What is a Guru?
The idea of a guru is a misunderstood concept within Hinduism. Literally, a guru is a teacher. The word guru means “heavy” or “deep,” thus a guru is a person “heavy” or “deep” in knowledge. In this sense a school-teacher is a guru, a coach or athletic instructor is a guru, a fine-arts or even a dance teacher is a guru. One’s parents are also gurus. In the religious field, where the word is most commonly used, a guru is a Hindu religious teacher. So a priest or any person learned in Hindu lore may be a guru. The main purpose of the guru is to teach. In the popular mind there are many stereotyped images of what a guru looks like or how he acts. Usually long hair, beards, flowing robes and lots of bowing followers come to mind, but if we keep the idea of a teacher in mind we will not be confused. Sometimes we hear of different kinds of religious gurus. There is an initiating guru (diksha guru), an instructing guru (shiksha guru), and even the “guru within” (chaitya guru). An initiating gu
Namadeva’s guru is Sadguru Sant Keshavadas (1934- 1997) and he follows lineage holder Guru Rama Mata, Sant Keshavadas’ widow. Through his guru and over the last 35 years Namadeva has spent time with and/or been blessed by Swami Satchidananda, Swami Vishnu Devananda, Swami Chidananda, Jagadguru Jayandra Saraswati and Jagadguru Vijayendra Saraswati (Kanchi Math), Jagadguru of Pejowar (Uddipi) Math, Paramahansa Muktananda, Swami Bala Gangadarnath, Yogi Bhajan, Yogi Amrit Desai, Buddhist teacher Ashoka Priya Darshan, Dr. Leon Wright, The Dalai Lama, the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Kalu Rimpoche, Sakya Jetsun Chiney Luding, Pir Vilayat Kahn, and many others. First, a guru is not a state of consciousness, it is a job. There are all kinds of gurus from musicians and storytellers to those who never speak a word. What they have in common is the appointed authority to do their job: helping the ego-mind-personality merge with the divinity within. The soul, self, jiva, atma – whatever you want to call it
A guru is a spiritual teacher, someone who leads a disciple to wisdom and self-realization, imparts knowledge on the disciple, or guides the disciple to divinity. The word guru is commonly used in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions to indicate a religious teacher. The word originates in Sanskrit, and is formed by the syllables gu and ru. Gu indicates darkness, and ru indicates destruction. Thus, when translated directly, guru means ‘dispeller of darkness.’ This simple etymological explanation is supplemented by the postulation of numerous texts discussing the nature and role of a guru. A popular example of such a discussion would be that of the etymology of the syllables gu and ru to indicate the juxtaposition of light and dark, where ignorance is dark and knowledge, particularly spiritual knowledge, is light. The notion of the guru dates back to a collection of ancient Indian texts known as the Upanishads. Other ancient Indian texts that discuss the concept of guru include the B
