The word, Guru, is used in many different contexts in India. The Yoga-sutras of Patanjali, the most important text of yoga philosophy and a bible of the yogis says that God is the Guru of even the most ancient ones of the earliest one. Nowadays anybody who teaches you anything is a Guruji. You hear about all kinds of gurus nowadays. Anybody who can touch his nose to his toes advertises himself as a great Guru, great teacher. Is there some kind of a certification to make you a Guru? Maybe you can have a university degree, or some kind of test or become a paying member of the Guru association! What is all this Guru business anyway? What makes you a Guru? When the Beatles became disappointed with Maharshi Mahesh Yogi they said that in India a person becomes a Guru by the same process by which you become a popular rock band in the West. You develop a following.

So, what is a Guru and what is the test of being a Guru? It’s very difficult to start the discussion on this subject. The word is used in so many different contexts. Sometimes it’s just an expression of respect. We are told in the tradition, in the culture in which I was born that your mother is the first Guru. Your father is the second Guru. Your teacher is the third Guru, and your spiritual Master is the fourth Guru. Then there is a book called The Laws of Manu. The major ancient book of laws for the Indians, for India, which says that one Guru equals ten paid teachers. A hundred gurus equal one father, and hundred fathers equal one mother. So anywhere that you derive wisdom from is Guru. There are also great women figures, great women Masters and sages in the history of India.

The Sanskrit word for a school is Gurukula, the Guru’s family. And a child’s education took place in Gurukula, in the Guru’s family. A child was sent between the ages of five to eight to live with the Guru’s family away from civilization in the forest, in the hermitages. They had special areas preserved and those areas were sacred. Those were places known as ashrams. Those places were so sacred that a king could not enter but in a humble garb. He could not carry the signs and symbols of royalty with him when he entered an ashram. A policeman had to remove his badge. No authority was allowed. No animal could kill another animal in those areas. No hunters, no trespassers. You could go there only with a very, very spiritual outlook. There was no taxation. Some of these ashrams became great universities like Takshashila in the fourth century BCE. It had 20,000 resident students [whose expenses were] paid for by the State. Yet the State had no say in deciding policy. If there is one motto of the civilization in which I have grown up that would be, “knowledge above all”.

Vidyayam amritam ashnute, one gains immortality from wisdom, from knowledge.

Political power or monetary power are nothing. They are there. They are not to be avoided. But the highest caste in India, the brahmins, were the poorest people in the country. They were regarded as the highest caste because of their knowledge, because of the traditions they carried. In that context you have to understand the importance given to someone who is a teacher. These people, the brahmins of India lived on offerings. Their knowledge was free; but they lived in a society little of which remains today. You won’t see it when you land in India. You will have to look for those pockets, but whatever is there is a continuity from a very, very ancient tradition.

They give of themselves free. A student was not charged a fee. You may say, “that’s very convenient,” but then what was it that the student did? He gave his heart and soul. Then he deserved that knowledge, that wisdom. A Guru could place any test on that student. It was not a monetary arrangement. It does not mean it was not an arrangement. It was a spiritual arrangement because knowledge itself cannot be valued in terms of finances. It cannot be valued. It cannot have a price tag. It sounds a contradiction to the practice you may find right here [in USA]. Providing of necessities is completely separate. There is no connection between that and the wisdom that one receives. The two are not connected, cannot be connected. It is not possible for you to weigh so much knowledge for so much money.

So, a child went to the ashram of a Guru. The child lived under the Guru as his own child, and the princes and the paupers both together lived an ascetic life up to the age of 24 or so. The period of study was a period of ascetic life. It was a period of total equality. Then the prince went and ruled over the country, the brahmin went and taught the people, and the traders’ son went back into the business, but the values that were inculcated in that period of life remained.

Now you can view the Guru on two different levels. One is again giving information. We are not talking about study of economics or study of physics, although the same people in ancient India, the very same people who developed yoga science, also developed all other sciences. The texts they wrote on political science also started with the discussion of metaphysics. Why should the society have political stability? Why should people have economic security? Why should you run a country? Why should you run a government? And the answer given in this tradition is so that they have the facility to meditate, so that they can go towards self-realization, so that one person does not go out of his way to interfere with somebody else’s karma. A trader, a businessman should earn so that he supports the student, so that he supports the seeker, so that he gives to the ashram, so that he builds a well in the village. He who earns only for himself earns only sin. It’s a question of the whole value of the society.

All these material facilities are provided in the society only for one purpose and that purpose is those who are seekers may seek without interference. And so that you may fulfil your karma, your present duty at a certain point you should do it to the fullest of your ability and use it for the benefit of others in such a way that a person who is teaching in an ashram, a person who is studying in an ashram, which were vast institutions away in the forest, continue their life; that you should have the facility in your society that people can follow the inner seeking and if you claim anything beyond that to be yours then you are a thief.

Editor’s Note

This is an extract from Guru Disciple Relationship, Volume-I by Swami Veda Bharati, pages 1-4.