The Guru Won’t Show Me God

By H H Maa Purnananda

“Ya Devi Sarvabhooteshu Chhayaroopena Samsthita; Namastasyai Namastasyai Namastasyai Namo Namah.” – Sree Durga Saptashati (5/29,30&31)

The toughest challenge in human life, I believe, is to be accepted by the Guru under His benign and benevolent shelter. Unimaginable amount of preparation would have gone behind, through several lifetimes of the soul, before this could happen to the soul as an individual in life.

Once, amused to see Sree Ramkrishna Paramhansa in ecstasy, Naren (Swami Vivekananda) could not refrain from asking Him if He can “see” Mother Goddess Kali. To his surprise, the Guru said “yes”; and immediately the disciple puts forth the insistence to his Guru, to show Maa Kali to him too. Naren was taken aback by Sree Ramkrishna’s reply when He told him that He cannot “show” him The Mother and that he himself will have to “see” Her. Later in the evening, Sree Ramkrishna sent Naren to Dakshineshwar Maa Kali Mandir where he got the Divine Vision of Maa Kali as living Mother Goddess.

If the disciple awaits the shower of a Divine Vision blessed by the Guru, it will never happen so, for sure! Then, will my faith towards the Guru be able to remain steady in spite of a response from Him similar to that of Sree Ramkrishna? In other words, it is indeed the toughest challenge of human life, because, the Guru will accept me as His disciple only when my faith in Him remains steady, no matter what. Fortunately, if I am able to sustain steadiness in my faith towards the Saintly Guru, my Guru then would enable me to proceed in my Sadhna as per His guidance and instructions and in due course, He would grace me with His blessings so that I myself would be able to “see” what He “sees”.

In the given Stotra, the Divine Mother is conceptualised to be manifest as the “shadow”. It actually speaks about the perception of forms due to non-apprehension of Reality caused by delusion which leads to “seeing” multiple forms. As we see the “shadows” of the objects in the play of light and shade, similarly, the world of objects is seen as multiple forms due to the play of “Knowledge(light) and ignorance(shade)” of the Real Self and the superimposed unreal ego.

As long as the ego ‘sees’ multiplicity, that long ego remains oblivious of its own Real Self. Therefore, the “Seers” bless the deserving disciples with the Divine Vision to remove their deluded vision by ‘seeing’ the shadowed multiplicity as the manifest expression of the Real Self, addressed as the Primordial Cause (Mool Prakriti), also addressed as Sree Mahamaya, Devi Yogmaya, Sree Mahasaraswati, Sree Mahalakshmi and Mahadurga Devi, and so on.

The students of Vedant philosophy are advantaged to have the legacy of great Guru-s who explain the concept of “superimposition” upon the Real Self; again, not “really”, but due to self-delusion sprouted from “egocentric individuality”. Since it is self-delusion, so it is imperative that it has to be dealt with individually only. Logically, there can be no possibility of “collective removal” of “individual ignorance”! Nor even “someone else” can remove it for the “deluded ignorant”.

The Seers have therefore provided all the possible solutions to work upon oneself and remove the “veil of ignorance” (Aavran), as a result of which the “web of shadows” (Vikshep) would get removed. This process of shedding the “veil” and unwinding oneself from the suffocating “web” is presented by Them as a “nine-day religious and ritualistic Sadhna” called “Devi Aradhna” and “Navraatri Puja”. Turning the whole process into a Divine one, the Saadhak worships the “superimposed veil” as the “Veiling Power of Yogmaya Devi”. Repeatedly bowing down at Her Holy-feet, he invokes the grace of the Devi Maa, worshiping Her various expressions and calling Her by different relevant names.

Year after year, the intensity of Sadhna of the sincere seeker has to increase to the extent that ultimately the deluded idea of the “false superimposition” turns into the “Divine Vision” as the Divine Expression of the Real Self alone.

And, while celebrating the Divine Expression of Mother Goddess, his Heart filled with the Divine Vision, he thence sings the glory of Devi Maa – “The Devi who is omnipresent as the shadow (the manifestation); prostrations, prostrations to that Devi, prostrations again and again, to that Devi.”

On the Auspicious occasion of Shardeeya Navraatri we humbly seek the blessings of Devi Maa by offering our sincere worship at Her Holy-feet.