The word guru has a special significance in the Indian culture. Other day I was having lunch in a restaurant and a Mexican waiter asked me, "How do you say teacher in your language ?" My friend said, "Master." I said, "Guru." He went happily back in the kitchen. And I fell back in a reverie.
Master is there to exploit his workers. Guru is there to show the path to enlightenment to his pupils. In other words a guru is someone who has a fiduciary duty to put the interest of his pupil before himself. Kabir went so far as to say, "Between guru and god he chose guru's feet, because it is the guru who showed the path to god (enlightenment)."
That is why finding a guru is fraught with serendipity. It is by sheer luck or hard effort that one finds a guru that is worth having in one's life. A lot of charlatans will come forward after knowing how much hold on your mind they can have as your guru. But you need to have lot of experience to separate wheat from the chaff in real life.
Master is there to exploit his workers. Guru is there to show the path to enlightenment to his pupils. In other words a guru is someone who has a fiduciary duty to put the interest of his pupil before himself. Kabir went so far as to say, "Between guru and god he chose guru's feet, because it is the guru who showed the path to god (enlightenment)."
That is why finding a guru is fraught with serendipity. It is by sheer luck or hard effort that one finds a guru that is worth having in one's life. A lot of charlatans will come forward after knowing how much hold on your mind they can have as your guru. But you need to have lot of experience to separate wheat from the chaff in real life.
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