September 8, 2024
It is necessary and important to remind ourselves of the great life and inspiring teachings of Sri Gurudev Sivananda. Even when He was in His body, in the ashram, we decided it was no good celebrating the birthday just once a year, and we started celebrating the birth-date, the eighth of every month; so that, if not every day, at least once a month, we could remind ourselves of the sublime life and teachings. But I think we should be extremely careful. Are we seeking power or glory for ourselves in this? Then we are misusing the whole concept of guru.
We may think we are getting out of the ego trap - we are in it. One can pretend to be vigilant all the time. One can equally easily bluff oneself that “I am selfless, I am unselfish”. It is the ego that says, “I am egoless. I have completely surrendered” - which means, “As long as you tell me what I want you to tell me, I’ll do everything exactly as you say” - that’s a very different kind of surrender. One can bask in the glory of the Guru, one can imagine that one derives a tremendous lot of power from the Guru, as a club to hit others.
The glory belongs to Him, the power belongs to Him, and the privilege of remembering all this belongs to us.