Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

Question: How is one to decide upon a proper Guru?
What is the swarupa of a Guru?
Bhagavan: He is the proper Guru to whom your mind is
attuned. If you ask, how to decide who is the Guru and what
is his swarupa, he should be endowed with tranquillity, patience,
forgiveness and other virtues capable of attracting others, even
by a mere look, like the magnetic stone, and with a feeling of
equality towards all — he that has these virtues is the true
Guru. If one wants to know the true Guru swarupa, one must
know his own swarupa first. How can one know the true Guru
swarupa, if one does not know one’s own swarupa first? If you
want to perceive the true Guru swarupa, you must first learn
to look upon the whole universe as Guru rupam. One must
have the Gurubhavam towards all living beings. It is the same
with God. You must look upon all objects as God’s rupa. How
can he who does not know his own Self perceive Ishwara rupa
or Guru rupa? How can he determine them? Therefore, first
of all know your own real swarupam.

Question: Isn’t a Guru necessary to know even that?
Bhagavan: That is true. The world contains many great
men. Look upon him as your Guru with whom your mind
gets attuned. The one in whom you have faith is your Guru.

The youth was not satisfied. He started with a list of
great men now living, and said, “He has that defect; he has
this defect. How can they be looked upon as Gurus?”
Bhagavan tolerates any amount of decrying of himself,
but cannot tolerate even a little fault-finding of others. He
said with some impatience, “Oho! you have been asked to
know your own self, but instead you have started finding
fault with others. It is enough if you correct your own faults.

Those people can take care of their faults. It looks as if they
cannot attain salvation unless they obtain your certificate first.

That is a great pity! They are all waiting for your certificate.

You are a great man. Have they any salvation unless you
approve of them? Here you blame them, elsewhere you will
blame us. You know everything, whereas we know nothing,
and we have to be submissive towards you. Yes! we shall do
so. You go and please proclaim, ‘I went to Ramanasramam;
I asked the Maharshi some questions; he was unable to reply
properly, so he does not know anything’.”
The youth was about to speak again in the same strain,
but another devotee prevented him from doing so. Bhagavan
observed it, and said, “Why do you stop him? Let all keep
silent, and let him go on speaking as long as he pleases. He is
a wise man. We must therefore lie low. I have been observing
him ever since his arrival. He was originally sitting in a corner
with all his questions carefully assorted and kept ready bundled
up, as it were. He has since been moving and coming nearer
day by day till at last he has come close enough and has started
asking questions. After hearing the lady questioning me
yesterday, he decided to show off his knowledge and so has
opened his bundle. All that is in it must come out, mustn’t it?
He is going to search the whole world and decide the Guru
swarupa for himself. It seems he has not so far found anybody
with the requisite qualifications for being his Guru. Dattatreya
is the universal Guru, isn’t he? And he has said that the whole
world was his Guru. If you look at evil you feel you should
not do it. So he said evil also was his Guru. If you see good,
you would wish to do it; so he said that good also was his
Guru; both good and evil, he said, were his Gurus. It seems
that he asked a hunter which way he should go, but the latter
ignored his question, as he was intent upon his aim to shoot a
bird above. Dattatreya saluted him, saying, ‘You are my Guru!
Though killing the bird is bad, keeping your aim so steadfast
in shooting the arrow as to ignore my query is good, thereby
teaching me that I should keep my mind steadfast and fixed
on Ishwara. You are therefore my Guru.’ In the same way he
looked upon everything as his Guru, till in the end he said
that his physical body itself was a Guru, as its consciousness
does not exist during sleep and the body that does not exist
should therefore not be confused with the soul —
dehatmabhavana (the feeling that the body is the soul). Therefore
that too was a Guru for him. While he looked upon the whole
world as his Guru, the whole world worshipped him as its
Guru. It is the same with Ishwara. He who looks upon the
whole universe as Ishwara, is himself worshipped by the
universe as Ishwara — yadbhavam tadbhavathi (‘as you conceive
you become’) What we are, so is the world. There is a big
garden. When a cuckoo comes to the garden it will search the
mango tree for fruit while the crow will only search the neem
tree. The bee searches for flowers to gather honey, while the
flies search for the faeces. He who searches for the salagrama
(small holy stone) will pick it up, pushing aside all the other
stones. That salagrama is in the midst of a heap of ordinary
stones. The good is recognised because evil also coexists. Light
shines because darkness exists. Ishwara is there, only if illusion
exists. He who seeks the essence, is satisfied if he finds one
good thing among a hundred. He rejects the ninety-nine and
accepts the one that is good, feeling satisfied that with that
one thing he could conquer the world. His eye will always be
on that single good thing.” Bhagavan said all this in a
resounding voice and then remained silent.

The whole hall was steeped in a dignified silence. The
clock struck four. As though it were the original peacock
that had come to salute the lotus feet of the Arunachala
Ramana that destroyed the demon Surapadma, and to offer
praises to him, the Ashram peacock entered the hall from
the northern side and announced its arrival by giving out a
resounding cry. Bhagavan responded to the cry by saying,
“Aav, Aav” (come, come) and turned his look that side.