What if children were told to educate themselves in modern sciences without any teacher or any access to prior knowledge gained over centuries? What if we had to reinvent the wheel in every walk of life, without having access to knowledge that was already available from authorities in the field? If this were the case, we would spend a lifetime trying to educate ourselves without making much headway or perhaps even going down the wrong path.
Universal mind and intellect: Just as God’s creation such as humans, animals, etc. have a mind and intellect, so does God’s entire creations, the Universe has a Universal Mind and Intellect which contains absolutely genuine information of all things in the Universe. It can be thought of as God’s Mind and Intellect. As one progresses spiritually one’s subtle mind and intellect merge with the Universal Mind and Intellect and thus that is how one is able to access information about the whole of God’s creation.
In the same way, a guide is very much required in our spiritual journey too. It stands to reason that a guide in any field needs to be an authority in that particular field. According to Spiritual science, a person who is an authority in the field of Spirituality is known as a Guru.
There is a saying that in the kingdom of the blind the seeing man is a king. With a highly activated sixth sense, the Guru is the totally ‘seeing’ person in the kingdom of the spiritually blind and ignorant. He is someone who has already walked the spiritual road under the guidance of his Spiritual Guide and has access to the Universal Mind and Intellect. In this article, we will explain who can be considered a Spiritual Guide or a Guru and His characteristics.
There are various aspects to the Supreme God Principle. These various aspects of God perform specific functions in the Universe. This is pretty much akin to the government of any country which has various departments to facilitate the smooth governing and functioning of the country as a whole.
Our Inspiration – Om Yoga Ashram Dharamsala Gurus
Gurus and Yoga Instructors are those rare beings who have realized their oneness with the Supreme – the highest transcendental consciousness. Gurus have not only realized their true selves but also work selflessly to inspire humanity to seek the divinity within themselves. A Guru is able to expedite the progress of their disciples through their close connection to the supreme. Gurus teach the timeless spiritual truths in a variety of ways. Their teachings reflect the environment and period in which they live. Masters may have offered their own unique path towards the highest Truth. However their outer forms may differ, the ultimate realization is the same.
Dr. Rashpal Yogi has been greatly influenced by these great gurus.
Swami Ramdev
Baba Ramdev Yoga Guru (born as Ramkrishna Yadav in Haryana) is a spiritual leader known for his contributions in yoga, Ayurveda, politics, and Agriculture. He is best known for popularising yoga among health-conscious Indians through his mass yoga camps and televangelism. He founded the Patanjali group of institutions.
Sri Pattabhi Jois (Yoga Guru)
Sri Pattabhi Jois (Yoga Guru) was born in an ancestral village called Kowshika, near Hassan in Karnataka state on a full moon day in July 1915, on Guru Purnima Day. Jois continued to teach at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, now located in the neighborhood of Gokulam with his only daughter Saraswathi Rangaswamy (b. 1941) and his grandson Sharath (b. 1971), until May 18, 2009, when Jois died at the age of 93 from natural causes.
Yogi Adi Shankaracharya
Yogi Adi Shankaracharya was born in Kaladi Village of Kerala around 788 AD. Yogi Adi Shankaracharya was the first philosopher to consolidate Advaita Vedanta, one of the sub-schools of Vedanta. He believed in and was a major advocate for the greatness of the holy Vedas. Not only did he infuse a new life into the Vedas but he also advocated against the Vedic religious practices of ritualistic excesses. He founded four Shankaracharya Peethas in the four corners of India. The Peethas continue to promote his philosophy and Yoga teachings to this day. The biography of Yogi Adi Sankaracharya reveals that he was also the founder of both the Dashanami monastic order and the Shanmata tradition of worship.
Sri Sri Ravi Shakar ji (Meditation and Yoga Guru)
Yogi Sri Ravi Shankar is a spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation (founded 1982), whose goal is to relieve individual stress, societal problems, and violence. Shankar belief is that every emotion has a corresponding rhythm in the breath and regulating breath can help relieve personal suffering. After realizing Sudarshan Kriya, Shankar started sharing his knowledge with others through the Art of Living course and through his Yoga Teachings he becomes a very Special Teacher.
Yogi Swami Vivekananda
Yogi Swami Vivekananda Born in Calcutta India in 1863, Swami Vivekananda was inclined towards spirituality and God-realization since his childhood. Yogi Swami Vivekananda came to Swami Ramakrishna while searching for a man who could directly demonstrate the reality of God and became his disciple. Ramakrishna taught him Advaita Vedanta and that all religions are true, and service to man was the most effective worship of God, in 1897 he founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.
Swami Vivekananda is considered a key figure in introducing Vedanta and Yoga in Europe and America. He is also attributed with raising interfaith awareness, bringing the status of Hinduism to that of world religion at the end of the 19th Century. He is best known for his motivating speech that began with “Sisters and brothers of America”, through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions at Chicago in 1893.
Yogi Swami Sivananda Saraswati
Yogi Swami Sivananda Saraswati was born in 1887 in the town of Pattamadai, Tamil Nadu India. After serving as a medical doctor, he renounced his profession and came to Rishikesh and was initiated into Dashnami sannyasa in 1924 by Swami Vishwananda Saraswati. He toured extensively throughout India, inspiring people to practice yoga and lead a divine life. In 1936 he founded the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh.
Yogi Swami Rama
Yogi Swami Rama was born in the small village of Toli in the Garhwal Himalayas Uttrakhand India in 1925. From an early age, he was raised by his Master Madhavanada Saraswati in the Himalayas where he had become the lineage holder of the Himalayan Masters tradition of Sankhya Yoga. Under the guidance of his Master, Rama traveled from monastery to monastery and studied with a variety of Himalayan saints and sages, including his grandmaster who was living in a remote region of Tibet.
Rama is especially remembered as one of the first Yogis who allowed himself to be studied by Western scientists. He was examined by scientists at the Menninger Clinic in the 1960s. They studied his ability to voluntarily control bodily processes (such as heartbeat, blood pressure, and body temperature), that are normally considered to be non-voluntary. In later years he founded the Himalayan Institute in the US and in India.