Love for the Guru – What is its Significance?

Q: Should one feel love for the Guru? It is an emotion many of us experience.

Sadhguru: Whoever you love – the guru, the mountains, your husband, your children, or whatever – it is just your emotion. It is not right or wrong but right now, if that is the most intense thing you know in your life, intensify it. But it is quite a stupid thing. Because you do not know any better, that is what you do.

When I say “stupid,” I am not saying you should destroy it. You cannot destroy it. The most pleasant situation within you is when you are in love. People are always talking about divine love but love is a human emotion. Love is a wonderful way for you to exist. But is it the ultimate way? No. Love means, fundamentally, you are still longing to become one with something or someone. You are just longing. It never delivers you there. Love is not the destination. Love is just a vehicle that takes you in a certain direction.

Walking the Path Joyfully

Love almost makes you feel like you are one, but never really makes you one. So at some point, you get sufficiently frustrated with your love, when it is taking you but not delivering you anywhere. If you have ever gone on a bus journey in the Himalayas, it looks like they are not getting anywhere. It looks like the whole thing is about the bus ride. Initially, it is fun. After some time, however pleasant or beautiful the ride is, it is bound to become frustrating because you want to go somewhere. You want to become one with something.

Right now you are on the bus – it is okay. But if the bus is not going anywhere, there is no point. So when you say “love for the guru”, it does not matter what the object of your love is: whether you love the mountains, or the guru, or the temple, or your mother, or your father. That is not the point. The point is, if you make yourself into an atmosphere of love, the possibility of going through this world more pleasantly is definitely there for you, no matter what is happening around you. Especially if you want to walk the spiritual path, keeping your interiority pleasant is extremely important because it is a very challenging path. If you know how to keep your interiority pleasant, if your emotions are pleasant always, then walking the path becomes a joyful process.

If you are not like this, if there is no love in you, then you must know the blissfulness of just your existence – not being happy about something – just your very existence being blissful. Every cell in your body has become sweet. You do not love anyone, you do not like or dislike anyone – you are just pleasant.

When you are simply so sweet and pleasant within yourself, your very presence is pleasant. You do not have to kick up an emotion to be pleasant. Anything that you look at, anything that you touch or do not touch – everything is experienced as sweetness. Until you are like this, the best way to be is in love.

So much importance has been laid upon love for the guru because of a certain misunderstanding and a certain understanding. The moment you love someone, you expect that someone to respond to you. When that someone responds, a transaction happens between two people. After some time, this transaction leads to a sense of expectation and bondage. A certain type of behavior and way of living is expected. Otherwise it causes immense pain to one or the other.

From Emotion to Energy

The reason they talked about love for the guru is because he is playing the game just to the extent that you must fall in love with him, but at the same time he will never get entangled with you. You can get entangled with him as much as you want. There is no danger of him holding you up. So you will go through a certain phase of deep entanglement; it is okay. But slowly, if you continue your sadhana, you will find love is no longer an emotion, it is just a certain way that you are. Your energies reverberate with him. It is no longer emotional.

From an emotional state, we can gradually shift it to an energy state. Your connection with the Guru is simply energetic, and that is very good. That is a wonderful way to be because in that state, the ultimate possibility is so close. In that state, a guru has so much more freedom to do what he wants to do with you. But right now, emotion is an important part of you, directing you in some direction. Without emotion, you cannot be involved. That is the way you are made right now, so emotion is okay; nothing wrong with it.

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from the ebook “Himalayan Lust”, available at Isha Downloads. Check out the preview for a taste! Amalgamating Sadhguru’s discourses during yatras to the Himalayas, the book is a blend of the specific and the timeless. It is a chance to make a pilgrimage on the page, travelling through the unpredictable but fascinating terrain of the Master’s words.