Tract on Teacher of Yoga

Teacher of yoga is distinct from the rest of his clan. He needs to be potent enough to strike at the root of consciousness.

He needs to be gracious towards all indiscriminately. It depends on the receptivity of the person concerned whether the guru’s shower of grace benefits him or not.

He acts as the supervisor and guide of the student in determining the course and direction of the flow of the student’s consciousness towards the particular object after it is withdrawn from diffusion.

He is one who removes the ignorance of his disciple by teaching him the true nature of reality and revealing to him the pervasive oneness of consciousness.

This he accomplishes mostly via a particular mantra imparted to the disciple for being kept burning, as it were, constantly in the psychic horizon of him.

The right teacher is he who himself has realised the Ultimate Reality; anyone lesser than that does not deserve the title.

An unworthy teacher is not only unable to raise the seeker to higher levels but also obscures and clouds further his consciousness with doubts.

In the quest for the integral consciousness, the seeker may be led from one teacher to another until he gets fully satisfied.

Just as a bee desirous of nectar, goes from flower to flower, so an aspirant of knowledge may have to go from teacher to teacher until he gets fully satisfied in his quest.

A true teacher is an embodiment of integral consciousness which annuls the diversity into the supreme unity in respect of all the three aspects of the reality, that is, existence, consciousness and bliss.

It is only through such a teacher that the reality gets revealed and one recognises oneself in one’s essential being.

The guru can remove false identification of the seeker with things in the world outside, that is, paurusa ajnana provided the aspirant has already got rid of his intellectual ignorance to a considerable extent through his own effort.

Both sorts of ignorance, however, are removable only through the grace of the Supreme Teacher seated in the interior of consciousness of the seeker himself.

It is only towards the end that the aspirant comes to discover that the real teacher is none other than He Himself who is seated in the inmost chamber of consciousness beaming out sometimes as the supernal light.

Coming to this end, the realisation comes that it is the integral consciousness itself which assumes the form of the teacher and the aspirant.

Thus, the real dialogue between the teacher and the taught is held within the consciousness itself playing the role of both the parties of the dialogue. By means of this dialogue consciousness enlightens the consciousness itself.

As consciousness acts in the capacity of both the subject and the object, it can play the role of both, the teacher and the taught.

Thus, at the highest level of sadhana, the Teacher infuses this awareness into the disciple directly so that he rises in an instant to the recognition that he and the teacher are one.

Until that highest state of yogic sadhana is attained, however, the difference between the teacher and the taught is not only inevitable but also needs to be treated as most cherishable by evoking in the mind of the taught due regard for the teacher as his guide and saviour.