Once a Saint in Greece was wandering in the streets with a lit up lantern in his frail hand. Amazed at the sight, a man stopped the saint and asked him as to why he is moving around in broad-day light with a lighted lantern. Exuding Supreme confidence, the Saint retorted, “I am searching for a man”. The man had a hearty laugh and said, “Do you not see these people roaming around?” “Yes, I see them”, said the Saint. He further added that some are doctors, some are engineers and some lawyers but none of them is a man. They are Homo sapiens but utterly lack humanness, or the innate sensitivity of a human being.
This seemingly simple story paints a true picture of today’s man. Society today is devoid and bereft of humanness. Instead hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, treachery and cheating have taken precedence over the moral fabric characterized by love, trust, compassion and empathy. Selfishness, narrow-mindedness and betrayal appear to dominate the general conduct of people. Corruption is largely considered to be the ladder to success in life. Remembrance and worship of God is being sacrificed at the altar of desires. Can we call someone steeped in bestiality and completely devoid of ethics and values, a Man?
To stem the rut, with definite signs of being engineered and propelled into abysmal lows, the Vedic saying, “Become a Man, Become a Man”, vehemently needs replanting in the hearts of each and every person. Then and then alone, the garden of humans i.e. Society, will exude fragrance of human values and virtues.
The question here is “Who can perform the job with perfection.” Is it the present education system, modern science and technology? No, definitely not. Present education system, whose sole emphasis is on money-making, cannot in the least fulfil the role of man-making. Likewise, the scientific labs are no place for character-building either. The goal also cannot be achieved through the artificial satellites launched into the space.
Man-making, character and capacity building is a gigantically challenging task. Right through human history, it is the divine science of spirituality which not only accepted the challenge but also fulfilled it to perfection. This mother of all sciences has always achieved the goal of man-making by making Brahm Gyan the sovereign science of God available and accessible to all. Brahm Gyan alone has the necessary wherewithal to cleanse the corrupt minds and darkened hearts.
This knowledge being trans-sensuous, cannot be attained by scriptural reading, howsoever, intellectually superior one may be. This knowledge is not a legion of words where the sense organs can be of any avail. Being supreme secret, it is beyond sense-level perception. To substantiate and corroborate, let us quote the divine words of Lord Krishna in the Bhagvat Gita (9/2):
“This is sovereign knowledge, sovereign secret, and supreme sanctity, known by direct experience, in accord with eternal laws, very easy to practice and imperishable.”
Earlier in the holy treatise, the Lord tells Arjuna, his disciple that, “Learn it by humble reverence, by inquiry and by service. The men of wisdom who have known and seen the truth will instruct thee in this knowledge.”
The inference that can be drawn from this verse is that only a man of wisdom, a true preceptor, an enlightened soul who has himself known and seen the Ultimate Reality, can teach us the truth if we approach him in a spirit of service and reverent enquiry. Until we realize God within, we must act according to advice of one who has had the experience of God.
Similar to the preceding verse of Holy Bhagvat Gita, the Ramcharitmanas and various Upanishads made it abundantly clear that this knowledge can be gained only from a preceptor who takes you beyond theoretical narration of God and blesses you with celestial vision of the Divine through the third eye at the time of initiation. Opening of the third eye ensures practical perception of various cosmic visions. This illumination of inner light acts as an antidote to spiritual blindness and in course of time dispels ignorance, vices and propensity to sensual objects and pleasures. Adherence to the path shown by the preceptor is eternally known to ensure enlightening of the faculty of discrimination and a higher level of consciousness. Scriptures testify transformation brought about by this knowledge with examples of paradigm shift from devil to humans, humans to deity, deity to elevated soul from there to God-head.
Notwithstanding scriptural testimony, we have forgotten the necessity of a genuine preceptor. A look into the history tells us that the making and shaping of ordinary men into great men, epoch-making personalities took place with the benediction of an enlightened soul, a Sadguru. To quote a few examples from yesteryears – Narendra, Dayanand Saraswati, Shivaji and Chandragupta Maurya attained dizzying heights and recorded their names in the annals of history due to dexterous hands of enlightened souls like Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Swami Virjananda, Guru Ramdas and Chanakya respectively. Do we not know who made King Janaka a personification of renunciation amidst kingly comforts? An ordinary fisherman Peter became Saint Peter. This impossible task was made possible by Guru Ashtavakra and Jesus Christ, enlightened souls of that period. Behind all these unforgettable names was the benign grace of a Perfect Spiritual Master of that time.
About such enlightened souls, Swami Vivekananda said, “One cannot see God except through such human manifestations who has known, seen and become One with Him by unravelling the profoundest mystery and capable of transmitting the same onto the seeker. He is light himself and can illuminate others as well just as the Sun illumines the moon gratuitously.” Thus, a True Guru does a selfless service with the only motive of arousing God-consciousness in both pious and wicked alike.
Just as on being given by mother, we enter the outer world, even so, when a Guru enables us to see the soul within, it is said to make us twice-born which is a pre-condition to enter the inner world of Ultimate Reality. The Bible says, “Unless you are born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Scriptures say God is within us and has bolted the door from inside, handing over the key to Guru. Such a Guru, when conferring the Knowledge of Self, opens the door and imparts the Inner Eye to enable one see the transcendental form of God within. He thus performs the Role of Brahma. Just as a sculptor moulds and shapes a worthless stone and makes it worthy of worship in a temple, in the same fashion a Guru nurtures and Nourishes his disciple at every step of the journey into the metaphysical world of the ultimate reality and liberates him while living. Thus, he is Vishnu too. Guru is Mahesh also as he hurriedly brings forth the Disciple’s Samskaras (latent tendencies) and assists him to burn them in the fire of Divine Knowledge.
Performing your worldly duties, act upon Divine Exhortation to realise the ultimate aim of human life. Human birth is rare and precious; justify it. The shelter of a Perfect Spiritual Master has been acknowledged in Scriptures of all Religions. It is a law ordained by the Lord of the Universe that only a preceptor is capable of opening your divine eye to enable you to see God. He unfolds the Supreme Secret of inherent divinity. You cannot see the Invisible, Immutable Essence through your physical eyes. It is only through the eye of spirit – Divine Eye – that one can see the Metaphysical form of God. Even God, when incarnated on earth in human garb, adheres to the Divine Principle by offering Himself to the Lotus Feet of the Perfect Spiritual Master of that time. By assiduously following this eternal methodology, we are not only cured but also transfigured into pure, worthy human beings. Human birth is not great in itself; it becomes great on becoming human beings in real sense.