I recently had an amazing conversation on the Learn to Love Podcast with Jennie Lee, a fellow yoga teacher and author. We talked about what it means to not just feel love, but to become love; to breathe it into our entire being. She explained love is the harmonizing energy of the universe, and if we stick to a dedicated meditation practice, we can harmonize ourselves right along with it.
Another key takeaway I got from our conversation is the difference between egoic love and divine love. Jennie explained if we feel drained after when giving too much of our love, we are coming from a place of ego. The ego is limited to our personality, and if we are giving our love from this place, we will eventually run out. If we want to love everybody and see the world through the eyes of love, we have to tap into the divine love within ourselves, which is unlimited.
Jennie also made a statement that at the time seemed fairly controversial, but the more I thought about it, the more reasonable it became. She explained the common idea that the “true guru is within” is actually false, and it can easily lead us astray on the spiritual path. It often makes people think they don’t need any external teachers at all, when in reality, having external teachers who have walked the path before is extraordinarily helpful.
The more I think about it, the more I agree with her, and the more I reflect on this truth in my own meditation practice, the more I discover that the guru is not within at all; something else is entirely.
Letting Go of the Inner Guru
Earlier on the blog, I wrote about the importance of not getting too hung up on spiritual concepts, such as the monkey mind and the story of the two wolves.
All spiritual teachings are concrete symbols pointing to a fundamentally indescribable spiritual reality, so we shouldn’t focus too much on the symbols themselves, but rather on the experience. In Tantra, for example, spiritual teachings are often described as a cup. Inside the cup is the tea, the real spiritual experience, which should be the focus of our attention. However, too many people focus on the cup, the vehicle that the teachings are given in.
So when any teacher says, “The true guru is within you”, they do not mean that there is some experienced professor lurking within your subconscious who is ready to teach you things. Rather, they are pointing to something beyond words, something that when we get in touch with it, we will most likely learn something important.
That thing beyond words is not really a guru at all. Yes there is wisdom to be gained, but there isn’t an entity teaching it. Instead, that thing inside of you is more like a jewel, a jewel that reflects everything else in the universe. Once you get in touch with that jewel, you will fully understand this world that we live in.
Let me explain.
The Human Tree of The Universe
There is a story I love to tell that I originally heard from one of Alan Watt’s lectures. He said to imagine walking along the forest and coming across a tree. You don’t know what tree it is because it is early spring, and the tree hasn’t borne any fruit yet. So for now, you don’t come to any conclusions about what species of tree this is, but you make a mental note of it.
You come along a few months later and you see that the tree has grown apples on many of its branches. It is immediately clear that this is an apple tree. The essence of the tree has revealed itself, based on what it has brought forth into the world.
Now imagine you are an alien, and you come to the earth a couple billion years ago. All you see is an empty, a barren rock. You conclude this is an empty, barren universe. Then you return to the Earth a couple billion years later, and the Earth is teeming with people, a special human species. You realize just as an apple tree produces apples; this Universe produces humans. The result reflects the essence of the being.
In other words, written into our very existence is the entire universe. It is a marvelous fact to recognize that there is an unbroken lineage between you and the first ever life form to exist on this planet. From you to your parents, to their parents, to the monkeys that we evolved from, you are the apple in this universe of an apple tree and there is an unbroken system of branches, trunks, and roots that connects you to the beginning of the universe.
Inside you is everything
By looking within and truly understanding ourselves, we gain an insight into the nature of reality. It is less-so that there is a guru inside of you, and more-so that inside of you is a reflection of the universe. In better understanding yourself, you will better understand the universe. Flying in the face of the modern scientific endeavor that tries to study and explain the external objective world, spiritual practice says the real journey of understanding begins by going within.
Paramahansa Yogananda had this to say about it:
The principles that operate in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists, are called natural laws. But there are subtler laws that rule the hidden spiritual planes and the inner realm of consciousness; these principles are knowable through the science of yoga. It is not the physicist but the Self-realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter.
The idea that he universe is within you isn’t some woo-woo spiritual stuff either, it has been confirmed in psychology and neuroscience. One common model of the brain is known as the tri-une model, which notices how there are sections of the brain that very much align with reptilian and mammalian functioning. The same flight-fright-freeze response that happens in humans happens in other creatures too. When our cold-blooded ancestors evolved into more warm-blooded and nurturing animals, we see those same capacities for empathy, love, and care within ourselves.
It doesn’t stop there. Getting in touch with ourselves not only teachings us about the universe, but about each other too. If you really want to understand people, you must understand yourself. If you want to understand why there is so much war in the world and conflict in society, just look within to find the war and conflict that is in yourself. The external world is just as much a reflection of us as we are of it.
Jiddu Krishnamutri put it this way:
Watch how your mind works. It is really very interesting, far more interesting than any film, because your mind is the residue of the whole world and it contains all that human beings have experienced. Do you understand? Your mind is humanity, and when you perceive this, you will have immense compassion. Out of this understanding comes great love; and then you will know, when you see lovely things, what beauty is.
This is why every couple should meditate if they want to be together. It is hard to create harmony between two disharmonious entities. But by tuning within and noticing our struggles, they can be a gateway to love and compassion. Once we see this connection between ourselves, the world and each other, a natural love and kinship arises too.
Back to the guru
So yes, there is something inside of you that is a source of wisdom. If it helps to personify wisdom into the idea of a teacher, feel free to continue to use the terminology.
But do not confuse the finger for the moon, nor the menu for the dinner. Use the word guru as a signpost to a spiritual reality that taps you into a source of inner wisdom. Don’t let your preconceived notions of what a guru is prevent you from fully realizing what a guru can be.
