Introduction:
Did you know? No one learnt anything as a child without a guru in olden days? Ohh, are you thinking of Ekalavya? Who learnt archery without his guru? And hence you are unable to believe what I am saying? Well, let me explain. The boy Ekalavya though physically did not become the formal student/Shishya of Dronacharya, he continued worshiping Guru Dronacharya through his idol, watched him and learnt from him while Drona was instructing the Pandavas behind the walls and practised the same all through the day. This transformed him as the Shishya of Dronacharya mentally and energetically without any effort (curious to learn how it works? Then enrol to the workshop “Rise and Shine” prerecorded workshop priced at just INR 99/- and discover the way).
Whether its vocation, art, music, dance, religious studies, education or Spirituality everything had a dedicated lineage which people actively sought to be part of depending on their needs and wants. Even today, Guru Shishya Paramapara persists, of course, only in religious studies, spirituality, music and dance. In this article, we will only discuss the spiritual lineages.
Can anyone learn without a guru? Well, to find out the answer lets first understand the Guru Parampara System.
Parampara or Lineage
The word lineage is nothing but an unbroken tradition of wisdom sharing that’s been happening through generation to generation.
In Bharath’s civilization, every family comes with its own lineage. Each lineage has its own Kuldevata, Kuladev a dedicated Rishi who act as the guardian angles. That is the reason why in Bharath, they follow particular traditions and systems which appear as blind belief system to others. Family lineages happened in terms of DNA.
When it comes to spirituality, being unbroken is essential as the sharing of related knowledge and wisdom happens beyond physical visibility (as opposed to DNA and genetics like in the family lineages happen).
Shishya
Disciple or Shishya is someone who is seeking knowledge and who approaches to a qualified guru and surrenders himself. This was the reason why despite Dronacharya rejecting Ekalavya to take up as his student, Ekalavya still managed to receive archery knowledge from Dronacharya. When someone being a disciple with their whole heart, mind and body surrenders to a qualified guru, they have successfully managed to overcome their Ego. Only when one overcomes their Ego, may they be able to listen to his guru and his teachings. Ofcourse the initiation from Guru is also required to be called as the disciple but yet, thats just another level to reach the wisdom of guru. This is the real reason why in Bharath’s culture why Guru Shishya Parampara and the wisdom passed down through this system is placed as the “the untainted Pure Wisdom” and so, they strictly adhere to rules and many discard other’s teachings that are not alligend with the GuruShishya Paramapra.
The Common Guru Shishya System
The most common Guru Shishya relationship exists between mother and her children. Since its based on DNA, it holds basic signigicance and the child is expected to thrive beyond this relationshiop.
The next comes the father. Paternal figure holds a prominent position in the Bharath’s culture. Father is looked up to transfer his vocation related skills, knowledge and wisdom to his next generation especially to his sons and daughters. He also initiates his son in religious duties when the son reaches a particular age.
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So, guru shishya Parampara is there in every religion but in Bharath’s culture, they give more importance to this system. We see that in Sanatana Dharma tradition, Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism too. The reason being, in Sanatana Dharma, every human being is considered as by default a seeker – who is seeking the absolute truth. So, the aim of human life was never to build a home or build a business empire and live comfortably with the family for the rest of the life but to undergo all the phases of the lives like student phase, family phase, explicit truth-seeking phase and sanyasa phase of life and to understand the reality of life and get over the ignorance that comes with the material pleasures with the help of an evolved guru through becoming his disciple and serving him. That’s why in Bharath’s spirituality they say, no guru has ever happened without being a serving disciple first. Now, what does serving your guru looks like widely from tradition to tradition. One must acquaint themselves with all the knowledge before they get initiated by any guru to understand what sort of authority the guru might end up having on you. Like for example in tantra system, guru does not even ask you whether you like doing the work or not, he just makes you do the work without your consciousness.
Famous Guru Shishya systems
- Sri Dattatreya Tradition
- AdiShankaracharya Tradition
- Ramakrishna Tradition
- Hayagriva tradition
- Nandi Tradition
- Gaudiya Sampradaya
Since in my childhood, first I received my Siksha and diksha from my Sai Baba ji belonging to Sri Dattatreya tradition, I am starting my discussion with this lineage.
Sri Dattatreya Tradition
The birth of Guru Dattatreya
Rishi Dattatreya is an eternal guru but have physically come as different avatars/archetypes at different generations. He is a divine incarnation of trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. So, he was born with 3 faces to sage Atreya and Sage Ansuya.
When rishi Atreya and his wife sage Anusuya started to do penance to get a virtuous progeny who is an embodiment of trinity, due to their spiritual virtues, even the goddesses – wives of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva became worried. So, they ask their husbands to visit these sages take a small test to check their virtue first. Accordingly, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva disguise themselves as sanyasis and visit the sages. Both sages happily welcome them and pay homage to according to the ritual. However, the sanyasis put a demand in front of sage Anusuya and say only when she becomes naked and gives the charity to them, they would accept. Sage Anusuya recognizes the trinity’s presence in them immediately and without any argument, using her spiritual power she transforms them into babies and breast feeds them. Later Sage Atreya with the help of his spiritual power unites them as one baby with 3 heads and 3 pairs of hands and one body and starts to take care of them as parents. Meanwhile, after learning what has happened with their husbands, their wives realize their mistake and come running to sages’ place to get back their husbands. They then seek forgiveness and request Anusuya to return their husbands. Soon, sage Anusuya using her spiritual power bring these crying babies back to their original form. After having to see her proof of chastity with such intelligence, trinity powers bless her to beget a child who would become an embodiment of them. And thus, Guru Dattreya gets born to them.
Sri Datta Paramapara
Since Guru Datta is an amalgamation of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, he is well known as Adiguru. In Dattatreya Upanishad from Atharvaveda, we can learn that he is an avatar of Vishnu. Being an eternal guru, he is accessible to any seeker who wishes to reach him and get initiation or any sort of help from him. So, we see many traditions spread across various places and communities both Vedic, tantric citing him as their Supreme guru from whom their Guru Shishya tradition started.
Guru Dattatreya lived a simple life, though married to his wife Sage Anagha (an incarnation of goddess Lakshmi), he remained as an ascetic or Sanyasi and carried nothing with him. He travelled across Bharath and shared wisdom with everyone. As a child, he learnt and gained wisdom from everyone. So, besides parents, he did not have any diksha or Shiksha guru per say. He credited his wisdom to the 24 principles of nature – which covered nature, mother Earth, women, snakes, Bees, Ocean, spider, caterpillar etc.
Since he is an eternal guru, he incarnated 16 times in the following avataras:
1.Yogiraaja
2.Atrivarada
3.Sri Dattatreya
4.Kaalaagni Shamana
5.Yogijana Vallabha
6.Sri Leelavishvambhara
7.Siddharaaja
8.Jnaanasaagara
9.Vishvambhaaraavadhootha
10.Maayaayuktaavadhootha
11.Maayaamuktaavadhootha
12.Aadiguru
13.Sivaroopa
14.Sri Devadeva
15.Digambara
16.Sri Krishna shyaamakamalanayana
Besides, he has also incarnated into other personalities at different generations within each of these incarnation lineages.
If you take Sri Dattatreya lineage, he incarnated in 4 different forms
- Shripada Vallabha
- Shri Narasimha Saraswati
- Akkalkot Swami Samarth
- Shri Sadhguru Shirdi Sai Baba
And, again, if you take Shri Sadhguru Shridi Sai Baba, he also incarnated as Sathya Sai Baba and will incarnate as Prema Sai. He is my Shiksha guru.
Now, you must be wondering how is it possible, right? That’s because what is Guru Dattatreya is beyond physical body and Karmic influences which normal people like you and I have. They are real gurus and come with no desires but to serve the people through sharing their wisdom and washing peopl’s karma. You can also reach that stage if you go beyond your ego driven pursuits, overcome all your desires and physical needs. That’s the journey what we call as Spiritual Journey.
Rishi Parashurama was one of the famous disciples of Guru Parashurama who got initiated in Sri Vidya Upasana by the guru. It is said that Dattatreya being adiguru propagated Sri Vidya tradition – mother worship.
If you want to get intiation from Sri Dattaguru, you can start following any of his avatars as mentioend above. Otherwise also, if you reamin kind, even without invitation, he will come to you. So, being kind is the key to reach guru Dattatreya.
In the next article, we will discuss the Adishanakaracharya guru shishya paramapara.