Guru: Surrender yourself

In the humdrum of life, things move at a frantic pace and most of us do not have time to pray to the God, and when we pray it’s no longer a thanksgiving exercise, rather sheer begging for granting of our wishes. Usually, fear determines our feelings for the divine and when things go awry, we get our horoscopes and palms examined to know the planetary details, of which we are incapable of understanding a word.

If we are fortunate, amidst this chaos enters the revered Gurudev, a figure larger than life and an epitome of divinity to illuminate our life, mitigate sorrows and direct us to the path of joy. Yet, doubts exist, even after getting initiated by the Gurudev. We wonder, what is theNikhil way of life and how are we supposed to conduct post initiation by the kind-hearted Guru? Is there a protocol that we need to observe and how do we remain happy ever after?

These concerns continue to haunt the disciple. Though a disciple recites Guru mantra, performs the prayers, still somewhere in his heart he is not sure. He seems to be shaky and this is the root cause of problems.

Spiritualism requires surrender, nothing less. Just like the gong of the bell is as loud as we hit it, similarly in spirituality, the more dedicated we’re greater will be our liberation. Still, doubts confound our hearts. Where doubts exist love departs, as a result we are incapable to fathom the love of the Gurudev for us.

The word “Nikhil” comes from Sanskrit, it means whole and complete. The revered Gurudev has entered our lives to enable us realize that we are complete, and we have been whole since the time we have been conceived. Since all of us are an immaculate creation of the divine, hence we originate from wholeness and merge in the end in this whole entity.

However, as we grow feelings of delusion and doubts dominate our life. For reasons like material, physical and spiritual inadequacy, we begin to feel less than complete. Therefore, either our reactions get driven by feelings of superiority complex or inferiority complex. Our emotions swing from exaggerated reactions of ego to depression. In the former state, we highlight how superior we are to others and in the latter stage, we just feel inadequate, incapable and pessimistic.

Both these reactions are expressions of inadequacy, they emanate from feeling less than complete and in the Nikhil way of life, they are not allowed.

When revered Gurudev touches our life, he enables us to achieve the feeling of wholeness which has gone missing from our life. Our religion continuously highlights that we are not separate from the divine, in fact, we are an expression of the divine rather divinity dwells in us.Shantimantra, an invocatory verse of Isha Upanishad, a part of Yajurveda emphasizes wholeness in all of us. The tragedy of our life is that we have got separated from that completeness, that exists within us and revered Gurudev, is here in our life to ignite that very feeling.

By the grace of the Gurudev, our perceived imperfections of the life begin to melt and happiness dawns in our heart, for no apparent reason. This indicates that the divinity lying within us has arisen. As this divinity gets alive and kicking in our hearts, joy embraces us in its warm fold, and we are joyful just the way we were at the time of birth.

Infants and babies smile and laugh for no reason, umpteen times in a day, whereas for adults, laughter is a scarce and conditional commodity that makes its presence felt under favorable circumstances. This is absolutely ridiculous. How can we mitigate our sorrows by looking depressed and dejected? Smiling doesn’t cost a thing, but this curve has the capacity to set a lot many things right.

However, we have made happiness conditional which will surface only when our worries end. To dispel our worries, we desire to recruit the powers of the venerable Gurudev to perform miracles. It’s not that miracles are beyond the purview of Gurudev, but exercising it goes against the law of nature.

Did Krishna need Arjuna, or Pandavas to annihilate Kauravas? The answer is no, but Krishna preferred to be the charioteer, guiding Pandavas on the path of righteousness and victory.

Sadhana, loosely translated in English means a dedicated and disciplined practice of learning and is an integral component of the Nikhil way of life. Sadhana is the way to ease tensions and complement inadequacies that envelop us in our mundane existence. We may feel imperfect owing to intellectual, material and spiritual meagerness. Stress from familial ties and enemies are equally daunting in our lives.Through, sadhana, we get to delve in our inner reservoir of strength and calmness when life tests us to scale greater heights.

Right from the ancient times the religious texts have highly recommended sadhana to achieve success in life. Through spiritual sadhanas, we get closer to the divine from which we have arisen and will ultimately merge in.  Two energies exist in the cosmos that have been given different names in different cultures. In Orient, it becomes yin and yang, opposite forces that complement each other and in India we call it Shiva and Shakti. Shiva, the destroyer and Shakti, symbolized as  the Divine Mother is adored and approached as ten cosmic personalities,” the Dasa-Mahavidya (“ten-Mahavidyas”)

The generous Divine mother melts at the invocation of the devotee and grants him boons to tide over the sufferings of the life. In fact, by accomplishing these sadhanas, which had been an integral feature of Indian culture, we rise on a higher spiritual scale. As we ascend to a higher frequency, we get closer to enlightenment.  This spiritual growth becomes possible in the proximity of an enlightened Guru, who has risen to the highest most spiritual scale. Only such an enlightened Guru can guide the disciple on the route to spiritual growth.

On the direction of Sadhana, mantras are invaluable. Every mantra produces a unique sound and vibration that, when recited, is able to stimulate various areas of the brain, bringing about positive results that include relaxation, clarity, and natural healing. The disciple’s introduction to mantra happens in the Nikhil way of life through Guru mantra. Regular chanting of Guru mantra unravels its magical powers felt in the forms of heightened awareness, intuition and energy.  Though, chanting mantra may appear a simple exercise, but it enables us to access our subconscious mind that is 90 percent of our mind and is the seat of our unfulfilled desires, passion. Spiritually, mantras help you to reaffirm positive attitudes about yourself and release the ego.

When we chant the mantras prescribed by the Gurudev at a time advised, we’re able to access the reservoir of energy lying within our subconscious mind. Gradually, we fortify our concentration and intensify our will power by chanting mantras. Long-term chanting of mantras helps in seeking blessings of the invoked deity and activating our spiritual energies.

In the Nikhil way of life the benevolent Gurudev endows the disciple, with his psychic energy, in the form of Shaktipaat, also known as diksha. Shaktipaat can be transmitted with a sacred word or mantra, or by a look, thought or touch – the last usually to the ajna chakra or third eye of the recipient.Shaktipaat is the blessing of the Gurudev.

The revered Gurudev who is an illuminated soul has performed multiple sadhanas on his spiritual ascendancy. The disciple is a newbie in the realm of sadhana and the kind Gurudev endows him with his psychic energies to facilitate his success in the sadhana that the disciple is keen to perform. Getting initiated by the Gurudev for a specific sadhana multiplies the disciple’s chances of success.

In the Nikhil way of life, there is no room for mediocrity. Our beloved Gurudev, who is an epitome of divine exhorts to achieve greatness in all aspects of life, whether youthfulness, academic, materialistic or spiritual. We all originate from the wholeness to manifest the whole entity, and to become that whole the way before us is to surrender wholeheartedly to the revered Gurudev.

By Archana Alok Jha & Alok Darshan Jha