Words of Sri Swami Vishwananda

He gives in three forms. First, he gives as Sankalpa, which is through thought. Second, he gives as Drishti, which is through vision, sight. Third, he gives through Sparsha, which is touch. Through these three forms the Guru gives. The first one, Sankalpa, is like a turtle, a mother turtle. Through thought, you know, through the mind, through the transfer of the Shakti, this is like the mother turtle. The mother turtles lay their eggs into the sand, but the mother turtle does not need to sit on the eggs. She lays the eggs and, from far away, her thought is always like a wave of warmth towards the eggs, so that the eggs get hatched. This is done through waves, through thought. One who is an incarnation of that manifestation, one who has ever given blessings in this way is Shirdi Sai. The second, is Drishti, through sight. To give the blessing through sight is like a fish in the water who lays its eggs. Outside, the eggs are surrounded by some transparent bubble, you know, and their eggs are inside. But the mother fish always stays by and focuses on the eggs. Just by this mere focusing of vision the eggs get hatched, also. This is Drishti. And, the final form is Sparsha, which is through touch. You go to the master, you bow your head, you offer the sahasrara - crown chakra - and the teacher touches you on the head, no? He gives you the blessing that says not to worry, the Divine will look after. And, if you have faith, you receive the blessing. Even if you don’t have faith, you receive the blessing, but it takes longer to manifest. So, there are these three kinds of giving, you can say. The first one, as I said, is Shirdi Sai. The second one, who gave through Drishti, you can say through the sight, is Ramana Maharshi. He was giving His darshan through the sight. And Sri Ramakrishna gave His darshan through Sparsha. Through these three things the Master transmits this energy, this Divine energy, which is inside of Him, to the bhakta, to the disciple. Why did I say disciple and I didn’t say devotee? Because, after you have passed through all this purification you become a bhakta, you become a true disciple. You don’t stay only as a devotee, but you become a disciple. A disciple is the one who has received the grace of the Master. And the grace of the Master is the same as the Grace of God within. And this grace is like a teacher. Let’s say you grafted a small plant with another. You take two roses, two different kinds of roses, and you graft them together. But, when you water, you water only the main one, no? So the teacher is the main plant. Whatever passes through the teacher, which is grafted to the teacher, will receive everything. That is why I said yesterday you become the pot of Amrit, also. You don’t just stay as you are, but you attain the fulfilment of the goal of life. This is how the Grace of the Divine manifests Itself into the Guru. As we say “Guru Brahma, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara. Guru Sakshath Parambrahma, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namaha”. The Vedas proclaim the Guru as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Even in the Gita, Krishna said “Whoever will need Me, I shall come, and I shall be manifested as the Guru”. So the greatness of a Master, the greatness of knowing one’s Master and receiving the Shiksha, receiving the blessing and grace from the master is rare. And, once one has it, one carries it with him. One carries this blessing always. It is not that one day you say “Ok, today I am with this Master and tomorrow I am with that Master”. There are many people who do ‘Guru hopping’, you know. Well, it’s normal, because one is on a search, you know. Until one feels this Love, this attraction, this pull, one will always search, no? And once you have felt it, you have to grow into it and then you know “Yes, I am at home. I belong there”. You don’t say “I go to this Guru” no, you say; “No, I am going home, I am going where I belong, where I long to be”. You go there where you feel the Love of God inside of yourself, and where you will achieve the purpose of your incarnation. So this is, in short, how the Guru works. Through this manifestation, through this incarnation, He gives through these three forms - through thought, through sight and through touch. He gives Himself fully to his disciple. He gives Himself fully to the devotee. What the devotee has to do is to be like an empty receptable and receive everything.You see, the rain falls everywhere, the rain does not have emnity toward anyone. It falls on the mountain, it falls on the hill slope. But, can the mountain hold the water? No it cannot: it flows. When can it hold the water? When there is a hole in it, then the mountain can hold this water. The outside people, who are not searching for the Divine, not searching for the purpose of life, they are like the mountain. That is, when the grace of God flows from the Divine to them, it just flows out. Whereas you all who have really the Grace of God - the blessing of God, I should say, not yet His Grace - but the blessing of God to have the urge of searching, the urge of looking for Him, the urge of practising your sadhana, the urge of feeling a Love greater than what the whole world thinks of as love.