Spiritual Masters of the World's Religions

4. Hindu Spiritual Masters

111 4 Hindu Spiritual Masters Arvind Sharma Introduction The institution of the gurū occupies a key place in the Hindu scheme of things. In a famous verse from the Devībhāgavata Purāṇa (11.1.49) the gurū is identified successively with all the three gods of the Hindu trinity—Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva—and even described as the visible manifestation of the ultimate reality or Brahman. In another text, the gurū is described as Brahmā without his four heads, Viṣṇu without his four arms, and Śiva without his three eyes.1 The place of the gurū is so fundamental to Hindu tradition that one must begin by making a few distinctions. The word gurū tends to be used in Hinduism for both a secular and spiritual teacher. One’s teacher at school, for instance, may be reverentially described as a gurū. More particularly, however, a gurū is one through whom a person receives sacred knowledge. The Manusmṛti (2.142), for instance, states that one who performs various sacraments is called a gurū. It Image - Chapter 4 Hindu Spiritual Masters  ACTUAL IMAGE IS 12 BOXES WIDE ON GRID 112 Arvind Sharma provides various terms, such as ācārya or upādhyāya (2.140–41)2 for those who give instruction in the Vedas. The sense of veneration associated with a teacher in general made it a trope, as when a father is described as a hundred times more venerable than a teacher, and a mother a thousand times more than the father (Manusmṛti 2.145). It is the word gurū, however, that gradually acquired the sense of a spiritual master of the kind with which this book is concerned—although in one of the earliest passages that highlights the need of a gurū, the word ācārya is used.3 Just as, my dear, one might lead a person away from the Gandhāras with his eyes bandaged and abandon him in a place where there are no human beings, and just as that person would shout towards the east or the north or the south or the west, “I have been led here with my eyes bandaged, I have been left here with my eyes bandaged.” And as, if one released his bandage and told him, “In that direction are the Gandhāras, go in that direction; thereupon, being informed and capable of judgment, he would by asking (his way) from village to village arrive at Gandhāra; in exactly the same manner does one here who has a teacher know, “I shall remain here only so long as I shall not be released (from ignorance). Then I shall reach perfection.”4 The central role that the spiritual master plays in the context of a spiritual quest persists through all the major formations and transformations of Hinduism represented by Vedic Hinduism (up to ca. 400 BCE), classical Hinduism (ca. 400 BCE–1000 CE), medieval Hinduism (ca. 1000–1800), and modern Hinduism (ca.1800–present)— although the gurū’s role also acquires some special features in each of these phases. The Gurū in Vedic Hinduism The gurū came to be glorified in the Vedic period to the point where devotion for the master was placed virtually on par with God (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 4.23).5 However, spiritual circumspection accompanied such spiritual glorification. The qualifications a gurū should possess are carefully delineated in a famous passage in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (1.2.12): 113 Hindu Spiritual Masters For the sake of this knowledge, let him only approach, with sacrificial fuel in hand, a teacher who is learned in the scriptures and established in Brahman.6 This passage uses two expressions to describe the qualifications of the gurū or the spiritual master, stating that the gurū should be śrotriya and brahmaniṣṭha. The word śrotriya is derived from the Hindu word for revelation, namely, the śruti. It denotes a person well versed in the śruti (the Vedas) as the revealed scriptures of Hinduism. Thus, the gurū should be well versed in the scriptures. But the gurū must also be much more: the gurū should be brahmaniṣṭha, or one who is firmly established in the experience of ultimate reality. These dual qualifications become the hallowed sine qua non of a gurū in the tradition , and hang together. That is to say, the gurū must know both theory and practice; he...