“Guru” = G.U.R.U = “Gee, you are you!”
Those who we perceive as ‘gurus’ are simply those who appear within our dream to remind us of what we ALL are beyond our story. To remind us of what we already know. To remind us, as if we needed to be reminded…!
An authentic guru (if there is any such thing – I don’t use these words very often because they’ve been so misused over the years) is anything or anyone who points clearly to THIS, within the dream.
So, your cat is a guru. Your cat – seen in clarity – is the greatest guru that ever lived. Your child, seen with fresh eyes. A tree. A pot of jam. Nisargadatta Maharaj. Or the old lady with the crooked legs who lives at the end of your street. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Anything and everything points back home. It’s all consciousness in the end, and nobody can claim ownership of consciousness. Anyone who claims ownership is simply claiming a kind of ignorance of what they really are. Anyone who claims ownership is still very much lost within the dream. And it’s exactly that lostness that the authentic guru exposes.
An authentic guru would never, ever make you into their disciple. They would never, ever, for one moment believe that they were any different from you. They would never, ever ask for your obedience. They would never, ever ask you to be anything other than what you are. They would laugh at the idea that they were special. They would meet you without an agenda. They would meet you without trying to change you. They would meet you as a friend. They would meet you in the “I DON’T KNOW”. They would meet you as yourself. They would appear quite ordinary. They would appear as a cat. They would appear as a piece of toast. They would appear as… you.
Gee. You are you!
So, in the end, the dream of ‘personal’ gurus, the dream of enlightened masters and un-enlightened disciples, falls away. The dream of the guru-disciple relationship dissolves into the absence of the dreamer, to reveal life in its awesome simplicity. Ramana Maharshi becomes equal to a cat, or a piece of toast, or your Aunt Bessie. The guru is seen to be everything.
Then there’s no longer any need to travel across the world to see the guru – because the guru is always HERE. Always HERE, always NOW. It was never personal. In your search for enlightenment, you projected gurus in the form of people. In the light of this Seeing, the facade crumbles to the ground.
Yes, Life itself is the guru – and it has always been staring you in the face.
So all that’s left is to fall to the carpet and kiss it with gratitude. It is yourself, after all. It is made of the same substance as you. It has always been pointing back Home. Quite literally.
What radical simplicity!
The end of seeking is right there in the carpet. The last place the seeker would ever look.
And then you get up, have dinner, and do the dishes, and…. 😉