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Spiritual Masters and their students: examples from the past 150 years.

Thu, 07/05/2007 - 08:51 — Shane Magee

Before the late 19th century, accounts of the Master-disciple relationship were largely second-hand oral accounts which were later written down. In the last fifty years we are lucky that many first-hand accounts of such a relationship were written down and recorded for posterity; they communicate a sense of immediacy that makes the reader feel that he or she himself is experiencing those events at first hand.

The great spiritual Master, Sri Ramakrishna, who lived from 1836 to 1886, is probably the first great teacher to have such first hand accounts written of him. Many of his very close students came from quite educated backgrounds, and therefore were able to express with great articulacy their experiences. In particular, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is an account of experiences with Sri Ramakrishna over a period of five years wrtiien by a famous householder disciple of his by the name of Mahendranath Gupta; this was supplemented by accounts of close students such as Swami Vivekananda and Swami Saradananda. Another famous account of the teacher-student relationship is contained in the famous spiritual book 'Autobiography of a Yogi' by Paramhansa Yogananda. The Englishman Paul Brunton describes his search for someone who could teach him how to attain inner peace and joy which finally culminated in him meeting the great teacher Sri Ramana Maharshi. Similarly similar accounts have been written by students of great spiritual teachers such as Sri Aurobindo and Anandamayi Ma.

One thing we learn from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is that real teachers do not regard themselves as teachers as such but more bridges between the student and the real teacher - God. Sri Ramakrishna used to recoil in disgust whenever anyone used to refer to him as a 'guru' or teacher. Similarly Sri Chinmoy, a present-day spiritual Master, always points out that the only real guru is God, and that is role is more akin to that of an elder brother in a family, pointing out to the younger brothers the way to reach the goal.

We also see that every realised spiritual Master has the ability to guide his students according to each student's individual needs and temperament. One notable example is the contrast of how Sri Ramakrishna used to teach two of his students who had very different personalities - one was rather timid by nature whereas the other had quite a hot temper; Sri Ramakrishna used to tell the first one to stand up for himself more, whereas giving the exact opposite advice to the second one! Another example is Sri Ramana Maharshi - for most of his students, he would advise them to begin their spiritual search by going deep within and constantly asking the question "Who am I?" However, when he saw someone who would make better spiritual purpose through love and devotion, he used to instead instruct them in that.

Real teachers do not teach using words, but instead through the silence of their meditation. Sri Chinmoy describes what happens when a spiritual Master meditates with his students: "The Master does not have to explain outwardly how to meditate or give you a specific form of meditation or a mantra. He will simply meditate on you and inwardly teach you how to meditate. Your soul will enter into the Master's soul and bring the message, the knowledge of how you should meditate, from his soul." In that silence, the student can feel an inner connection growing, like a thread with which the teacher draws the student towards a greater awareness of himself and his connection with the Divine. This connection is not something just felt in the teacher's physical presence, but can be felt even when the student is physically separated from the teacher by thousands of miles. The times in which Sri Ramakrishna lived in also coincided with the advent of photography, and many students since that time will have a picture of their teacher which they can meditate at home. when they meditate they feel they are not meditating on the person but the level of heightened consciousness and awareness which the teacher embodies; often like a magnet they can feel themselves being drawn to experience some glimpse of the consciousness fro themselves. A genuine teacher always opens the way for their students to experience their own inner divinity.

In silence, meditation teachers do not act by changing peoples minds but rather by awakening the student's own 'inner teacher' - the soul. This awakening often happens due to the love and concern that the teacher embodies, and indeed many accounts of the relationship between a student and teacher can also be simply read as examples of the sheer transforming power of love. We read of this in the relationship between Sri Ramakrishna and his dearest student, Swami Vivekananda. When the educated Vivekananda (who was then known as Naren) first met Sri Ramakrishna, he was full of scorn for Sri Ramakrishna's simplicity of faith in the Mother aspect of the Divine, and used to frequently make fun of Sri Ramakrishna for that reason. However, without arguing or trying to convince on the part of Sri Ramakrishna, the young Naren slowly felt his nature being transformed and expanded. In 'The Biography of Swami Vivekananda', the author Swami Nikhilananda writes: (Sri Ramakrishna) encouraged Naren in the independence of his thinking. The love and faith of the Master acted as a restraint upon the impetuous youth and became his strong shield against the temptations of the world...Naren often said that the 'Old Man,' meaning Ramakrishna, bound the disciple for ever to him by his love. 'What do worldly men,' he remarked, 'know about love? They only make a show of it. The Master alone loves us genuinely.'"

Another interesting account can be read in the book 'Sri Aurobindo came to me' by the great Bengali singer Dilip Kumar Roy, describing the exchanges by letter which took pace between him and the great Master. Due to the cerebral nature of his philosophy and the fact that he spent the latter part of his life isolated from the rest of the world, Sri Aurobindo sometimes gives an initial impression of being quite aloof and distant. However the letter exchanges show the tremendous love and compassion, warmth and even humour that all genuine teachers embody, and give an example of how a spiritual Master is able to identify with the student's problems in order to transform them. Spiritual Masters are also renowned for their boundless patience and compassion, for they know that for each of their students, there will come a time when they are bound to overcome their imperfections. As Sri Chinmoy says: "A realised Master is like someone who knows how to climb up and down a tree very well. When the Master climbs down, he does not lose anything because he knows that at the next moment he will be able to climb up again. Suppose a child at the foot of the tree says, "Please give me a most delicious mango." Immediately the Master will bring one down and then he will climb up again. And if nobody else asks for a mango, he will sit on the branch and wait. If you are fast asleep and someone pinches you and shouts, "Get up! Get up!" he is not doing you a favour. You will be annoyed. But the spiritual Master will not bother you; he will not ask you to get up. He will stay beside your bed and wait until you get up, and the moment you get up he will ask you to look at the sun."

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