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The Essence of Guru Tattva

A spiritual discourse on the essence of the Guru principle (Guru Tattva).

"Guru is śakṣāt Parabrahma... Guru Brahmā is the creator, Guru Viṣṇu is the protector, Guru Devo Maheśvara is Śiva, the destroyer of all negative karmas and liberator."

"Until the last breath of Holy Gurujī, he was first Mahāprabhujī... Holy Gurujī never put and wanted his picture on the altar."

The lecturer delivers an evening satsang, elucidating the supreme position of the Satguru. He explains Guru Tattva as the embodiment of the divine trinity and the source of grace (kṛpā), stressing the importance of the disciple's receptivity. Using teachings from scripture, personal anecdotes about his Gurudev, and illustrative stories—including a tale of a master, a disciple, and a snake resolving karmic debt—he emphasizes absolute surrender, genuine discipleship, and the peril of ego in spiritual succession. The talk concludes with an invitation for the next lecture.

Filming location: Vép, Hungary

And Brahman is that omniscient, omnipresent reality, correct? It is always correct. Remove the "A," because in English they often write the final letter "A," no? It is not "a yoga," it is "a yog." Śabdo se brahma or śabdo se māyā, śabdo se hote udhāra, udhāra mārhe lī. Śabdo se śivānanda para, para marhe lī. This is in the Līlāmṛt; you read this. Yes, in the Līlāmṛt, Mahāprabhujī is speaking to one of the disciples called Choṭṭī Khaṭṭū. Unfortunately, we do not have their photos and more stories about where they have their samādhi. I was trying to find out. But you know, slowly, slowly, the stories, if you don’t write them, they are forgotten. And even if you write, if you don’t have real disciples, then it is lost; it is forgotten. Because disciples want to become a guru immediately. When the Guru passes away from the physical form, you know, then he or she gives priority to himself or herself. Guru Shakti is found in rare people, very rare. They are all in bharma. Bharma means illusion. Bharma means confusion. God bless. Gurujī used to say, "One in all, all in one." So all is in one, that is Satguru Dev. That is why it is said, Rāmakṛṣṇa se kaun baṛe? Who is bigger or greater than God Rāma and Kṛṣṇa? Usne bhī guru kī. Even they had a guru. Tīn lok ke nāth. They were the lord of the universe, all the three worlds, Satguru ke ādhīn. But they were obedient to Gurudev, Satgurudev. In that Guru Tattva, Guru Brahmā is the creator, Guru Viṣṇu is the protector, Guru Devo Maheśvara is Śiva, the destroyer of all negative karmas and liberator. And therefore, Guru is śakṣāt Parabrahma, not Parabrahma, Parabrahma, Guru-Brahma, the creator. And Parabrahma is that God without form, the universal God in everything. My adoration, my salutation, my prostrations to that Satguru Dev. And therefore, what to meditate on? The divine form of Gurudev. Pūjā mūlaṁ gurur padaṁ. And the worship, the holy feet of Gurudev. Mantra Mūlaṁ Guru Vākyaṁ. The best mantra to get perfection, siddhi, liberation, everything, is to follow Guru Vākyaṁ, the words of the Gurudev. Then Mokṣa Mūlaṁ Guru Kṛpā. Then you will obtain the kṛpā. Dhyāṇa Mūlaṁ Guru Mūrti. Meditate on that quality of Gurudev. Pūjāmūlaṁ gurupādam. Worship the holy lotus feet of the Gurudev and follow the master’s footsteps. That’s worshiping. Lifelong, you follow the teachings. Following the footsteps means you follow the teachings. Mantra mūlam guru vākyam, and therefore the best mantra is that when you follow those teachings, then automatically kṛpā is there. Otherwise, kṛpā doesn’t come. Even if the master would like to give that kṛpā, he cannot. The disciple should be ready, and the master should be ready. Both sides without a proper clean pot, you cannot put anything inside. Either the pot is broken. Upar se bhare, niche se jhare, Guru Mahārāj kyā kare? On the top is filling, down everything is dripping out. What should Gurudev do with you? All your energy is gone. So, pātra, pātra means the pot, the vessel. Kripa patra, and that is called a kripa patra, who has this mercy of Gurudev. Therefore, you see, until the last breath of Holy Gurujī, he was first Mahāprabhujī. We should learn this. Mahāprabhujī, Holy Gurujī never put and wanted his picture on the altar. Now, even they didn’t get sannyās, they are putting their picture on the altars. So now you see, you see the ignorance, how big ignorance is, how much ignorance there is. Therefore, lifelong we are disciples. If you do not have such disciples, then your evidence is even deleted. We saw in Kumbh Mela many, many sādhus and mamanlishwas; very rare had a guru bhakti, very rare. Everybody is struggling to get the position. Many are waiting for when Gurujī will die, so that I can become the owner of this ashram and this and that. When Guruji had high diabetes, the disciple was always giving sweets, and he knew the weakness of Guruji to eat sweets. Gurujī said, "But we have diabetes." He said, "Don’t worry, Gurujī, you are Brahman, you can digest everything." So that we experienced. So to understand is different, to feel in the heart is different, and to be like that is different. That is the greatest thing. So we should always have higher thinking about Gurudev. If I do not have higher thinking about Gurujī and Mahāprabhujī, I will not put it on the altar, you know. Or I will tell you why you don’t have my picture here. When I was not here, you should put my picture here, you know. I always said, "Why did you put my picture here? Remove it." So that is that, you know. We are writing, we are making our Siddha Pīṭha a beautiful information magazine. So it depends on you. What you will get depends on you. Once, Holy Gurujī gave a nice example that the river is flowing. Few people went to bring water. They were all very thirsty. They drank, of course, water. One had a pot capacity of 15 litres. So he brought 15 liters. One had only 5 liters capacity, so he brought 5 liters. Some had one litre, half a litre, a quarter litre, and some had nothing. All were at the river; all drank that water. But they could bring only according to the capacity of the pot. So we all made the sense, we all come to Gurudev, but we can’t take anything with us because we don’t have that capacity in our memory, in intellect, in our buddhi, and in the heart. Always, we have doubts; we are afraid. You know, I told you a few times the story of one master and disciple. They were walking, traveling from village to village. At that time, there was no transportation except horses, camels, and ox carts. But they had no hurry to go. Why should they go by camel? And whenever it was like this evening time, sunset, they stopped. They ate the fruits or some cooking in the forest. There was a lot of wood, different situations. And one day they were in the forest, and the master said to the disciple, "One of us should be awakened tonight." Disciple said, "Why, Master? Well, I think it’s better today." One of us should be awakened, alert. Disciple said, "But every day we are in the forest, sleeping. Master, why do you say this? We know there are tigers, lions, and different creatures. But you said, 'God, Gurudev protects us, let’s sleep.' But today you said, Master, that one has to be awakened." He said, "Yes." Then the Master said, "What to do? Okay." So he said, "Who will sleep?" The master asked, "Will you sleep? I will be awakened." The disciple said, "No, Master. First, you sleep as long as you like. I will be awakened. And when you have slept enough, I will sleep a little bit." At that time, of course, there was no electricity, no clubs, no restaurants, no discos. Anyhow, the master wouldn’t go to the disco, but all these things were not there. After sunset, maximum one hour, they were sitting, people, because then it’s dark, sleeping. And Brahmurta, they were more than before. Brahmurta awakened, so they slept till one o’clock. The master slept, then he woke up, and the master said, "You sleep now, I will have my mala meditation." The disciple was sleeping. Around two thirty, some noise came. To the dry leaves of the trees and dry grass, you know, when you walk in the winter, when the leaves fall down and they are frozen, and you walk, kind of sound, no? Did you ever walk in winter? You are sleeping or walking also, and also walking on the dry snow. Nice sound, no minus 20 degrees, and all trees are white, meadows white and frozen, snow and full moon shining, and we go for a walk. It’s not a beauty? Nice warm coat and good shoes and good breath, no? Oh, the lungs are happy. Air condition is... Very strong in the body. It’s so minus 20 degrees cold air we inhale, but lungs don’t say, "Oh, I’m freezing." There’s a very nice ventilation. And or when you walk through the grass and leaves, so the master heard the voice sound. The master woke up. Open eyes, and the master said with hand, "Stop the sūkṣma śarīra, astral body." That was a snake, a big, big snake. So, with the sūkṣma śarīra, the master spoke, "Who understands my language? That is my caste. That’s my..." Without language, understanding is misunderstanding. Through the words we give, through the words we take, through the words we speak, the snake stopped. The master said, "Where are you going? Why did you come this side?" Snake stopped. He coiled, sitting like this, and said, "Praṇām, Master." And he went down. Master said, "Yes, I bless you, but for what? That I don’t tell you. What do you want?" Say, Master, I have, from many, many lives, revenge to your disciple. Say, what? He says, "I have revenge with him, that once I kill him, and he kills me next life, and I kill." Once in life, we have practiced this revenge, or we are taking revenge. So this life, I am in the form of a snake, and I finally found him. He is sleeping, and so I will bite him. I will drink his blood, because he, this disciple, he was the first to drink my blood. I was in the form of an animal, and he killed me and drank my blood. So in the next life, I drank his blood, and so it’s going on for several lives. The master said, "All you want is to drink his blood?" He said, "Yes." "Then you will get it. Stay there." The disciple walked the whole day, slept late, one o’clock, so very deep. He was sleeping nicely, snoring. The master took one cup. And knife, and he said to the disciple, and held his one hand with his foot, and with the second, he took the blood from his body with the knife. The disciple opened his eyes. Guruji is sitting on him with the knife. What will we do? What will we think? Criminal, cruel, so on and so on, so on, or call the police. Many things. He opened his eyes, he saw Gurujī, knife in hand. Again, he closed his eyes. "Yes, does it hurt?" "No." You cannot. He didn’t put, no anesthesia, no? And Master put a cloth around his arm, took blood, half a cup, and went to the snake and said, "Here you are." He drank the snake. He said, "Finished?" He said, "Yes." "Now, this, your revenge is finished forever. He will not drink anymore of your blood, and you got it." He said, "You are the winner, but it’s finished, your problem for both of you." He snaked, he bent his head down and said, "Thank you, Master. Bless me, please." Master said, "With what? That next life I become human and do the guru bhakti to get mokṣa?" Master said, "It will be well." Next morning, the disciple got up. Of course, he noticed something. Master asked him, "What did you see in the night? Did you dream something or see?" "No, Master, I had no time to dream. I was sleeping so deeply, but I saw you sitting on me with a knife in your hand." He said, "Then why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you say, 'What are you doing?' or refuse something?" He said, "Master, I know one thing. Whatever you will do to me is good for me. And therefore, why should I be scared, or why should I become nervous or angry? I slept further. I gave my life to you. You do what you want." Master said, "Yes, my son, you are the example of the disciple." When we have such confidence and such a Gurudev, then we can come through. Otherwise, there are many fake masters, many fake gurus. They call, "I am guru, I am guru." Or they are waiting to become a guru. They are waiting to get a position. They are waiting to push themselves to the front. They are not. You know, a diamond is even in the front or behind somewhere. We will search and find out. We will go for searching. Many times, there is one other big story, but that I will tell next time. Always, they said, "Is that one?" "Yes, I am the master," said no. Many, many were getting ready, but the real one was sitting somewhere under the tree, like Hanumanjī, making a mālā. The master asked, "Are you that one?" He said, "I don’t know. I am only existing, living here. Because of you, that’s all. I don’t know what I am." So, to get that what we want, what we like, it’s not easy. And to make again, continue your master’s teaching is very important, very, very. That’s Sanātana Dharma. That’s why Sanātana Dharma is living dharma, otherwise, with such a people. It will be finished in one or two generations. Nobody will remember who was who. Look, it doesn’t matter who Hanumānjī was, but still we remember Hanumānjī. Didn’t God Rāma have an uncle? Didn’t he have some family members? He had two sons. Didn’t he have grandchildren? Do you know what their names were? Nobody knows anything. But Hanumanjī is there where God Rāma is. There is Hanumanjī. True, there were many family members. Those were for Kṛṣṇa, many, except Rādhā—not Rādhā, sorry—Rukmiṇī. Mother and Nandbaba, the father. Radha and Rukmaṇī, that’s all. But where Kṛṣṇa is, there is Arjuna. The whole Bhagavad Gītā, do you have any one-word sentence about Rādhā? Did someone read the Bhagavad Gītā? No one read it. Then show me the hand up. That’s it. So read once more. Okay? And everybody should, you must read the Bhagavad Gītā. You must read. You will not see anywhere the word Rādhā. Krishna taught Arjuna, a disciple, and you see Dhanakrishna everywhere. Radha is a symbol of bhakti, devotion. Radha is that one who never has any doubts or any complaint or anything against or toward Krishna. Accepting, that’s Radha. Radha is the prāṇa, bhakti of God. But we are not talking about Radha. We are talking about Arjuna. So where the Lord Śiva is, there is Nandi and Gaṇeśa. After that, we don’t know. So it is a disciple’s name there. It is that disciple who will bring you there, and that is that master. The disciple is not doing it for him. In reality, it will reflect on him. Look, Paramahaṁsa Yogānanda’s biography. Did you read that biography? Who read it? That’s it. So, all about his master in the spiritual lineage, Yoganandajī made, that we all read and we know. And not only that, we constantly remember who Yoganandajī is. There are many Yoganands, many, many. But when we say the word Yoganand, everyone remembers that one. Or Swami Vivekānanda, who made Ramakṛṣṇa known throughout the... Many Vivekānandis there are, many, many, many. They would like to have a name. When they become sannyāsī, he said, "Can I have, Swāmījī, my name Vivekānanda?" I said, "No, I will give you the name. That’s it." So, name, just to have a name is not enough. Tulsi Dājī, great Tulsi Dājī, who wrote the Rāmāyaṇa, he had his reason. He became very strict and vairāgī, and was very disappointed with his wife. Wife, because he was angry and told him that that must love, if you, which you have for me. If only one percent you will have for God, you will be the self-realized one. And he said, "Now my entire love is only for God." He went away and said, "I will never see you anymore." And so, Tulsī Dājī also was living very closed. He didn’t want to see any female’s face, not to get into temptation, not that he didn’t like them. So one day Mīrā came to Banaras and wrote a letter to Tulsī Dājī, sent a message that Mīrā came from Rajasthan, would like to see Tulsī Dājī, have his darśan. And Tulsīdhārjī nicely wrote two lines and sent back to her, "Sorry, God bless you, but I don’t see the face of a woman, only a man." So Meera wrote him back two lines: "There is only one man, and that is Krishna." I would like to know who the second one is. Purāṇa Puruṣa is only Kṛṣṇa. When Tulsīdharjī saw only two lines, Mīrā said, "There is only one man, Kṛṣṇa. Who is the second one who wants to see Mīrā?" So Tulsīdās also had great knowledge. So he ran to see Meera. It is really Meera. And he went and he touched the feet of Mīrā. And then they had a dialogue, and so on. There was a sweeper lady somewhere, cleaning the bank of the river Gaṅgā in Banāras. He never wanted to see any woman, and he ran to her. And not only this, he was touching her feet. Other people said, "That was a Mīrā. Are you crazy?" Okay. Next day, she was nicely cleaned and dressed. And Tulsīdājī was going to bathe in the river Gaṅgā. And she was standing in the front, so Tulsīdājī said, "Go away from here." She said, "I am Meera. I am also Meera." Then Tulsidājī said that Mīrā is different. Who could drink the poison and dance in the name of Gurudev? If you have one drop of the poison, you will die. Move from here. So to imagine the name just is not enough. You have to succeed, prove, realize. You have to realize that name. And that’s why there is a spiritual name given, and this is your duty. That will understand what is Guru Kṛpā, that will live ever and ever. Did Hanumanjī write his own glory? No. Did Tulsīdājī write in Rāmāyaṇa his own glory? No. But so not only that Tulsīdājī made God Rāma known to the whole world, but through that, he made himself also known to the whole world. That’s it. So tomorrow will be the next lecture at 9:30, about Nāḍī Yoga, meditation, and some practice. Today, this evening’s program is finished. I wish you a very nice, pleasant evening and a very nice, good night. Om Śānti.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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