Beyond guru disciple duality
October 2004
By Ramesh S Balsekar
The problem of seeking can only be dissolved through the realisation that both the seeker and the guru are only a part of the impersonal functioning of totality
It is a tradition in India that the sadguru having apperceived and experienced the Unicity that is the supreme subjectivity, and having merged with that Unicity, is one with it, and must, therefore, in a relative sense, be worshipped as Unicity.
Nisargadatta Maharaj (my guru) told his visitors repeatedly that the seeker regards himself as a separate entity as the doer of his actions, and the guru as another individual with similar separate existence. Maharaj used to say that so long as this attitude prevailed, whatever one did to achieve liberation could only tighten the knot of bondage. This is because we have always been what-we-are—the substance and never the shadow that we think we are, with independent doership.
The problem of seeking can only be dissolved when there is the realisation that the apparent individual seeker seeking another apparent individual as a guru is only a part of the impersonal functioning of Totality. The sadguru within has done it all: bringing the teacher and the disciple together as one event, which had to happen according to the cosmic law.
Both guru and disciple are objective expressions of the same singular Subjectivity. And yet, so long as the body-mind organism exists, a feeling of intense, intimate relationship continues to exist in a dreamlike manner between the guru and the disciple. Having turned the disciple into his own likeness, the guru no longer considers himself as distinct from the disciple. From the point of view of the disciple, the relationship continues till the end of life.
In the absence of the guru’s grace, all the knowledge in the Vedas will be fruitless. The sun of the guru’s grace dispels the darkness of intellectual seeking and brings about the fulfilment of the seeking. The grace of the guru happens when the disciple surrenders everything he has, including his sense of personal doership, at the guru’s feet. In this grace of the guru merges the triad of the giver, the receiver and that which is given—the final fulfilment of the efforts which had until then remained unfulfilled.
The guru brings about an apparent duality in his relationship with the disciple without in any way losing his basic sense of Unicity.