If I Meet my Guru, is this my Last Lifetime?

“If you found a Guru, that means your darkness is obliterated because you become a part of it.”

—Sadhguru

Q: If someone has come in touch with you, does that mean it is their last life? 

Sadhguru: Someone asked me a while ago, “Are only brahmacharis your disciples?” Yes, only they are my disciples. When I say brahmacharis, it is not necessarily only people who got an official initiation. Whether they went through a formal process or not is not the point. In some way, they are on the path. 

Only brahmacharis are my disciples. If they are not brahmacharis, they are not my disciples anyway. If their interest is something else, where is the question of disciple-hood? They cannot be anyone’s disciple. Being a disciple is not about someone. You are not this person’s disciple or that person’s disciple. If you are a disciple, you are a disciple, that’s all. If you are a devotee, you are a devotee. There is no question of you being a devotee of this God or that God – that is just foolishness. You are a devotee and that’s all. It is a quality. 

Becoming Darkness

There are many who set their eyes upon me but did not take me as their Guru. They may be hanging around here next time around. I may not be here, but they will hang around here because they smelt it, now they want to eat it. “Guru” means “dispeller of darkness.” “Gu” means darkness, “Ru” means dispeller. When you say you have a Guru, your darkness is dispelled. Then why would you be here again? Your darkness is dispelled not because you become light. Your darkness is dispelled because you became nothing, you became darkness yourself, so there is no need to dispel anything. If you stay away from it, darkness is a terrible thing. If you become it, darkness is a boundless thing. 

Darkness is a terrible thing because you are here as a little piece of something. If you become darkness, it is a boundless thing. If I bless you, “May you become boundless,” you feel great. If I bless you, “May you become darkness,” you think this is a curse. It is not. Darkness is boundless, boundlessness is darkness. 

Dispeller of darkness does not mean that he will put a light bulb into you. Scholars and teachers tried to put a light bulb into you so that you can see something. A Guru is not trying to put a light bulb into you. He is seeing how to obliterate you. If you found a Guru, that means your darkness is obliterated because you become a part of it. There is no darkness for you; there is only boundlessness for you. 

Don’t Sniff Forever

If you have met your Guru, there is no question of being here again. But if you did not really meet him as a Guru, if you just liked the “smell” but did not dare to step into him, that’s another matter. When you like the smell of roses, wherever the rose is, you go. But do not go on sniffing forever. It is time to step into it and burn because if you do not, you are not using it for the purpose that it is. 

If you have an airplane capable of flight but decide to drive it around like a bus, is it wrong? I would not say it is wrong, but it is terrible. To drive an airplane like a car is a terrible and stupid thing to do. Is it wrong to be terrible and stupid? No. Terrible and stupid is bad enough, it need not be wrong. What could take you to a great height, if you use it in a mediocre way, it is just foolish and terrible. 

This is not a relationship that endures. If you make this relationship, everything ends. When everything ends, when all things end, a dimension which is not a thing will happen. It is that which this being is longing for, when it is seeking expansion. It is a natural goal. It is just that there is too much diversion on the way. And with every diversion that is taken, people start propounding philosophies as to how this is the right diversion. 

Suppose you are travelling somewhere and you found the normal route is obstructed and have to take a diversion – everyone in the car will vote for different diversions and start arguing. Doesn’t it happen? Once there is no clear-cut marker, everyone will start making up their own thing, everyone will start claiming this is it. A man who smokes says that this is life, a man who drinks says that this is life, a man who is into some other kind of pleasure says that this is life. A man who takes drugs says that this is life, a man who overeats says that this is life – they are all insisting “this is life.” Because of that, diversions happen. 

If anything is life, if you do more of it, it should be better. But it does not happen like that. If you eat more, if you drink more, if you smoke more, if you copulate more, life does not get better. People have tried all those things and it has not worked. The only thing that you can do endlessly is doing nothing. And that is the only thing a Guru is, because a Guru is just an empty space. An empty space is the only thing that can dispel darkness, because it is darkness – nothing happens there. Where nothing happens, you can make anything happen if you want. 

A Guru is just an empty stage. If you enter there, he sets up whatever kind of drama that is necessary for the day, but he is actually an empty stage – four walls with nothing inside. If you step in, you will also become nothing. There is no other way. You looked at him and listened to him, that is not it. You have got to step into him. That is when he is your Guru. Till then he entertains you because he is setting up the appropriate drama for the day. 

If you stepped into it, there is no sitting here once again. Such a thing does not arise. If you have not, you only smelt it from a distance, maybe you have taken an addiction for Gurus so you are following them. But if something deeper than the body and the mind happened to you, there is no sitting here again.

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Sadhguru’s 2-in-1 book “Emotion: The Juice of Life & Relationships: Bond or Bondage”, available on Flipkart and Amazon.