Sri Swami Vishwananda talks about........

When you manifest yourself and you have the urge of searching, the Divine manifests itself as Prereka Guru, which means the first thing that happens when you come across your Guru is that Love gets ignited inside. There is an urge to be near the teacher and it is like this: once you have tasted nectar, nothing else in the world tastes the same. In the same way, once you are near your Guru the world changes. That is why I was saying: when you become spiritual the world lets go of you, the world sees you differently. Some say you are crazy, because your actions don’t suit them, because, deep inside you, Love starts to awake. So, in that aspect the Guru takes form as Prereka Guru. The first meeting of the Guru is called Prereka, which is awaking of the Divine Love inside the heart of the disciple. This is how one knows who a Guru is, because there will be an irresistible pulling: it is like a magnet which attracts. Second, the Guru takes the aspect of Sachaka, which means the one who purifies and cleanses the bhakta, the devotee. And in that process you can say the Guru is wrong, you can say the Guru is bad. You can say all the bad words to the Guru, but know one thing: who will understand a Master? Until one becomes a Master, one will not understand a Master. That is why sometimes, when one looks at a Master and says “Oh, you know, this one is a bad one, or this one is a good one”. How do you know what is good and bad? You are just seeing the action on the outside, but you don´t know what lies behind it. So, this is the purification aspect of the Guru Sachaka, to purify, to cut down all the impurities. And in the cutting down, sometimes he can be very cruel, very tough. And like that you know a Guru is a Guru, because if a Guru is soft, soft, soft toward whatever you come with and he says “Ah yes, yes, yes”, it does not work. If you see diamond or gold in nature, diamond looks like a normal stone. But when the expert has seen it and takes it, takes the stone and starts polishing it, the polishing is not soft. The polishing is very, very, very, very difficult, but then you have a beautiful stone afterwards. It is the same thing with gold: when you receive gold with so much impurity. Gold has to go through fire and. when it goes through fire it is very cruel, because the gold is burning with thousand degrees to melt it, to purify it, so finally you can get beautiful jewellery. This is Sachaka. When this has happened and when this has manifested in the bhakta, in the devotee, and the strong faith and the determination is still there - because in that process many will go, because they cannot bear it - if one stays, one will shine. After that process, the Guru takes the aspect of Vachaka, which means that the Guru gives the glory of the Lord to the disciple. He reveals the stories of the Lord, the manifestation of the Lord, to the disciple. He tells them beautiful stories, so that inside the bhakta, when all impurity has gone away, it fills itself with the Divine, it fills itself with the glory and the shine of the Divine. Of course this is knowledge only. After some time the Guru takes the aspect of Bhodaka. Bhodaka means that he transforms this knowledge into wisdom, so that the bhakta, the devotee, can understand everything. Lots of people in the world have knowledge about many things, but the knowledge of the soul, the knowledge of who you are in reality, this is not called knowledge, it is called wisdom. When you have wisdom you see the world completely differently. This is called Bhodaka, Bhodaka Guru. When you have wisdom, what will manifest itself is pure Love. When you have wisdom you become wise. You are not ignorant anymore and, when you are wise, you realise that the Lord resides everywhere. Then the Guru takes the aspect of Darshaka. Darshaka means that the Guru manifests Himself into the Divine Form, the Guru reveals the Divine to the disciple. So, within this whole process, you see, you do not take quickly, quickly the five stages, the five steps, you know. The Guru tests you. You go through Sachaka, Vachaka, Bhodaka and Darshaka as the final one. When you reach Darshaka you see the manifestation of the Lord everywhere. You realise yourself fully. Whatever you are looking for is just at the feet of the Master. And He has given it to you. In the Shiva Purana, Shiva said to Parvati “One can attain all knowledge of this world, but if one is ignorant about the Teacher all the knowledge is meaningless”. The same thing Krishna said in the Gita “I clothed Myself in this human form and then the ignorant think I am just human, because they just see the outside”. Who will understand, who can understand a Satguru? No one! So, when the disciple is ready, the Satguru manifests Himself and He comes. The Satguru comes to the disciple. And the Satguru comes not to take anything, because the Guru already realised the Oneness with the Divine, you know. So what does the Satguru need in this world? Nothing! He comes to give, always to give, even if it seems that He takes, actually: what you are taking is just that what He is giving.