Since time immemorial, man has always been a seeker of everlasting happiness. Ever since he takes birth on earth, he starts engaging himself in the worldly life. He develops various kinds of desires and finds ways and means to fulfil those desires. He comes across different situations and experiences dualities such as joys and sorrows, good and bad, likes and dislikes, etc.
The joys and sorrows that one experiences in his life are based on his Karma (actions and their consequences) which he would have done in his previous births as well as in the current life's past. This is indeed the nature of the existential world, which is cyclic. As long as man is bound to his mortal body, he is bound to his Karma, and it is his Karma that determines his next course of life. If he performs only good deeds, he is reborn to enjoy the fruits of those deeds, and if he performs bad deeds by deviating from the path of righteousness, he is born again to repay for those deeds. This process is incessant until he realizes his true Self. Until then, he remains bound to the illusions of the material world. Veiled by these illusions, he looks for happiness externally but doesn't realize that the eternal bliss is within him. There comes a point when he starts questioning himself: "Who am I? What is truth?" There begins his spiritual quest, and from that moment, he becomes the seeker of the Ultimate Reality. This quest is never-ending until he realizes that he is indeed the Supreme Brahman* and, thus far due to ignorance he was limiting himself with the mortal body.
The Gurusisya-parampara is one of the unique phenomena in the Vedic tradition, which has been existing since the dawn of creation, a rich tradition of establishing a dynamic spiritual connection born out of sheer compassion, faith, devotion and perseverance. In Sanskrit, the word 'Parampara' denotes a succession'; hence, the Gurusisya-parampara is an uninterrupted succession of spreading the transcendental wisdom to the world, generations after generations. For centuries, the Gurus, who are otherwise known as the enlightened masters, have been imparting to the world the eternal truths revealed in the Vedas. And the disciples who have obtained knowledge from them have been spreading the same knowledge to the successive generations.
Since time immemorial, the enlightened Gurus were held in high esteem by the disciples, since they were the knowers of the Supreme, who had incredible divine powers within them with which they could discern the eternal truths that were already present in the ethereal space, travel effortlessly to the other realms, transform the lives of the beings by their mere presence, and so on. They imparted the transcendental knowledge to their disciples and helped them attain Mokşa, liberation. Such exalted knowledge cannot be obtained by merely reading scriptures. Śrī Adisankarācārya, the propounder of the Advaita-vedanta, inhis Vivekacūḍāmani, has elaborated on the characteristics of a disciple who is deemed fit to attain this transcendental knowledge. According to him, a true disciple is one who is able to discriminate the real from the unreal, who remains equipoised in all situations, who is virtuous, who has developed Vairagya (a sense of dispassion towards all the temporary pleasures of the worldly life) and who desires to attain liberation. When the Gurus ascertained such qualities in their disciples, they would then, begin imparting to them the transcendental knowledge.
A Guru is essential for all those who are on a quest to realize the Supreme Self, for he alone is capable of clearing all the obstacles in one's journey of realizing the Self.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
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Vedas (1280)
Upanishads (477)
Puranas (741)
Ramayana (892)
Mahabharata (329)
Dharmasastras (162)
Goddess (475)
Bhakti (243)
Saints (1292)
Gods (1283)
Shiva (334)
Journal (132)
Fiction (44)
Vedanta (324)
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