- The Guru-Disciple Relationship
"In this path of the Divine as it is the case in any other path of knowledge, the importance of the Master is the greatest. If you get a good Master, it takes you quickly, if not -- keep on going slowly, slowly and there is no end to it. The finding of a proper Master is all that an aspirant on the path of truth has to do -- just a proper Master, not only on the path of truth, even on the path of engineering or doctory (medicine) or psychology -- any of that -- the coming across a right Master, a right guide and almost the whole thing is done. Because, the finding of a Master means someone who tells you like that -- for the Divine is omnipresent. Omnipresent Divine, its nature blissful, so the bliss being omnipresent. How long a mind should take to get to it? Should not take long, but if you do not strike against the right Master, you keep on going round and round and round and you do not find anything. In this field, when we leave here and find a proper Master, we just surrender to him, all body and mind, one-pointed in consciousness remains the individuality of the Master. No looking here or there, just at his feet obedience and obeisance. I know what a surrender to a Master is, because I have been through that. Once the surrender is done the work of spiritual quest is done. It does not need anything more to be done. You see, to meditate and transcend and get to the Being and come out and with this practice bringing the mind out to the field of outer gross life is one way of achieving cosmic consciousness. The path of surrender is another way. The path of surrender starts by tuning the mind with the mind of the Master. Tuning the mind with the mind of the Master means: Whatever he likes, I begin to like. I begin to forgo my liking if he wants me to go that way, I go that way. And having gone halfway if he wants me to turn, I turn. And again he wants me to go that way, I go that way. If he wants to return I return. Nothing of my will everything His will. This is how by foregoing our own likings and disliking, adjusting our mind to the mind of the Master, that is picked up by the disciple, and that is the most important thing. If he asks to do this, you do this. If gone halfway, he wants us to stop, we stop. You don't feel in the least that `Oh, so much effort has been put and now he wants me to stop!' -- nothing like that. The way he turns, we turn, the way He likes, we like, the thing that He dislikes, we begin to dislike. This is how one begins to forego his liking and disliking and begins to tune his mind to the mind of his Master. In this line it is not the work that is important, it is the flow of His mind that is to be kept, and that is important. As the Master wants, so he moves, His likes and dislikes begin to become the likes and dislikes of the disciple. Like that he attunes his mind. When the mind of the disciple is completely tuned to the mind of the Master, then the thoughts of the Master become the thoughts of the disciple. The feelings of the Master become the feelings of the disciple and when that attunement is gained -- because the mind of the Master is cosmic consciousness -- the status of the mind of the disciple gets to that standard automatically. The relationship of the disciple and the Master is -- two bodies and one existence, two minds and one mind. Thus is how, because the natural state of the Master's mind is cosmic consciousness, the mind of the disciple is cultured to that state in a spontaneous, automatic manner." Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
