In unison, the world’s mystics tell us we are more than rational animals. Do we really believe this? We are, in fact, divine and therefore capable of experiencing the very consciousness of God. How does such a blessing unfold? In The Holy Science, Sri Yukteswar gives us the answer in very clear terms: “Through the guru, man becomes baptized or absorbed in the stream of light and becomes unified with Spirit.” Translation: the guru immerses the disciple into the stream of God’s love and light. In today’s Gospel from Luke 3:15-22, we see this process modeled in John’s baptism of Jesus: “After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”
Why do we need a God-realized guru to baptize us into the stream of God Consciousness? The answer is simple: only a person who lives in a perpetual state of conscious union with God can bestow that consciousness on a ready disciple. The guru is literally a force field of divine energy, and when we come into their field of consciousness with a humble and open heart, their grace elevates us into a higher state of consciousness. The good news is that these great avatars of history are available to us even when they are no longer in the body. Yogananda tells us, “It is an erroneous assumption of limited minds that great ones such as Jesus, Krishna, and other divine incarnations are gone from the earth when they are no longer visible to human sight. This is not so… Jesus Christ, for example, is very much alive and active today. He is working unseen by the masses for the regeneration of the world.”
What we must do is simple: the guru must become the axis around which our life revolves. No matter who we claim as our guru, our relationship with them must be a living relationship. We must actually love them and literally draw close to them. The Christ impulse must be the energizing force in our lives. Of course, this attunement is an ever-deepening process. In order for it to be real, it must be genuine. We must wrestle with the gurus’ words, with the truth they embody and the love they offer. The very fabric of our consciousness must be metabolized into the Christ Consciousness, and this can only happen to the degree that we open our hearts to them in love. Put another way, love is the only glue that bonds us to the guru and allows them to become a dynamic reality in our lives.
Beloved Guru,
You are the star,
The sun,
The light,
The center
Of my life.
