The spiritual journey begins with gratitude, which energizes and sweetens life. As it deepens, the journey leads to a state of oneness, where all distinctions fade. Gratitude also makes us more aware of the natural flow of life – its rhythm of giving and receiving.
In life, there’s always a give and take. But when we recognize that we’ve been taking more than we’ve been giving, and feel we have nothing left to offer, that’s when the spiritual journey truly begins.
At a deeper level, we come to realize that while we may feel we have nothing material to give, we are here to offer ourselves – our presence, our love, our service. There’s nothing we’re meant to take from this world.
This shift marks the turning point from a material to a spiritual life. Realizing you are here to give, and not to take, uplifts the spirit.
Recognizing your own limitations makes you humble, while knowing your purpose (to give selflessly), lifts your spirit. This eventually leads to a stillness where duality dissolves, and only oneness remains. And this oneness transcends time.
Much of our restlessness stems from being bound by time. We want everything immediately. But why must it happen on our timeline? Let life unfold at its own pace. Shifting your vision by seeing beyond the limits of time brings peace, stillness, and fulfillment. This is the wisdom passed down through generations. But in truth, it is all one.
The rishis, the sages from ancient times, are not just figures of the past. Their presence is timeless and always accessible. The Guru is ever-present. All the rishis have affirmed this.
On the surface, you may see different personalities and qualities. But within, it’s the same light and spirit shining through the ages. Realizing you are a part of that eternal light is a celebration in itself.
Life teaches us - patience pays off. If you have both wisdom and patience, nothing can shake you. Be patient. Watch your children change, your in-laws change, your spouse change. Everything begins to align when you hold steady.
Haven’t you experienced this already? Yes – it works. Wisdom gives rise to patience. But when you want to do something meaningful and it doesn’t happen right away, time becomes the challenge.
Remember, patience isn’t laziness or inaction. You must remain dynamic. That’s the paradox. Dynamic people are often seen as impatient, and patient people are mistaken for being passive. But being on this path, you begin to embody the rare combination of both – patience and dynamism. This is the key you must hold.
There are many layers to being with a Guru, but it begins with closeness – and that starts with you. No one else can create that connection for you. You must feel, “I am close to the Guru.”
From there arises presence – the experience of the Guru’s presence in your life. That presence brings miracles – not just for you, but for those around you. When you truly feel it, you begin to radiate it. You yourself become a blesser.
This Guru Purnima, take one message with you: the Guru is close to you, and you are close to the Guru.
Never doubt that I love you. Don’t think I’m distant, or closer to someone else. From your side, you must feel – I am very close to the Guru. Period. No questions, no comparisons.
The moment you start doubting that you invite misery. Do you want to be miserable? No. Then just know – I am close to the Guru.
That’s it. It’s done. Sealed. No more debate.
Don’t say, “Oh, Gurudev looked at someone else. He held their hand. He didn’t even look at me.” Let go of that thought.
You may think, “That person is struggling more, so Gurudev is guiding them closely to bring them back on track. I’m already on track!”
It’s like an engineer scanning a machine. The scanner focuses only on the screws that are loose. If a screw says, “The scanner didn’t come to me,” it simply means that screw is already perfectly fine.
An atheist does not believe in either values or in the abstract. When an atheist comes to the guru, what happens? He starts experiencing his own form and discovers that he is indeed formless, hollow and empty, and this abstract non-form becomes more and more concrete.
A guru makes the abstract more real, and what you thought was solid appears more unreal. Sensitivity and subtlety dawn. Perception of love – not as an emotion, but as the substratum of existence – becomes evident. The formless spirit shines through every form in creation and the mystery of life deepens, shattering atheism. Then the journey begins; it is a journey with four stages.
The first stage is saarupya – to see the formless in the form – seeing God in all forms. Often, one feels more comfortable seeing God as formless rather than having a form, because with a form, one feels a distance, a duality, a fear of rejection and other limitations. Other than in deep sleep or in samadhi, all of our interactions in life are with a form. If you do not see God as having a form, then the waking part of life remains devoid of the Divine.
All those who accept God to be formless use symbols and perhaps love the symbols more than God Himself. If God comes to a Christian and tells him to leave the cross, or if God tells a Muslim to drop the crescent, he may not do it. Initially, loving the formless is possible only through forms.
The second stage is saamipya – closeness – feeling absolutely close to the form you have chosen and reaching out to the formless. This leads to a sense of intimacy with all of creation. In this stage, one overcomes the fear of rejection and other fears, but this stage remains bound by time and space.
The third stage is saanidhya – feeling the presence of the Divine by which you transcend the limitations of time and space.
The final stage is saayujya – when you are firmly entrenched in the Divine. It is then you realize you are one with the Divine. There is a total merging with the Beloved and all duality disappears. This is that and that is this.
A believer also goes through these four stages.
It is difficult to see God as formless and it is difficult to see God as having a form. The formless is so abstract and God in a form appears to be too limited so some people prefer to be atheists. Atheism is not a reality; it is just a matter of convenience.
When you have a spirit of inquiry or when you search for truth, atheism falls apart. With a spirit of inquiry, you cannot deny something that you cannot disprove. An atheist denies God without first disproving God’s existence. In order to disprove God, you must have enormous knowledge and when you have enormous knowledge, you cannot disprove it.
To say that something does not exist, you must know about the whole universe. So you can never be one hundred percent atheistic. An atheist is only a believer who is sleeping. For a person to say, “I don’t believe in anything,” means he must believe in himself. So he believes in a self that he does not even know.
An atheist can never be sincere because sincerity needs depth and an atheist refuses to go to his depth. The deeper he goes, he finds a void, a field of all possibilities, and he has to accept that there are many secrets he does not know. He would then need to acknowledge his ignorance – which he refuses to do – because the moment he is sincere, he seriously starts doubting his atheism.
A doubt-free atheist is nearly impossible. An atheist can never be sincere and doubt-free. When an atheist realizes his ignorance, what does he do? Where does he go? Does he go to a guru? What does a guru do to him?
A disciple’s job is to satisfy his spiritual master, but how can you satisfy someone who is already satisfied? If your guru is satisfied, then your growth is slowed, but if your guru is unsatisfied, he is away from the Self.
If your guru is satisfied, then what can inspire you to grow? If he is unsatisfied, he cannot be a guru. And if he is satisfied, he cannot be a guru! So what is the answer?
A guru is nothing but wisdom and love. He is that principle, which is wisdom and love, which is awakened in each one who has stepped onto the path. He is also that person in whom there is no gap between life, wisdom and love.
Often one recognizes wisdom but sees a gap between wisdom and one’s own life. The purpose of becoming a disciple of a guru is to bridge that gap. Being with a guru means spontaneous integration of life and wisdom.
Is your guru responsible for your enlightenment? If yes and you are not awakened, then he is to be blamed.
If you find freedom, then your guru is again to be blamed because he has been partial to you. If your guru can set you free, then he can do it to the whole world. So your guru is not responsible for your awakening, and yet freedom is next to impossible without having a guru.
So a guru is responsible and yet not responsible. This is a mystery.
In the Orient, having a master is considered a matter of pride. A master is a symbol of security, love and a sign of great wealth. Being with a guru is like being with one’s higher Self. Not having a master was looked down upon as a sign of misfortune. Orphans were not those without parents; rather those without a master were considered orphans.
In the Occident having a master is considered shameful and a sign of weakness, for there, masters are thought to enslave people.
In the Orient, people take pride in having a guru for every aspect of life – a religious guru – dharmaguru, a family guru – kulaguru, a guru for the kingdom – rajguru, a guru for a particular discipline – vidyaguru, and a spiritual guru – satguru.
In the Orient, masters make their disciples feel powerful, while in the Occident, masters are thought to make people weak. In the Occident, a master is considered a motivator and one who provokes competition. In the Orient, masters give a deep sense of belongingness that enables people to dissolve their limited identity into infinity.
The main reasons to be with a guru (spiritual master) are:
Knowledge will be different at different levels of consciousness. At a particular level of consciousness, you will achieve anasuya, which is a state of mind that is devoid of fault-finding eyes. If a mirror is dusty, you need to clean it. But if your eyes have cataracts, any amount of dusting the mirror will not help. First you have to remove the cataracts, then you can see that the mirror is clean.
There is a type of mindset that always finds fault, even in the best of conditions. Even when people with this mindset have the best, they still find faults. With the best possible companion, or the most beautiful painting, they will still find something wrong. That kind of mindset cannot know sacred knowledge.
Krishna tells Arjuna that he is giving him a royal secret because he achieved the state of anasuya. “You find no fault in me even though you are so close.” From a distance, even craters cannot be seen, and up close, even on a smooth surface there will be holes. If you are only interested in the holes, you will not see the magnanimity of things. If you are not in anasuya, knowledge cannot blossom and there is no point in giving knowledge to you.
What about discrimination – wisdom? If it is in your vision, your perception, then you will find discrimination. The moment you are off the path, everything will be wrong. That is not anasuya. For example, after ten years of friendship you no longer see the good in that relationship; you only find faults. However, once you discover you have the wrong vision – you have discovered your cataracts – then half of the problem disappears.
There is a fine line here. Instead of saying, “My vision is blurred,” you say, “The whole world is not sharp.” Suppose someone is coming through a door but it is windy, so you shut the door. If the person thinks the door has been slammed in his face, then this is asuya, not anasuya.
Most people are like this. Asuya is finding fault. It is seeing malicious intent everywhere. It is like a child who says, “Mother, you do not love me!” The child’s vision is wrong. If a mother does not love her child, who will? It is the same when someone comes and says, “Guruji, you do not love me!” If I do not love him, then nobody else in the world will. Where else will they find love? Nowhere. A mother may get frustrated but not a master.
Can a person achieve anasuya without being enlightened? Not always. Such questions are only excuses. To find enlightenment, you must have this vision.
Whether you win or lose an argument with your Guru, your Master, you still laugh.
Normally what happens to you when you lose an argument? You are sad and upset, hurt and angry. But when you lose or win an argument with me, you are still happy. Why?
Because you have a total sense of belongingness; your love is more important than perfection, comfort and desires; you are able to put your Being before a happening; and you have confidence in the ultimate good.
When there is a total sense of belongingness, real play happens. Winning or losing is irrelevant. Can you have this same attitude with everyone?
How would you like to see yourself – happy and bubbling with enthusiasm or dull and difficult to please?
Sometimes you like to be pleased, appeased and cajoled, so you put on a tough, troubled face and act difficult to please. It is so tiring for a person to appease and please ten people all the time. People who keep long faces and expect others to cajole and appease them, drive others away. Lovers often do this. They expend a lot of energy cajoling, reducing the joy and celebration of the moment.
It is all right to occasionally show how upset you are, but doing it repeatedly is taxing for you and the people you love. If you feel down, appease and please yourself – do not expect others to do it. Your need to be appeased by someone else is a sign of grossness. This is the root of ignorance. If you want attention, all you get is tension.
It is not possible to attain divine love with a complaining face. The complaining face is a sign of an unaware mind. If you want to complain – complain to God or your guru because both have their ears covered!
Become one whose enthusiasm never dies, come what may.
One of the rarest character combinations is the coexistence of confidence and humility. Often people who are confident are not humble and people with humility are not confident. Confidence blended with humility is most appreciated by everyone.
Therefore, how can confidence be developed in one who is humble, and humility in one who is confident?
First, see your life in the bigger context of time and space and then you will realize your life is nothing.
Second, those who are humble need to see that they are unique and dear to the Divine. This will bring confidence, and when you realize you are insignificant, that also brings confidence.
And third, having a guru will give you confidence and will culture humility in you.
When you have a guru, you cannot be arrogant. The weakness in humility and the arrogance in confidence are removed, and you are left with confidence and humility.
There are three forces in nature - Brahma shakti, Vishnu shakti, and Shiva shakti. One of these may predominate in you. Brahma shakti is the force that creates something new, Vishnu shakti is the ability to maintain and Shiva shakti infuses new life, destroys old things and brings transformation.
Some of you have Brahma shakti. You may create something well, but you may not be able to maintain it. For example, you may make friends very quickly, but the friendships do not last long.
Others among you have Vishnu shakti. You cannot create but you are good at maintenance. For example, you have long-lasting friendships, but you cannot make any new friends.
Some of you have more Shiva shakti. You bring in new life or transformation, or you can destroy the whole setup. With Guru shakti, all three shaktis have fully blossomed. So, identify which shakti predominates in you and aspire for Guru shakti. Guru makes a group but a group cannot make a Guru.
Often people think they are in control of their life, their situation, their world. Control is an illusion. The whole world moves according to the laws of Nature in an auspicious rhythm of innocence, intelligence, and divinity. That is Shiva. Shiva is the eternal state of being, the One without a second, the harmonious innocence that knows no control.
Control is Vashi –Shiva reversed. Vashi is of the mind. Vashi is weakness. Vashi is doing something by exerting unnatural pressure. Vashi requires two, and duality is the cause of fear.
Shiva, that harmonious innocence, dissolves duality. Shiva means wholeness of the moment. When there is no regret of past, no want of future, the moment is whole and compete. Time stops, mind stops. Every cell in your body has the ability of all five senses. You can see without the eyes, vision is part of consciousness, which is why in dreams you can see without the eyes.
People who are free regret that they do not have discipline. They keep promising that they will become disciplined. People who are disciplined look for the end; discipline is not an end in itself, it is a means. Look at people who have no discipline; they are miserable.
Freedom without discipline is absolute misery. Discipline without freedom is suffocating. Orderliness is monotonous and chaos is stressful. We must make our discipline free and our freedom disciplined.
People who have company all the time, look for the comforts of solitude. People who are in solitude feel so lonely and want company. People in a cold place want a warm place. People in a warm place love something cool. This is the dilemma of life: everyone is looking for perfect balance. Perfect balance is like a razor’s edge. It can only be found in the self.
Initiation is called diksha. In Sanskrit “di” means intellect, “ksha” means the horizon or the end. Diksha means transcending the intellect. Education is called shiksha, the horizon of discipline – total discipline. Discipline is needed for education. Diksha is needed for meditation.
A teacher gives shiksha. A guru gives diksha. A guru takes you beyond the intellect to the realm of Being. It is a journey from the head to the heart.
Blossoming beyond the intellect is diksha. If you do not go beyond the intellect, you will not smile, you will not laugh. Once diksha happens, you are happy, blissful and contented and your thirst for knowledge is quenched. Totality of discipline is shiksha. Totality of intelligence is diksha.
Do you know the difference between faith and confidence? Faith is the beginning. Confidence is the result. Faith in yourself brings freedom. Faith in the world brings you peace of mind. Faith in God evokes love in you.
If you have complete faith, there are no questions. If you have no faith there is no point in asking any questions because how can there be any faith in the answer you receive? If you have faith in God when you know someone is taking care of you, what is the need for questions?
If you have taken the Karnataka Express to Bangalore, there is no need to ask at every station, “Where is the train going?” When someone is taking care of your desires, why go to an astrologer?
What about blind faith? Faith is faith, it cannot be blind. What you call blind is not faith at least not yours. Blindness and faith cannot meet. It is when you lose faith that you become blind.
Whatever you have faith in, do not make it an object of knowing. You do not need to know about that in which you have faith. If you have faith in God, do not try to know God. God and self are not objects of knowing. You cannot have faith in that which you have made into an object of knowing. A child has faith in the mother. The child does not try to know the mother, it simply has faith in the mother. You cannot make love an object of knowing. If you try to do so, the love will disappear.
Curiosity to know obstructs faith by making into an object of knowing that in which you have faith. Often when people fall in love with each other, they don’t let go of curiosity. Curiosity slowly erodes their faith and love.
Faith is non-analytical. Knowledge is analytical. God, love, Guru, sleep and Self are beyond knowing. If you try to analyse, you get confused. And the moment you make something into an object of knowing, analysis starts.
Does God have faith in us? To know whether God has faith or not, you have to analyse. And in asking this question, you give God a mind which is not there.
One can have faith without being aware of it. Faith is the nature of a relaxed and undivided consciousness.
If you cannot eliminate vices, magnify them. Worry, pride, anger, lust, grief - give them a bigger dimension and a different direction.
What is the point of getting angry about small events? Be angry about the infinite, about Brahma.
If you cannot get rid of pride, take pride in owning the Divine.
If you are bothered by greed, be greedy for satsang.
If cravings gnaw at you, crave the truth.
If jealously haunts you, be jealous about seva.
Be averse to aversions.
Attach yourself to the Guru.
Get intoxicated with the Divine.
Joy is love for what is. Sorrow is love for what is not.
'Navratri' means 'nine nights.' 'Nava' means 'nine,’ and 'ratri' means 'night.'
Night provides rest and rejuvenation. During the night, you turn inwards through sleep, and you wake up feeling refreshed and rested in the morning. In the same way, Navratri or the ‘nine nights’ is that time of the year when you get the chance to experience deep rest. This deep rest brings freedom from all kinds of botherations, deep relaxation, and creativity.
Fasting, meditation, prayers, and other spiritual practices performed during this period help bring about this deep rest. Even refraining from over-indulging in sense objects during this time aid the process of attaining deep rest.
Our spirit has existed since time immemorial. It is the boundless and the eternal source of energy of this universe. During Navratri, even the subtle energies in the environment enhance and assist one’s experience of reaching the spirit.
The prayer, chanting, and meditation performed during Navratri connect us with our spirit. Getting in touch with the spirit invokes positive qualities within us and destroys laziness, pride, obsession, cravings, and aversions. When stress in the form of negative emotions is destroyed, we experience the deep rest of the transforming nine nights.
Devi represents the omnipresent cosmic energy. The whole creation is permeated by this energy. The prosperity that we enjoy in our daily lives is a manifestation of Devi. Mother Divine serves us in so many forms. The forms of our mother, father, friends, husband, wife, son, daughter and also the Guru. The revolving planets and the moon is Devi performing aarti to us. Through puja we say, “Oh Mother, whatever you give to me I give back to you. For example, during the Puja, we offer food grains to Devi as nature provides us with food. Devi Puja is an expression of expanded consciousness showing reverence to the whole creation. The puja that we perform during the 9 days of Navratri is a way of honouring the Devi and showing our gratitude to the Mother Divine. While attending the puja we give up all our worldly activities for a while and enter into deep meditation.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “There is Devi energy (shakti) within all of us. Devi is not somewhere else, not in some other world. If we sit deep in meditation, the glow within the body will brighten, and will expand and spread outside. This is Devi Puja.”
Devi is worshipped in 9 forms known as Navadurga. The significance of each day of Navratri is attached to a form of the Mother Divine.
On the first day, Devi Shailaputri is worshipped. In this form, Devi Parvati is revered as the daughter of Himalaya Raja. Shaila means extraordinary or rising to great heights. The divine consciousness represented by Devi always surges from the peak. On this first day of Navratri, we propitiate Devi Shailaputri so that we may also attain the highest state of consciousness.
On the second day, Devi Brahmacharini is propitiated. Devi Brahmacharini is the form of Devi Parvati in which she undertook severe penance to have Lord Shiva as Her consort. Brahma means divine consciousness and achar refers to behavior. Brahmacharya is the behavior or an act that is established in divine consciousness. This day is especially sacred to meditate and explore our inner divinity.
On the third day, Devi Chandraghata is the presiding Devi. Chandraghata is the special form that Devi Parvati assumed at the time of her marriage with Lord Shiva. Chandra refers to the moon. The moon represents our mind. The mind is restless and keeps moving from one thought to another. Ghanta is a bell which produces only one kind of sound always. The significance is that when our mind is established at one point, i.e. divine, then our prana (subtle life force energy) gets consolidated leading to harmony and peace. This day thus signifies withdrawing from all vagaries of the mind, with a single focus on Mother Divine.
On the fourth day, Mother Divine is worshipped as Devi Kushmanda. Kushmanda means a pumpkin. Ku means little, ushma means energy and anda refers to egg. This entire universe which arose from the cosmic egg (hiranyagarbha) is manifested from an infinitesimal energy of Devi. A pumpkin also represents prana as it has the unique property of absorbing and radiating prana. It is one of the most pranic vegetables. On this day, we worship Devi Kushmanda who showers us with Her divine energy.
Skandamata means Mother of Skanda. On the fifth day, the motherly aspect of Devi Parvati is worshipped. In this form, she is the mother of Lord Karthikeya. She represents motherly affection (vatsalya). Worshiping this form of Devi brings abundance of wisdom, wealth, power, prosperity and liberation.
On the sixth day, Devi manifests as Katyayani. It is a form that Mother Divine assumed to annihilate the demonic forces in the universe. She was born from the anger of the gods. She is the one who slayed Mahishasura. As per our scriptures, anger that supports dharma (righteousness) is acceptable. Devi Katyayani represents that divine principle and form of the Mother Divine who is behind natural calamities and disasters. She is the anger that arises in creation to restore balance. Devi Katyayani is invoked on the sixth day to put an end to all our inner foes that are an obstacle on the path of spiritual evolution.
On the seventh day, we invoke Devi Kalaratri. Mother Nature has two extremes. One is terrifying and devastating. The other is beautiful and serene. Devi Kalaratri is a fierce form of Devi. Kalaratri represents the dark night. Night is also considered an aspect of Mother Divine as it is night that brings solace, rest and comfort to our souls. It is only at night that we get a glimpse of infinity in the skies. Devi Kalaratri is that infinite dark energy that houses innumerable universes.
Devi Mahagauri is that which is beautiful, gives momentum and freedom in life. Mahagauri represents the beautiful and serene aspect of Nature. She is that energy which propels our lives and also liberates us. She is the Devi who is worshipped on the eighth day.
On the ninth day, we worship Devi Siddhidatri. Siddhi means perfection. Devi Siddhidatri brings perfection in life. She makes the impossible, possible. She takes us beyond the ever reasoning logical mind to explore the realm beyond time and space.
An acharya gives ‘shiksha’ (knowledge) but a guru gives ‘diksha’, which is the height of awareness. A guru simply does not stuff you with knowledge but kindles the life force in you. In guru’s presence you become more alive, every cell in your body becomes alive. That is called ‘diksha’. It is the height of intelligence and not information. An acharya gives you information and knowledge but a guru invokes intelligence and not just the intellect. The pinnacle of intellect is intelligence, awaken intelligence. So, a guru awakens intelligence, not information.
Mind is connected with the moon and the full moon is a symbol of completion and celebration. So, Guru Purnima is the day when the disciple wakes up in his fullness and wakefulness. In that wakefulness, he can’t be but grateful. And it is the gratitude of advaita, of oneness. It is not like a river moving from one place to another. It is an ocean moving within itself. Gratefulness and Guru Purnima symbolises the fullness of the student, of the disciple. And celebrates in gratitude.
Guru communicates in silence. And then all doubts simply disappear - Sri Nathadi Guru Thrayam. There are three levels of gurus and there are three different forms of gurus.
The first is the absolute form, which is all-permeating. He is everywhere. Another form of guru is knowledge. The third is the physical form. In such a way our being, our consciousness works. Our consciousness has three bodies: First is the physical body, next is the subtle body, emotions and thoughts and then the causal body which is pure consciousness.
Guru Purnima is the day when the person recognises the physical form. Knowledge belongs to the subtle because causally it is all-pervading and beyond the dimension of time. It is everywhere, at any time, all the time. All three are forms of one guru tattva (Guru principle). Therefore, we celebrate all the forms the guru appeared in. Those many forms help us at every step of our life.
Guru is not just the physical body. He is omnipresent, omnipotent and cannot be separated from life. He is light, knowledge, wisdom, and body. All things together. This entire universe is the body of the guru. Therefore, having a guru in one’s life means that you have everything in life – bliss, happiness, comfort and knowledge. Liberation is impossible without a guru.
The guru’s job is not to find you a job or relationships, those are extras things. The important aspect is inner freedom and the realisation that you are light and you are space. That is the main goal. And how we move towards the goal all other things come along the way. When the guru says: “We are one, that is knowledge. Therefore, you are not alone on this journey toward infinity. I’m with you, you’re not alone, there is no separation.”
Guru Purnima is the day when you honour the guru tattva which is present everywhere. When you dishonour this, the darkness dawns. Understand this wisdom that the giver is giving you everything that is needed in abundance, start utilising the gift. Use the intelligence that is given, it only sharpens when used. If you have a good voice, use it for others because it’s a gift.
You must love and serve others without wanting anything in return. This is important usually we think I gave so much love to that person what did he give me in return. In this way we try to make the other person feel that we have done them a great favour by loving them, this we must not do. Love is your nature; it is acting with dignity, naturalness, compassion and simplicity and we are born with these qualities.
Surrender all your qualities and become hollow and empty to come closer to the guru tattva, this is what you need to do, surrender all your positive and negative qualities and be happy.