gūḍāvidyā jaganmāyā dehaśca-ajñāna-sambhavaḥ | vijñānam yatprasāden guruśabden kathyate || 26 ||
26. The hidden ignorance, absence of the knowledge of Self, the worldly-illusion and the body—are all caused by the ignorance
(ajñāna). By whose grace one attains direct knowledge of the Self (vijñana), He is known by the name, Guru.
(below: significance of WHY GURU explained by Swamiji)
Please come to the space of listening.
Let me expand on the Guru's importance for rekindling, reawakening the spirit of spirituality. Let me expand on what is the need of the Guru. Why Guru!
Listen. Master is a new possibility happening in your life. Guru is a new possibility happening in your life. He is a new language. He is a new energy.
Sometimes people ask, 'Why do we need a Guru? Why do we need a Master?'
Yes, you don't need a Master if you are just going to eat and die. You need a Master only when you want to achieve something extraordinary.
Understand. For anything in your life, you need a Guru, a teacher, a mentor. Even if you want to learn a simple thing such as to eat or to dress, or to cook, to learn anything, you need a teacher or a mentor.
Even for ordinary outer-world simple things that can be learnt by manuals, books you need a Guru. Then understand, in the inner-world you are almost trying to reach the Sun with a bullock cart. With your ordinary logic, you are trying to experience the highest possibility, for the Consciousness. So it is like trying to reach the Sun with a bullock cart. You naturally you need a person who did it. You need Guru who did it and who can take you there.
The person who does not have eyes, who is born blind can never understand what he is missing. How much ever people with eyes try to explain to him, that blind person will never understand what he is missing.
A small story.
A born-blind man was told by his friend that the blind man's new-born child is dead.
The blind man could not understand, he asked, 'How? How can my child die? How did it happen? Tell me.'
The friend said, 'No, while they gave milk to the child, it got stuck in the throat and child died.'
This blind man asked, 'What is milk?'
The friend said, 'Oh, you don't know what is milk? It will be white colored' This blind man further asked, 'What is white color? What is white?' The friend replied, 'Have you not seen the bird Crane? That is white color.' The blind man continued to ask, 'What is the crane bird?'
The blind man's friend could not explain further. He got thoroughly confused. He just kept that blind man's own hand and showed, 'see how it looks.'
Then the blind man, feeling his own hand, assumed that is how a crane would be. He concluded, 'Now I understand. If you put such a big thing in the child's mouth, it will die only!'
Listen!
A born blind man can never understand what he is missing. I tell you, a man who never tasted Guru in the life will never understand what he is missing in the life.