
require a fee).


Namaskar,

Ken
kstuart at mail.telis.org

"The ego arises from the mistaken notion that the light of consciousness
reflected in the intellect and coloured by objectively perceived phenomena
is the true nature of the Self.  Thus, the personal ego falsely identifies
the Self with that which is not the Self and vice versa." - Mark Dyczkowski