GURU DEV WARNED ABOUT RAJ GORUS
This is the first part of a review of the book called The Sweet Teachings of Blessed Sankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, by LB Shiver.
Bhahmananda Saraswati is known to many as Maharishi’s spiritual master Guru Dev. We do puja to Guru Dev when we teach meditation under the trade name Transcendental Meditation, or when we teach the same meditation independently under different trade names. Either way, teachers in the wider TM Movement or in the Global Country of World Peace hold Guru Dev to be above Maharishi in the tradition. Maharishi has spoken many times about his spiritual master, however, this book gives a deeper understanding of Guru Dev’s philosophies.
The book is a collection of short lectures given by Guru Dev after he was elevated to the position of Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, the foremost seat of learning in the North of India in that tradition of knowledge. The lectures were written afterwords in a handbook that was published in India and then found by LB Shiver in the 1990s. LB Shiver partnered with Professor Cynthia Ann Humes of Claremont McKenna College who translated the text for LB Shiver.
LB Shiver was a writer, who studied at Maharishi International University in Fairfield Iowa. He was well-known in the community and was a regular author in local newspapers. He was dedicated to gathering as much knowledge about the holy tradition as possible, and this book represents his last work, which was publicized after his passing. Many thanks to Doug Hamilton of Fairfield Iowa who helped organizing the publishing of this book.
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The book is organized into 108 short lectures, many of which fit on one or two pages. Guru Dev was known for the silence he radiated, and his lectures were short and to the point. It is a delight to read the book, and I consider this book a major step in understanding both the knowledge of meditation and also the ethical underpinnings of the tradition.
Because ethics is important in light of what has happened in the TM movement over the years and especially since the crowned kings took over in the form of the Global Country of World Peace, the teachers of meditation must have a clearer understanding of what Guru Dev’s ideas were about certain issues, which he learned from the shastras, the holy text of India, and from the tradition of masters.
I would like to summarize lecture no. 77 from the book. The lecture is about “Who is a guru”, and is about three and a half pages long. This summary should not be accepted at face value, but the reader is encouraged to purchase this important book and read the entire text and gain a complete understanding of what is available from this important publication.
The first part writes about who should approach the guru, and what qualities the guru should have, and ends with “He should not approach the guru empty handed. One should take some fruit and flowers.” We know this from our puja ceremony in which the initiate brings some fruits and flowers, which are then symbolically offered to the feet of Guru Dev.
“The guru is a boat that crosses the ocean of being. It is very rare to get a satguru in Samsara, and yet everything is easily attained here too. Vedas and shastras are full of mantras, there is no shortage of mantras. However, the mantras given in books are like a heap of bullets. There may be hundreds of varieties of bullets piled up, and one may also have a gun, but they will be useless unless someone can advise which caliber to use from among the pile of bullets.”
In this part, Guru Dev speaks of the varieties of mantra sounds that can be used, but you need a guru to show you which is appropriate for you and how to use them. This part of the book surprised me and elevated my perception of Guru Dev. He was not only an enlightened man who lived a life of detachment for decades but was also a man who had practical knowledge about other things besides holy knowledge. This part broke some boundaries for me, to read that Maharishi’s master used bullets and guns in his example.
Guru Dev then spoke like this:
“Nowhere in the scriptures do we find a teaching that gurus should go to their disciples. Nowhere do we find a teaching that disciples should send a car for their guru. Disciples should go to their guru, this is respectable. However, since gurus have come to depend on their disciples for their livelihood guruhood’s respectability has been besmirched. Who is a raj guru (royal guru)?
They are raj goru. A goru is an animal. Such a guru, like a king, will have a lot of property, he will begin riding in cars, and what’s more, he enjoys all heavenly comforts, so now he drops his own purushartha. He stops thinking about the welfare of his disciples, and does not bother even if they are bound for hell.”
As can be seen, Guru Dev humorously used wordplay to emphasize a point, he spoke against RAJ GURU’s, “royal gurus” whom he called RAJ ANIMALS. These raj animals will have a lot of property and live off their disciples, and enjoy heavenly comforts. However, the respectability of the guruhood can be stained. Such a guru will stop thinking about the welfare of the disciples.
Then a little bit later Guru Dev continues his talk with the following:
“If the guru cannot give knowledge of the self (atma jnana) to the disciple, of if he cannot make him see Bhagavan, but instead continues to take his money, then he will definitely go to a terrible hell. I accept someone as my disciple, then I work hard to help him obtain the knowledge of the Self or to have vision of Bhagavan. If the disciple is incapable of accomplishing this due to his own unfitness, only then am I saved from going to hell. Knowing this, I do not take financial or other services from any disciple whatsoever.”
Bhagavan is God, and according to my understanding, it represents the absolute silence and absolute dynamism which can be experienced through meditation. To have a vision of Bhagavan would mean having a vision of this unbounded field of pure consciousness. In his speech, Guru Dev expressed his cautiousness and explained that he acceptedNOMONEY or services from any disciple whatsoever for fear of going to HELL.
This could be an explanation for why Guru Dev did not allow money into his ashram. Reportedly he had a sign in his ashram that read:
“DONATIONS ARE NOT ALLOWED, YOU ONLY SACRIFICE YOU SINS HERE”.
Guru Dev was a cautious man who understood the karmic implications of accepting money, unlike the leaders of the TM organization, now operating under a royal cover – a RAJ COVER – A VIRTUAL COUNTRY COVER – and accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and fees over 15 years. Of course, they are following in Maharishi’s footsteps in this manner, and we will have to dissect this in the future.
The rest of the No. 77 speech is also very important, but we will leave it to the readers to purchase this important book and read through it themselves. We especially recommend this book to the RAJ ANIMALS with crowns, if there are any.
These thoughts from Guru Dev of the holy tradition of masters open up a pandora’s box of questions. There are questions about financial ethics and even the morality of our immediate guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who enjoyed women in secret. Then there are questions about his wealthy relatives in India. What about the whole Global Country of World Peace kingdom? There we find king Rajas who have taken over the TM movement of old, and expelled so many good TM teachers.
Could these kings be a type of “raj gorus” that Guru Dev warned everyone about? What about Tony Nader? What about the 100,000-dollar course fee for a certain type of elite course? What about the massive financial donations, over 300 million dollars during the last 15 years which is opaque and not very transparent? This figure is just the donations in the United States alone. How about worldwide transparency? What about the offshore tax-haven-based companies the Rajas are involved in? The Global Country of World Peace is full of so many financial mysteries that it boggles the mind. It’s a real BARN of RAJ GORUS. I assume they haven’t read Guru Dev’s lectures. I assume they haven’t read any books on ethics or morals found in religious literature. I could be wrong. Would one of the Raj gorus like to comment on this article? I would be interested in hearing from the royal kings of meditation and getting a different opinion.
Let us refer back to Guru Dev’s teachings, and understand them more.
There will be several articles based on this book.
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Guru Dev’s speeches are important to all of us, to understand our tradition, to understand the ethics of our tradition. This book should be required reading for all TM teachers to understand the risks involved if they accept money from disciples if they live off of disciples’ wealth. This quote is also a wake-up call for any new meditation organization that wishes to continue the holy tradition.
This wonderful book by LB Shiver is a must-read for anyone interested in the teachings of Guru Dev and an extended sense of the Shankara line of spiritual masters.
The book is available on Amazon and other online bookstores.