In Part-1 of this series, I talked about the con­fu­sions and inter­nal con­flicts that arise, if the guru-disciple rela­tion­ship is not seen in proper, higher per­spec­tive. In this part, I will dis­cuss my own con­fu­sions, and how my teacher Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar clar­i­fied my doubts using my wordly rela­tion­ships as examples.

My Con­fu­sions

I got caught up in this cycle of con­fu­sions and inner con­flicts, imme­di­ately after Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar made his first con­tact with me (I dis­cussed this in, How I con­tacted Thiru­moolar). As I men­tioned in that arti­cle, I also took ini­ti­a­tion into Babaji’s Kriya Yoga (BKY) before this con­tact, and I had taken Maha­vatar Kriya Babaji as my guru.

Until Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar con­tacted me, I hadn’t real­ized that I was treat­ing Babaji (even though I hadn’t made a per­sonal con­tact with him) with some mys­tery, awe and most impor­tantly some form of fear and depen­dency. The moment Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar con­tacted me, ques­tions arose, “Will it anger Babaji, if I take Thiru­moolar as my guru as well? Oh, my god, what have I done?” I know this is insane. But, the sane part of me said, “Don’t worry. Babaji and Thiru­moolar belong to the same lin­eage of Sid­dha mas­ters. Though not known yet, I am sure there is a rea­son why this con­tact was made. Just go with the flow.” But, that insane part of me, the part with lim­ited ideas and thoughts, kept com­ing up and con­fus­ing the issue. Then, I got ini­ti­ated into Thirumoolar’s Siva Yoga (TSY), even though this ques­tion was still nag­ging me in a cor­ner of my mind.

As time went on with with my prac­tice of TSY, more truths about guru-disciple rela­tion­ship were revealed (dis­cussed in arti­cles, here, and here), but a nag­ging feel­ing still con­tin­ued. While writ­ing and post­ing the arti­cle, How I con­tacted Thiru­moolar, some­thing hap­pened in me; felt some­thing open up—a chan­nel for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, maybe.

Another Dia­logue with Sid­dhar Thirumoolar

Finally, my guru Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar con­tacted me again to put my doubts, about my rela­tion­ship with him and Babaji, to rest. Below I present—after edit­ing out sec­tions that dis­cuss tech­niques per­son­al­ized for me—the dia­log I had with him.

[ Dur­ing med­i­ta­tion, a pow­er­ful, lov­ing voice started in the form of thoughts, exclu­sive of all oth­ers, about my stub­born­ness of not accept­ing a few things in my life as they are ]
I said, “What? I am just hear­ing some­thing. I am prob­a­bly telling some­thing to myself.“
The voice came again, “I am Thiru­moolar.“
I said, “That night I saw you. How am I not see­ing you now and only hear­ing you? I would like to see you.” (See How I con­tacted Thiru­moolar.)
He said, “Not yet. That day you saw me in semi-conscious state. In con­scious state, you won’t be able to han­dle the light. Your inner senses need to open up fully.“
I asked, “I also want to see Babaji. I have never seen him. Some times I won­der…“
He said, “Don’t worry. In time you will see him. Know that he is there for you.“
That really made me happy. I saw a faint out­line of the smil­ing face of Thiru­moolar as we see him in the paint­ing.
So, I asked him, “I have been hav­ing this con­fu­sion for a long time. If I take you as my guru, would I be insult­ing Babaji? I know at a deeper level, it is absurd to think that way, but my lim­ited think­ing keeps com­ing up with this question.”

I felt him smil­ing, again.
He said, “The prob­lem is com­ing because you are treat­ing us as gurus and putting us on a pedestal. Treat me as your aNNa.” [ aNNa, in Tamil and Telugu—two of the Indian languages—means “Elder Brother.” ]
I said, “How can I treat you as my elder brother? Is it not dis­re­spect? You are so expan­sive, so much more older, and so much more knowl­edge­able than me.“
He smiled and said, “Think of it this way. When you were born, your bio­log­i­cal brother was six­teen years old. So, he was six­teen years older than you. Did you not call him aNNa? You still learned from him, as you grew up, did you not? It is the same way. I came before you and gained the knowl­edge. As your aNNa, I am here to pass it on to you. If call­ing me ‘aNNa’ puts your mind at ease, then that is what you should do. There is no dis­re­spect in it.“
I asked, “How about Babaji?“
He smiled, “You can call Babaji, aNNa as well.“
I asked, “How about Lord Muruga?“
He said, “You can call him appa (Father in Tamil lan­guage) or Muru­gappa (Father Muruga). He is the father to all of us.“
I said, “Okay Gurudeva.” [ GurudEva means “Divine Teacher.” ]
He said, “You don’t need to address me that way. Call me aNNa.“
I said, “Sorry. aNNa!“
He con­tin­ued, “I don’t want you to wor­ship me or Babaji. Take away our pic­tures that you kept in front of the com­puter on your work desk.“
I said, “Okay. I will do that,” as he con­tin­ued, “In the pUja (med­i­ta­tion) room I want you to face east and away from where you kept all the deity pic­tures. That is, your back should be to the deity. You are one of us and you should feel and behave as such.” [ Note that in Hindu tra­di­tion any idols or pic­tures of the deities are arranged fac­ing east. ]
I said, “Okay.“
[ He then gave me a tech­nique tai­lored for me. ]
I said, “Thank you very much, Thiru­moolar Anna.“

My Con­clu­sions

After this dia­logue, I came to real­ize what I stated in Part-1, that we are all sib­lings, some older and some younger. All are learn­ing from one another and are all equally chil­dren of the One Great Source—call it God, Muruga, Supreme Being, Still­ness, or by any other name. He loves his chil­dren equally, and wants them to evolve at their own pace. He pro­vides help in many forms when­ever asked. With this dia­logue, my con­fu­sion van­ished; fears van­ished. Rev­er­ence and love remained.

This dia­logue also revealed to me that both Maha­vatar Babaji and Sid­dhar Thiru­moolar are my gurus, my broth­ers, my kins­men. I may have been part of the Sid­dha tra­di­tion for many life­times. It may have been a cos­mic plan for this life where I came to know Babaji and Thiru­moolar in that par­tic­u­lar order. I believe that there is a cos­mic plan for every­one of us incar­nated on this planet and it will be revealed at the right time and the right place.

I hope that this arti­cle helped you to clar­ify some of the ques­tions you may have about guru-disciple relationship—it is based on love and respect, but not on fear, cling­ing or syco­phan­tic behav­ior. A True Guru always points you to your high­est poten­tial that is within you. Best wishes to you for your unique journey.