Sri Guru Gita – 8 March 2014 – Episode 78

Jaya Guru Datta. English summary:

Sloka:
Karmana manasa vaca nityamaradhayet gurum |
Dirghadandam namaskuryat nirlajjo guru sannidhau ||

When you offer your obeisance to Guru, you should always learn to think that you and your Guru are alone even if he is surrounded by several people. You should not look at the people around you, at how many people there are or at who is looking at you. No one else cares if you are offering your obeisance. It’s when you glance around to see who’s looking at you that people think you are crazy. People will think you are crazy because you are glancing in random directions while offering your prostrations. If you quietly offer offer your obeisance without getting distracted, no one will care. It is you, not others, who makes yourself look silly. A person who sees two people having a conversation has a nagging feeling that those two are talking about the insult meted out to him last evening. It’s purely psychological. He thinks that people are pointing to him and laughing. Oh yes, you are the most beautiful person in all the worlds, you dropped from the sky, that is why they are looking at you. Or, you are so great, like Sage Valmiki, that’s why they are talking about you. You are a great banker, that’s why they are looking at you! That’s silly. No one cares about you. They don’t even care about themselves, let alone care about you. They are just having a jolly good time forgetting everything else around them, or they are having a jolly conversation about a movie they saw, about the dialogues in the movie. We think too highly of ourselves. Who are we? A lot of people are looking around before they prostrate. By doing that, you are drawing the attention of even those who are quietly doing their own meditation.

You know what the prescribed way to offer prostrations is? You should offer prostrations thinking, “There is nobody here. There’s only the omnipresent Guru. And there is me. We are the only two”. Even when the Guru is giving you a mantra, you are worried about others listening in, you are wondering “Are they listening to what the Guru and I are talking about?”. Your concentration is all on them, not on the words of the Guru. If your concentration is on the Guru, the others won’t even hear the conversation. They won’t even feel the need to hear the conversation. You should learn to think that there is no one except you and the Guru. How many conversations can the people around you focus on? How many conversations will they care to remember? Don’t you think they have better things to think about? We should learn to think this way – that only you and your Guru are present. You should offer obeisance with purity of thought, word and deed. Your mind is somewhere, you are cursing someone else while you are offering your prostrations. There’s no use. You should fill your mind with the Guru and offer prostrations.

You should worship the Guru. When you see the Guru, you should cast off all shyness and offer prostrations on the floor. This is the way to prostrate to the Guru. Every time you see the Guru, the first thing you do should be to prostrate while casting of all shyness and not even thinking about who else is around. You should do it as many times as necessary. Let’s go to the next sloka.

Sloka:
Sarira martham pranamsca sadgurubhyo nivedayet |
Atmanamapi dasyaya vaideho janako yatha ||

Your body wealth and even life should be offered to your Guru. Just like Janaka, the Videha, you should offer yourself and surrender to him like a servant. Here, the emperor Janaka is cited as an idea for self-surrender. Let’s see what they say ahead.

Jaya Guru Datta.