What Is A Guru?

Who (or what) is a Guru? Today we talk about the role of a Guru in our spiritual life as the living embodiment of scripture, as an initiator or empowerer of mantras, as a "broadcaster of reality" and as a living example of the full possibilities of a human life.
What qualifies the Guru to be a Guru? And when/how does one find one's Guru in this life? Must the Guru have a body?
All this and more in today's class!
This lecture is from our program "Journey Into Tantra"! It is an 18 part, college-level lecture series in audio and video featuring ~44 hours of content with Q&A + a guided meditation. The idea was to create an interactive learning environment in which these ancient and transformative teachings come to life! I'm very excited to share that with you! You can pick up a copy here!
https://nishthefish.gumroad.com/l/journeyintotantra
A Poem to my Guru:
Better than a hundred ministers who preach
Are the lessons that Silence can teach.
A mountain’s instruction unceasing
Is better than the pastor’s wheezing!
And yet how many among us who yearn
For God’s vision can profitably learn
From the Sphinx-like silence inscrutable?
How many are truly able
To draw from the rock it’s sacred teaching
In a way that is stable and far reaching?
A precious few, I say, a precious few!
And even among them there is need too
Of a living emissary between Spirit and matter
Otherwise we remain enmeshed in the latter!
But whence forth comes the one who can teach like the mountain?
Who is truly fit to serve as God’s fountain?
of unfaltering Grace and Wisdom unstinting
To be a holy jewel, glimmering and glinting?
A previous few, I saw, a previous few!
But this I can guarantee to you:
If you are sincere in your search
And if you practice some,
Then to you this true Teacher will come.
A teacher who is strong and infallibly pure.
Of this my friend, you can be sure!
God is drawn to the devotee
Who is pure at Heart
God years for such a one –
She cannot keep apart!
To the one who has no thought
For pleasure or for money
God is drawn like a bee to honey.
After all, the Guru is God in a mortal frame.
The Guru is God’s first name.
Like lightning flashing in the dark of the storm
The Guru is Silence clothed in form.
The Guru is a tree with roots reaching deep.
The Guru is the Witness in dreamless sleep.
The key to meditation
Is the Guru’s face.
The key to liberation
Is the Guru’s grace.
Oh, my friend, haven’t you heard?
The key to your freedom
Is the Guru’s word.
So he who hath ears, please listen well
To what Nishanth has to tell:
The Guru is God in a mortal frame.
The Guru is God’s first name.

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