If you want to study something seriously, you know how important it is to have a good teacher, a great master. When we were at school we used to complain endlessly about bad teachers, unconsciously suggesting that by ourselves we would have been able to achieve much more, e.g. obtaining a perfect understanding of maths. Yes, mathematics, I think one of the best examples to demonstrate bad teachers, although this is supposed to be such a logical subject, yet often so badly explained.
Nowadays spirituals seekers and masters galore, there are thousands of directions in yoga too. It is excellent, when in the yoga world too, the ego comes forth and various swamijis and gurujis are preaching you the exclusive truth. Uncountable ashrams are scraping the ancient sky of India and at these places the cult of personality might get stomach-turning. Of course, not all of them are of this kind, but I think it always gets dangerous when spirituality becomes in any way institutionalized; once the human factor steps in. It is hard to distinguish the Right ones from the false prophets. But the same is true for the shelves of European bookshops. You might actually get a headache by going through the esoteric section ranging from Angels and Wiccas to the moneymaking masters. In my country previously everyone was an “expert” in football and politics, but today it seems, that all became an adept of spirituality. I know I am highly critical and that is not too positive, but sorry, I had to let this out here and now.
It is a general principle that the spiritual seeker needs the support of a Guru. Guru, the word means the “dispeller of darkness”. And they usually add that once the aspirant is ready, the master will appear. You can find a wonderful example to this in the biography of Paramhansa Jogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 10) where he describes the moment of his wonderfully accidental meeting with his guru, Sri Yukteswar. Check it out, I was moved to tears while reading it. I wish we could all find the guru who is so perfect for us, who loves us so infinitely and who knows better than us what methods will promote best our learning.
Unfortunately, I don’t have such a guru, I wish I had one, but maybe I am not yet ready for him to enter my life. Anyways, “in the meantime” I follow the idea of Osho which says that either you decide to follow a master without resistance, or you become your own master. It might be easier to follow a charismatic leader, but I feel unable to do so and accept things “just because”. Thus, I remain my own master and I learn from myself about myself. At the end, this is also svadhyaya, one of the niyamas, part of self-study.
Everyone who comes your way is a potential guru. But why? Because they place a mirror in front of you. They all give you the chance to see yourself through your reactions. It is usually quite tough. Especially if you don’t understand why did life burden you with certain things in a certain time? Sometimes it is impossible to understand, and maybe you don’t need to, but the point is not to miss even one single opportunity to learn. Everyone crosses your path to teach you something. And the more annoying or irritating they are, the better chance you have for personal development.
Observe your human relationships which are disturbing. Gaze into the mirror they offer you and do not look at the figure holding it, only focus on the soul you are seeing. Focus on self-study, and forget human games. Do not fight back, there is no need to, that figure is unimportant. For you, you are the most important. So watch yourself only and learn. True self-study is best achieved through meditation, but who decides what counts for a correct meditation? There is no such objective measurement. And many are those who are visioning many colorful things in the name of meditation, yet they are so far from knowing what meditation really is. I don’t know it either, I am just trying to get to that level, but I see how easy it is to mislead yourself in your „deep introspection”.
With all this, I don’t want to encourage you to quit meditation, I just wanted to suggest to remember that every time you have a clash with another person in everyday life, everything is for real. Nothing is an accident. The law of attraction works always and ever. So what your mind wants, even unconsciously, you will attract it. And the people will arrive to your life to hurt and upset you. But you just learn and see why you received them? Which inner fear, stress, imperfection are they the outer reflections of? What do they tell you? Not with their words or with their person, but by the mere fact that they came right this moment into your life.
Be your own guru, and dispel the inner darknesses of your soul.