Living Enlightenment & Spirituality
Dr. Acharya Shree Yogeesh has been entering deep states of samadhi since he was five years old. He became a monk at the age of 14, and has been travelling world wide as a Spiritual Teacher to thousands of spiritual seekers.
Acharya Shree Yogeesh focuses on guiding a spiritual seeker to building his/her foundation of knowing and trusting in his/her self (soul) that will lead a truth seeker to enlightenment.
"When Ignorance ends, Enlightenment begins," Acharya Shree once said during his Spiritual Telephone Conference Calls. He continued, "Enlightenment can be reached when one is balanced."
Enlightenment, Spirituality and Masters
Dr. Acharya YogeeshThis question has been asked for centuries by the disciples. If a disciple asks it means something. If students ask this question it doesn’t mean anything. Students can be followers. Disciples can be real. One thing I will tell you, there are many disciples in this world but masters are lacking because there are many fake gurus. Go to India and you will see many fake Saddhus and people consider them to be gurus and spiritual teachers. They smoke, they drink, they are drug addicts and people still bow to them. I don’t understand what kind of teachers they are. Yet they consider themselves Saddhus. You know what Saddhu means? A Saddhu is a person who is always on the spiritual path. But these Saddhus are always on the drug path. It is very difficult to recognize a real guru. The first thing you have to see is if the person’s eyes are innocent, child like, like a newborn and you will be surprised if you look into his or her eyes you will not see anything except blank. Their eyes are blank and empty. This is the first sign. The second sign is that the guru doesn’t demand that his disciples wear his picture around their neck with the big beads of rudraksha. By wearing the guru’s picture they think that they will be connected to their master. A real master does not care about this. Why does a real master’s picture have to hang around your neck? This is like always having a knife or a sword or gun hanging by your neck. This is the wrong way. Those gurus are fake gurus with no value whatsoever. The real teachers like Buddha and Mahavira never asked people to hang their pictures around their neck in order to be disciples. This is the second way to distinguish between a real guru and a fake.
The real guru doesn’t teach religion. If a guru builds a Jain temple he is not a guru at all. He is proving that he is a religious teacher. Or if someone builds a Vedic temple realize that he is not an enlightened master. He is only a religious teacher. Religious teachers are the most dangerous people on earth. Stay away from them. They will brainwash you, they will convert you and they will make sheep out of you. You will listen to them and if you happen to say something bad to them they will curse you and create fear in your mind. Those are not the real teachers. They are not the Gurus. Guru means - Gu and Ru ; two words. Gu is dark and Ru means destroy. So the Guru is a person who has destroyed his own darkness, his own ignorance, delusion, attachment and all negative and lower qualities. First he destroyed his own and then he destroys others’ darkness. That is the real Guru. Whoever destroyed the darkness of ignorance is a very balanced person. He is already self-realized. He can be the same in any situation whether it is a situation of violence or peace. He will not be affected by anything. The person who is affected by anger, hate or wealth, money or by the desire that a million people follow him/her, that person is a fake.
Someone asked me, “How many real gurus are there in the world?” My answer was, “you can count them, not thousands but a few.” This world lacks real Gurus and masters but there are many disciples in this world. They are ready to blossom but they cannot find the guru. The fake Saddhus are easily found. Religious teachers are easily found. Religious teachers put people in small boxes. Maybe the people had already a wide vision but now they are placed in the small box. Instead of blossoming they will shrink. They will become smaller and smaller because of these false and religious teachers. The Guru doesn’t teach religion; he doesn’t make temples whether Jain or Islam or Sufi. You have to know yourself who is the real Guru. You can know the real teacher because he will never say that he is the real one.