Hello, how are you all, I hope all of you in a good condition.
Let’s pray for a moment to God, Buddha and other holy beings for all the blessings and boons that we have received today. silent for a moment….
Okay, today I will discuss the importance of a spiritual master or preceptor, but before that I want to ask the audience first.
Have all the attendees here been to school? the audience answered simultaneously, Yes, we have.
Well, that a good answer. so the point is, we can’t learn on our own, we have to study with a teacher.
In the Indian tradition, they are very respectful of their parents and spiritual masters.
..Why is that? These two people are of great service to us. Parents who give birth, support and raise us, meanwhile spiritual master teaches us dharma (the truth of life). Dharma means truth.
Next, we discuss more about the topic of spiritual master today.
“Like a child though he has a story book but he cannot read or understand the contents of the story. Then the Parents know the child’s desire and immediately bring the child to school to study there.
In some time the child can read and learn the contents of the story book that he kept so far, so those who want to live the truth must learn from a spiritual master. After some time studying with the teacher the students receive and understand the messages stored in the holy books “
So the conclusion is, that everyone needs a spiritual master to understand and realize the spiritual path. I think the audiences all have understood.
Many spiritual masters but what kind of a spiritual master?
I will take some messages of Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita
“Please try to learn the way of truth by approaching a spiritual master. Ask with great heart of submission and serve Him. Persons who have gained self-realisation will be able to confer heavenly knowledge to you because they have seen and perceived the highest truth.
From the above sentence, a spiritual master has realized himself and has seen or experienced the highest truth. I take some of the Buddha’s words in the sutras of perfect consciousness. “
“if the people in the last dharma period determined to raise up their Bodhicitta or to develop and cultivate their compassion to suffering beings then they must learn from a wise master….and if you learned to this wise master for sure you then you would achieved Buddhahood “
Bodhicitta means the mind of enlightenment.
Okay, so after seeing the messages of Sri Krishna and Sakyamuni Buddha, it can be concluded that we want to walk in the spiritual path, the path of enlightenment must find and discover a true living master who has gained enlightenment or has succeeded in finding his true self or self-realisation.
This spiritual master is sometimes referred to as the Dharma Teacher, Living Teacher, Mahatma, a True living master or sometimes Indian people call it as Satguru.
Whatever they call them, they are people who are competent in spiritual teachings.
I said earlier about the living master?
Why with a living master?
It is very easy to answer it, if you were sick, then you need a living doctor, so it is not possible for us to find a doctor who has passed away.
Accordingly if practising spirituality must seek a true living master who can communicate physically to you. Well, this is the teaching-learning process in the world.
So you ask someone who answers with certainty. It doesn’t mean that we don’t pay any respect to the passing away masters, they have gone to nirvana or moved to higher dimensions, but to be noted that they have departed leaving this world by entrusting and boarding out the Spiritual Key to living masters.
So they don’t leave humans that way. So this is like a big tree, though it has died but he has released its seeds in the air and the wind which will bring these seeds to grow in other lands as stated by Guru Nanak.
Guru Nanak is one of the enlightened Masters in his era.
He said “From ages to ages, from generations to generations, the successors of the true Masters continue the task of connecting souls with God”.
Some good-luck people immediately find a true Master without doing a long search, there are some people who have done an old search with various extreme practices, after that just finding a true Teacher and most people no longer want to seek or learn from a true Master.
There are some students who come to Me and I ask them
“How do you know about me?”
“They answered that they have prayed to God to be reunited with a true Master. Some students were guided by the bodhisattva to come to me.”
“This was only their story and would not run out if told here “
So the audiences here can follow their ways and pray to God, Holy beings or Buddhas in order to be met with the true Mahatma / Satguru / a master who is still alive.