Jan 22

Kalu Rinpoche | The Root Guru is essentially a reflection of the truth

Q: Rinpoche, why is that Lama’i Naljor [Guru yoga] and thinking one’s Root Guru as a Guru Rinpoche, very important?

A: If you’re asking question, whether it’s important or not, that clearly shows it is not important. If you don’t ask that question, maybe it’s not important. But since you’re asking that question, you don’t need to think that is important.

So in the meantime, what you do is that you visualize whether it’s a Green Tara, or Chenrezig, as your Root Guru, that’s absolutely fine in your Lama’i Naljor practice. In the traditional teachings, it says that, if you don’t find very comfortable, let’s say, as spiritually connected to one instructor or two instructors or more than two or three doesn’t matter, then just simply visualize a Green Tara, a Chenrezig, thinking of them as a Root Guru, and it’s absolutely fine.

The idea of the Root Guru is not something “really special”, you know? The most important is that the Root Guru is essentially a reflection of the truth. That is beyond the projection of the illusion, as long as you have that identity clear in your mind that is a Root Guru, anything is a Root Guru. You understand? Root Guru doesn’t have to be somebody with a very fixated image, you understand? Because when you start to have this kind of a mass number of people who are projecting this ideas, like “how the Root Guru should be”, “how the Root Guru should look like and sound like” when we have this kind of a very conceptual ideas. And it really doesn’t liberate yourself, it doesn’t really help anybody.

So the most important is that don’t, abandon the idea of “I need to find a Guru”, just think that “any deity is my Guru, as long as, that it has a reflection of the truth that is leading me beyond the illusion of the mind. That is a Guru.” You understand? That’s the very important key. If you think the guru has to sound particularly “something like this”, “something like that”, “has to look something like this and something like that”, then you can never find any of them. So you will be always vulnerable to be scammed, to be honest.

If you’re looking for a very particular image of the Guru, you are likely to be more scammed than having a spiritual awakening. Because somebody can just simply read the text and how to speak and pretend like a Guru and you fall into the trap “Oh, okay! That’s how the Guru should look like!” and then the other says “mhm, look at me, I did my trick so you’ve fallen into my trap”. And that’s how, you know, that’s how some people misuse the Buddhist position, whether they call themselves a yogi or whether they call themselves enlightened being or whether they call themselves a high ranking master and things like that. And that’s how they justify everything! Drives my brain into a madness, you know.

So just abandon the idea of “how the guru should sound like or look like”, but rather prioritize, “Is this person, or this method, giving me, you know, or bringing me beyond this illusion of the mind? Is it bringing me closer, at least, to overcome the illusion of the mind and continuing reflecting the genuine truth, not the arrogant truth, but the genuine truth?” As long as you see some sort of progress towards that, you are in the right track. Understand? So that’s that.

 

Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 9 January 2022 (39’25”)