Baba Rampuri
“Sending you love, light and the blessings of health, happiness, and prosperity on the occasion of Guru Purnima.” – Baba Rampuri
Today, during this full moon, we in the traditions of India, express our gratitude for, honor, and worship the Guru. In my guru puja today I name not only my formal gurus in my tradition and lineage, and our Devata Gurus such as Shri Adi Shankaracharya Maharaj and Guru Dattatreya, but all my many gurus, teachers, and mentors, for all time.
The guru is more than only his/her body, as we may think of the Mother Ganga as more than merely H2O, for the guru is that thing in Nature which allows us to be connected with Her totality, that which allows us to enter deeper in our engagement with the world, and as the Initiator into its great mysteries.
In our own life-story as in any Storytelling, the archetype of the Guru, who Joseph Campbell calls the “mentor” is the crucial element in the story paradigm that guides our hero into and across the Extraordinary World where challenges appear, and ultimately supports our hero in confrontation with his/her nemesis.
In our post modern times, when the Ocean of Story is so horribly polluted by the political and commercial narratives, when our Speech has been colonized by the euphemisms of mass media, let us use the word “guru” as a metaphor to signify those who will connect us with our organic selves, giving knowledge and understanding not invented for the marketplace, but passed from human generation to human generation, whether in India, Europe, or anywhere else. He/She who will dispose of the illusion of separateness, challenge the myth of the individual, and pull us from our isolation into the human collective within which we may be prosperous.
In our tradition, in which metaphor and body are indistinguishable, the guru is the matrix of all things, mother and father at the same time, the source code. That’s why we sing:
Gurur Brahmaa Gurur Vishnu
Gurur Devo Maheshwarah
Guru Saakshaata Parabrahma
Tasmai Shri Guruve Namah
Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu,
Guru is Maheshwara (Shiva),
Guru is Supreme Brahman Itself
Prostration unto that Guru
Sending best wishes and blessings,
Baba
