“The word ‘guru’ comes to us from the Hindu heritage, yet the ideal of divine guidance is found throughout all spiritual traditions. It is so because the ideal and relationship of guru authority are integral to religious experience. Who was the guru of Plato? Did not Socrates lead Plato to the path of self-realization as his disciple? The guru of Shankaracharya, Govinda, initiated him into the light of meditation and inner revelation. John the Baptist protested that he could not initiate Jesus because Jesus was more spiritually advanced than he. He saw the divine unfoldment of Jesus. Yet, Jesus reminded John that every soul at one time is formally introduced and consciously makes a vow to God. ‘Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’
Humanly speaking, guru is to be honored because he embodies the ideal we are seeking. Humanly imperfect, divinely perfect, guru is the image of our ideal. If we cannot recognize divinity in the human form we will not recognize it in formlessness. In reality, guru is our own self. Guru is the one who reveals to us our own soul. Guru is the self-revealing one. It is God whom we see in guru. God is the Supreme Guru, in reality the only Guru. God reveals Himself to us in our human guru.
The most profound meaning of guru is presented to us as Krishna, our Supreme Self, in the Bhagavad-Gita. It is the most sublime because it most clearly reveals the law, ideal and reality of Guru as well as the identical divinity of disciple, the self as individual (Arjuna). In Krishna we understand who is guru; in Arjuna we see how to fulfill perfect discipleship.
Who is this Guru, Krishna? ‘The one who draws the whole universe unto himself,’ or ‘the one to whom the whole universe is attracted,’ as the name ‘Krishna’ in its Sanskrit derivative ‘Akarshan’ denotes. This is not a personal god, but the ever abiding Self. Krishna is in each one of us as our soul. He speaks in the Gita as Atman, the closest indwelling self who reveals the Paramatman, or Supreme Self.
Krishna as the guide of Arjuna reveals the truth and ideal of guru—that is, our own divine, ever pure and perfect soul, Self-conscious and ever one with God. Embodying the ideal of human guru, Krishna leads Arjuna to discover the life of his own soul.”
Frontiers of the Spirit
Swami Kamalananda