SANATANA DHARMA AND THE MODERN WORLD

Does One Require a Living Guru?

Naturally in any field of learning it helps to have living teachers. Living gurus are preferable to those who have passed away and we all require them to some degree. However, we may not all be able to meet supremely great gurus and world teachers, like Ramakrishna or Ramana Maharshi. What is most important is to follow a living enlightenment tradition connected to modern Self-realized teachers. Not all the teachers in such a tradition need be figures of the highest order, nor can we always tell if they are.

Many Dharmic teachings have maintained a living tradition up to the present era, like the various approaches of Vedanta. Certain more specific teaching lines have been established in modern times with a global approach such as those of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Shivananda, Paramahansa Yogananda and many others. The great spiritual approaches they established are not for their lifetimes only. We can follow them with faith and confidence should they appeal to us but must integrate them into the greater goal of Self-realization, in which we must go beyond their formal and organizational differences.

Someone who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago cannot - like Krishna, Christ or Buddha - be a guru for a person living today, though they may have been a guru for people at the time in which they lived. Yet modern representatives of older Self-realized teachers can function as gurus, providing they are connected with the living reality of the teaching.

In seeking a teacher we must look to learn from the place where we are. If we do so we will find that there is always the appropriate guidance available for us. However if we have an inflated idea of our spiritual potential, then we might not find anyone good enough to teach us. In seeking gurus, moreover, we must not be caught by the net of name and fame. A true teacher is not necessarily going to be famous or charismatic in terms of this modern materialistic and sensate society. The greatest teachers are often unknown and have very few disciples. They may not even formally function as gurus at all. But all that they do serves to teach and demonstrate the higher Truth.

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