A Bridge to Know & Experience God
Swami Amritaswarupananda explains why Guru Purnima is the most sacred day in the Indian calendar.
Religious texts of all faiths present God as the embodiment of compassion, love, selflessness and other noble qualities. But is it possible to speak with God? Can that Divinity be seen, touched, felt and experienced?
It can be — in and through the perfected spiritual masters.
Permanently established in the state of oneness with the Divine — the unalterable truth of existence — they verily are God, the extraordinary, in an ordinary human form. It is through associating with and observing them that we come to tangibly understand that God exists. It is through them, that we come to behold God’s glory, feel God’s power and experience God’s beauty. Thus, it is the Guru who serves as the bridge — a link between the world of name and form and the nameless and formless Supreme Being. That bridge takes us to God ourselves. Therefore, even though the calendar of Sanātana Dharma is a continuous succession of religious and spiritual observances, for the disciple, the most sacred is Guru Pūrṇima.
“It is the Guru who serves as the bridge — a link between the world of name and form and the nameless and formless Supreme Being. That bridge takes us to God ourselves.”
A scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where America worked on the Atom Bomb as part of the Manhattan Project, recently shared something with me. Once, Dr. Leon M. Lederman, a particle physicist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, visited the Lab. While talking with a group of high-school students, he was asked if he had any message for them. He replied, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’” Dr. Lederman was emphasizing the importance of humility — that our attitude should be “how little we know about the universe.” Dr. Lederman was the one who coined the term “God Particle” for the Higgs boson. He wrote a book called Symmetry & The Beautiful Universe, in which he states that it is his belief that everything in the cosmos is interconnected, from the tiny atom to the most massive planet.
“Thousands of years before contemporary and modern science began to venture into the mysteries of the universe, the ancient sages — with indisputable logic and analysis — established the existence of a super intelligence residing behind time and this world of diversity.”
Thousands of years before contemporary and modern science began to venture into the mysteries of the universe, the ancient sages — with indisputable logic and analysis — established the existence of a super intelligence residing behind time and this world of diversity. They called it Brahman — the Absolute Consciousness, the Supreme Self. Having pierced the veil covering this precious truth, they shared their knowledge with the next generation of seekers, thereby giving birth to the guru-disciple lineage, which continues to this day. Guru Pūrṇima is the day when we acknowledge our indebtedness to that lineage and to all the enlightened masters strung upon it like various precious gems in the most invaluable necklace.
A “physicist” is called such because they have gained deep knowledge of the interactions between matter and energy. A talented actor, singer or painter is known as renowned as an “artist” because they have become an embodiment of art. Likewise, it is with doctors, teachers, etc. These masters don’t remain on the surface of their subject; they dive deep into it to such extent that they gain a certain degree of oneness with it. Thus, is not uncommon for people to address them as incarnations of their particular subject or art form. In a similar manner, the Sadguru — who knows the Supreme Totality, Brahman — has become one with that totality and is addressed and honored as such. Guru Pūrṇima is a day for remembering this. As the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad says, “Anyone who knows that highest Brahman becomes Brahman indeed. In his line, none who knows not Brahman will be born. He crosses grief and virtue and vice, and being freed from the knots of the heart, becomes immortal.”
For the true disciple or devotee, there is no other God than his Guru, and he remembers his Guru with every breath. Still, he sets aside the first full-moon day after the summer solstice as a time to reaffirm his debt and gratitude to his Guru and to rededicated himself to his path and Master. It is a time for the disciple and devotee to reflect on the progress they have made and to take stock of where they have yet to go. As Amma, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, the Guru at whose Lotus Feet I have taken refuge, says, “On this day, we should do a little self-analysis. Looking at our actions and attitudes, we should ask ourselves, ‘Where I am profiting? Where am I taking losses?’ We should make a sincere resolve to safeguard our spiritual advancements and to renounce our negativities.”
Guru Pūrṇima falls on a night wherein the moon’s light is brightest. In fact, that light is not the moon’s at all, but a mere reflection of the sun’s. Thus, on this holiest of days, let all disciples and devotees remember that all the light in their life has, in fact, come from the Guru. It is a day to feel that humility. As Einstein said, “Everyone who is seriously committed to the cultivation of science becomes convinced that in all the laws of the universe is manifest a spirit vastly superior to man, and to which we with our powers must feel humble.”
Let us all bow down before that great power, which the Guru embodies. For in doing so, we may one day realize that we were never the moon but the Self-Luminous Sun all along.
Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri is the Vice-Chairman of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math and the senior-most disciple of Indian spiritual leader Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi (Amma). He is the author of several books, the latest of which is titled The Irresistible Attraction of Divinity.
