A beautiful teaching in this tradition and many others is that of the seed and how it holds the potential for a tree to sprout, grow, blossom, fruit, and create more seeds. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad has a story of a father who asks his son to bring him a fruit from a giant banyan tree. The father asks the son to break open the fruit and then to cut into one of the tiny seeds. He then asks his son what he sees inside the seed, and the boy, looking at the viscous material, says that he sees nothing. Then his father explains that this apparent nothingness holds the potential of a giant tree.

Think of a fig, whose seeds are very tiny. Yet somehow within each seed, there is potential for a giant tree. The seed can barely be seen—it is almost invisible—and looking inside, it looks like nothing. Yet when nurtured, the seed will ultimately sprout and yield fruit. The seed contains the potential for the tree.

This teaching applies to many aspects of the journey of yoga. For example, a yoga class I took in college planted a seed that laid dormant for several years. Then when my life was blown apart, somehow I intuited that yoga could be of use, and I began to nurture that seed.

We are constantly planting seeds, and reaping the harvest of seeds we previously planted. As we study the teachings of yoga, we are planting seeds into our awareness. Those seeds are nourished with the nutrients of sādhanā/assemblage of practices, including the study of the teachings, as they reverberate and grow in awareness, and as well by the input from teachers and conversations with fellow students.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

Contemplate the teaching of the seed and the tree.

How have you experienced it manifesting in your life?

Can you discern how “seeds” you planted later sprouted and bore fruit?

What are other interpretations of this teaching?

The whole process of yoga, including study as well as guidance in all the practices, is supported by teachers. Spiritual teachers are among the most venerated professionals in the world, and rightly so. A human teacher is a necessary component because having walked the path already, they can guide us in the right direction, help us avoid pitfalls, and generally make our journey more efficient and effective.

That said, gurus and teachers who abuse their power and engage in exploitation have been unveiled and widely denounced by the yoga community and elsewhere. In response, some people are inclined to entirely reject gurus and the notion of needing a teacher at all, relying solely on inner guidance.

Before going any further with this topic, take some time to consider your current beliefs about gurus and teachers. Take a moment to pause, contemplate, and write down answers to any of the following:
– When you hear the word guru, what comes to mind?
– What role have teachers played in your life?
– Who or what have been your greatest teachers, and why?

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What is a guru really? What is their role on the path of yoga? An often-given definition of guru is whatever takes one from the dark to the light. The guru is that which takes you from ignorance to knowledge, concealment to revelation. The guru is whoever or whatever guides you in the journey of yoga.

SS 2.6 gururupāyaḥ
Guru: guru
Upāya: method or means
The guru is the means

We know the value of a teacher, in any field of knowledge, as someone who takes a student from a place of not understanding to a place of knowledge. This applies to everything from cooking to car repair to art and, of course, any academic field. We rely on experts to educate us. As Śiva Sūtra 2.6 clearly states, teachers are a primary means to knowledge. We can certainly teach ourselves to some degree—and there are rare cases of spontaneous knowledge, such as child prodigies—but it’s generally more effective and efficient to learn from a teacher.

The one primal guru that is Consciousness itself appears in many forms. Human teachers who can access this Consciousness act as conduits for the highest knowledge. The tradition differentiates between different types of gurus, which are forms of the sadguru or sat–guru, referring to the “true teacher.” The guru can be an enlightened spiritual master, but another way to think of the sadguru is as the underlying higher Consciousness that can guide us, if and when we choose to listen to it. This is where we get the idea that guru is within—because ultimately it is.

But let’s be clear: Who are you consulting when you turn within? We can’t delude ourselves into thinking that our everyday neurotic self is the best counsel to seek because this has the potential of reiterating all of our old patterns and ways of being. It is not moving us from the dark to the light and could simply reinforce our ignorance. So before relying solelyu on insight, we must first clarify our individuality to create access to the wisest self. And usually, the means to do so (such as practices like meditation) come through a teacher.

Eventually, as we move farther along the path of yoga—and especially as we meditate more—our access to, and clarity of, the inner Self becomes greater and is, therefore, a more reliable guide. In the meantime, we must be careful not to delude ourselves. This is why it’s suggested that in addition to consulting the inner guru, to verify insights with both the texts and teachers.

A consistent message I’ve received from my teachers is that the time of the mega-guru is over. Instead, what is now emerging is a larger number of teachers, each working with smaller groups, quietly creating shifts in consciousness that eventually will reach a critical mass. For this to be successful, of course, the community members have to be actively practicing and studying, not just being passive recipients of the teachings. Each must make the effort required to understand and apply the teachings, so that what they offer each other has authenticity.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

– How have you learned about yoga and meditation? Consider what has influenced you, including particular teachers, lineages, other people, books, etc.

– Do you favor learning from teachers, the traditional texts, or from listening to yourself? How has that worked?

(this is an excerpt from my book-in-progress)

Stepping onto the path of yoga generally starts with some type of awakening, whether conscious or unconscious. If you look back at your journey, you may identify turning points that have motivated a quickening of movement on the path. A time of awakening for me involved a romantic breakup and its emotional residue. In the depths of my despair, as I hit bottom, something inside reminded me of yoga, which I had dabbled in as an undergraduate. The breakup was a wake-up call, which led me to examine what I was doing with my life in a variety of ways.

This is so often the case, some devastating event in our life wakes us up, jolts us into our hearts and helps us to remember there is more to being alive than the mundane life we’ve been enacting. So I sought out a teacher, and that teacher led me further down the path, and then to another teacher and so on. It was a gradual process with successive levels of awakening and awareness.

But reflecting deeper on my life as a whole, I see a pattern of seeking something more. I repeatedly experienced a feeling that something was lacking in my life, something spiritual in nature. Initially I turned to Christianity since that was what I’d been exposed to. Then I sought out various substances and experiences as so many of us do, seeking to fill this sense of lacking on the material plane, through experiences or stuff.

And some of us get a taste of it from yoga asana, which was definitely my experience. After certain poses, I would experience a “bliss hit” as energy surged through my body, and I wanted more. And often after practice, I experienced some serenity and equanimity which would persist for some time.

Ultimately, all of these openings or awakenings are due to grace/anugraha. Life provides circumstances to which we can respond in many different ways. It is by grace that we choose to use these openings as an impetus on our path of yoga.

One form of grace you may have heard about is shakti-pat. Like so many concepts, the notion of shakti-pat has many layers of meaning and interpretation. “Shakti” means “power,” and” pat” is “falling,” so shakti-pat is the descent of power, or grace. It is a way that the individual experiences grace in their being.

Most of us have had an experience of spontaneous awakening, a hit of shakti-pat, to some degree, perhaps lying on a beach or in the mountains, sitting on a park bench, holding your newborn baby, experiencing art or intimacy. Somehow we just drop into the reality of the present moment, with a spontaneous realization of the Highest reality. Or it may come through some type of practice.

The experience can feel like a sense of Oneness, a recognition of the connectedness of everything and yourself as the center of it, or engulfing it all. Such experiences can be a flash, or a wave, and can last a moment or days or weeks. Yet for most of us, the experience eventually fades and we return to our mundane awareness.

In many traditions, shakti-pat is defined as something bestowed upon a student from a teacher. You may know of gurus who distribute such blessings via a touch or glance, or in other subtler ways. Some people report feeling an energetic transmission, when others say they’ve felt nothing. The student can receive or experience it in a number of ways. Some report a feeling of receiving a sensation small or large of the shakti, though for some, shakti-pat can occur without consciously registering an initial impression. In these traditions, this is the vehicle of awakening and movement toward greater awareness. From another perspective, reliance on a guru could leave a student relying on these “hits,” creating a dependency rather than self-sufficiency.

One way to think of grace or shakti-pat is that it is always available, it is always being offered, we just need to cultivate our awareness and experience of it, to open to it. We can receive it from many sources, be they friends, teachers, acquaintances or circumstances. I often sense a deeper presence and peace in certain people, including some of my yoga teachers. The absolutely free shakti can move through us in any number of ways.

The variety of experiences regarding the wake-up call, including the receptivity to a guru’s shakti pat, or a sensitivity to someone’s energy, points to a deeper understanding of shakti-pat. There must be some receptivity, readiness, or openness in the student to receive. This is related to the concept of adhikara, in the sense of a student’s receptivity and/or qualifications to receive the teachings.

Shakti-pat is the initial, and subsequent, awakening(s) which propels us on the path of yoga. It involves some descent of grace into the individual, which leads them to seek a teacher, practices, and teachings. It is often said, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, and that is precisely because of adhikara, the readiness of the student to receive. This has certainly been my experience, as one teacher has lead me to what I needed next. At times I had wished I had met certain teachers sooner, but looking back, I wonder whether I would have been ready and receptive at an earlier time.

The importance of a teacher cannot be overemphasized. Sometimes the awakening experience can be very disorienting. They can happen spontaneously and unexpectedly and can be quite intense and/or confusing without context or understanding. They can also happen at any point on the path as your practice progresses, can take you by surprise, and be perplexing. An experienced teacher can help you move through these awakenings, providing you with the necessary knowledge and support.

The moment of initially waking-up, involving some shakti-pat, leads us to become a seeker. On some level, this impulse of the shakti has guided us toward the highest. I was lucky, as are you, since right now you are seeking deeper teachings of yoga, turning toward yoga for deeper fulfillment. However, the initial experiences of awakening are not enough to sustain us. As one of my teachers says, we need to move from being a seeker to being a finder. And the bridge for most of is some technique, some type of practice. Meditation is an excellent method for finding your deeper self and stabilizing the experiences of awakening into our everyday reality.