If there IS some search taking place and happiness is the goal, the guru is the best way to reach the goal. This search is inevitably happening regardless of your spiritual or non-spiritual bent. The perfect partner, the perfect job/career, perfect health, and any number of material pursuits are all quests for ultimate satisfaction and it's expected outcome: happiness. It is just a matter of realizing that the search for material happiness is the unconscious longing to find the happiness that we always had but seemed to have 'lost'.
While 'guru' describes someone (male or female) who is adept at teaching, they are also highly intuitive and compassionate in their understanding of the 'tricks' of the mind. Their ways may seem unconventional and even a little strange but they 'know' what is needed in any given moment and are simply moving as if instructed by a higher source. The distinguishing feature to be looked for in the one called 'guru' is that they bring the seeker to a point where there is no longer a need for the distinction between 'teacher' and 'student'. From my perspective, having a trusted guru is a necessary step in a 'kind' of evolution back to the natural state of inherent happiness, which the guru has already realized and who, full of compassion for the human race, offers this gift for the asking.
There is no pride or personal credit taken on the part of an authentic guru for any of the 'teachings' that are flowing from the mouth of the one who is purely existing for the sake of the delusional seeker. They recognize that they are only operating as 'instruments' for the realization of the Absolute. There is no selfish motivation on the guru's part to help those who find themselves, in one way or another, confronting the external form of the guru. The guru's attention or help is not given for personal reasons. They are simply in the service of providing a thorn with which to remove another thorn (an analogy taken from Ramakrishna).
However, life is strange and mysterious in the sense that once the guru is encountered due to some grace and auspicious circumstance in the human being's experience, there is a strong resistance to receive the blessing of the guru's grace, even if it means finding ultimate happiness that never fades or disappears. There is a fear to give up the accumulated 'wealth' (ie; acquired concepts and beliefs), that had been guarded and protected for, if not a whole life time, most of one's life. This perspective is only able to be spoken because this is also what this 'blogger' has gone through. Many times, this opportunity to be shown the way to lasting happiness had appeared and was shunned due to fears of personal dissolution (ultimately: loss of the ego-self). It is also what many of my sangha sisters and brothers have described as being their experience; to have had a great deal of resistance to the timeless wisdom that ultimately destroys ego. This is an experience that is almost always, to some degree, shared by all who have opened their minds and hearts to the guru's expression. The most auspicious fear to face is the challenge of surrender to the guru's (God's) will.
( I can almost hear the 'click' of the 'esc' key now at the mere mention of this!)
Isn't it true that all ambitions or 'paths' start with the desire to find happiness? Happiness is the primal desire of all beings and is a natural response to life. From the time a child learns language, there is this desire to find happiness in a world that seems to cause pain and suffering. But, happiness was the original state of the human at birth. In a newly born infant, pain can be present and crying can take place but this does not automatically mean that unhappiness is the cause. An infant's natural instinct is to cry when there is need for nourishment. She is not unhappy that she is hungry. There is no mental interpretation of the pain of hunger. There is just this natural need that is fulfilled through the signal of a cry. This is an automatic reflex that doesn't imply the baby is unhappy, just hungry.
The newborn life emerges as 'pure happiness' itself in the sense that there is a blissful, thoughtless but conscious state of unconcerned, innocent existence, without any idea that 'it' cries or 'it' is hungry. It just is pure awareness, pure consciousness, bliss. (Sat-chit-ananda) The point being; we all begin in an innocent, natural state of happiness and only later learn to interpret external events as making us suffer which compels us to search for solutions in the material world. In actuality, the search for happiness is not a search for something outside ourselves. It is in fact a 'birth right' that has been overlooked in the process of learning that we need 'things' to be truly happy when all along it was available as a natural resource to which we have always had access.
The guru reflects the ego-less, natural bliss of the innocent babe as a fully grown mature being who has awakened to the true knowledge of themselves as the source of their own happiness. The awakened one points to it (happiness) as the seeker's own natural state which can only be achieved, experienced or discovered directly (not through learning; reading books, attending lectures, signing up for self-help courses, etc..), and is most possible through the guru's perfect example and guidance. It is not easy to get past the ego's resistances to it's sure and certain demise when faced with the 'threat' of an enlightened being. If one is serious and intent on finding (rediscovering) lasting happiness rather than just the short lived, elusive happiness of the mind's understanding then the invaluable help of the guru is the key.
The Guru's Guru: Nisagardatta Maharaj shares what his guru said to him before he himself awakened.
" 'Go back to the state of pure being, where 'I am' is still in it's purity before it got contaminated with 'I am this' or 'I am that'. Your burden is of false self-identifications-abandon them all'. My Guru told me, 'Trust me, I tell you: 'you are divine'. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done'. I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking, 'I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction, which was to focus the mind on pure being, 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon the peace and joy and deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared-my self, my guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained, and unfathomable silence." (I Am That, Dialogue 51, April 16, 1971).
Here's a blog that may be interesting to you if you are curious about this Master's teachings;
http://sri-nisargadatta-maharaj.blogspot.ca/
Free on line copy of 'I Am That':
http://advaita.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/1-I-Am-That-Nisargadatta-Maharaj-Resumo.pdf
May all beings find peace and happiness,
Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthi
~Shanti Mauna
