Many of you may know that today is in traditional Indian spiritual ideas, a day called Guru Purnina, which takes place always on the full moon of July-August. Guru Purnima has come to be seen as a day in which disciples and devotees of a guru can bring offerings of gratitude and support to their gurus. Initially, it was not called Guru Purnima; it was called Vyasa Purnima, in honor of the man who is said to have compiled the Vedas, to have given structure to the Vedas. He divided it into their four parts, and added organization throughout. This is also the person who is thought to be the author of the Brahma Sutras, which are the heart of Vedanta and of the Mahabharata. It used to be called Vyasa Purnima, and it was a day that was spent honoring the memory of this great man, who did work of great value to us all. As it happens, gurus of later times changed the name themselves, so it could be seen as an occasion to receive offerings to them from their disciples.

I don't have any problem with that. I am happy for any arising of gratitude within any human minds, toward anything whatsoever. The experience of gratitude is a gift of God. But it is my experience, and the experience of many of us, that the whole principle of guru worship, along with the worship of spiritual utterance and spiritual understanding, have never been of much use to us, except maybe as entertainment, as experiences and states that are delightful and feel good. So, rather than speak about devotion to the guru, I thought that today I might tell you a little story about how this whole practice of spiritual utterance and spiritual ideation came to be, in the beginning of the period from which the Vedas, the Upanishads and all the other gorgeous Indian spiritual ideation arose.


Live recording of a Worldwide Meeting with John Sherman on July 29, 2007.

Length: 1 h 26 min. File size: 20.58 Mb





MP3 File