The Guru is Within

In the East, there is a tradition of seeking a Guru, a spiritual teacher, in order to be fulfilled and brought closer to God (substitute your own word here if this one makes you uncomfortable).

In the West, there is a tradition of seeking a romantic partner in order to be fulfilled, complete, and whole.

Both come from that same place of seeking within us. ?Both come from that fundamental yearning for union.

The guru and the romantic partner hold similar roles in our lives: they acquaint us intimately with what it means to love. ?They teach us the lessons we are here to learn in this life. ?They see us–and sometimes they see through us. ?They bring us a sense of deeper purpose.

When we meet our guru or partner, we also move through similar phases. ?These phases are not always linear or chronological, and often times we cycle through these phases more than once in either relationship.

There is an initial stage of “falling in love” in which everything we touch, feel, do and think becomes an expression (or obsession) of love for our partner/guru. ?We feel our partner/guru’s presence everywhere, and it enlivens us. ?This is the honeymoon stage.

Then, at some point, we come to a rough patch where everything our partner/guru?does irritates us and we take personally everything they say. ?We feel as if we are falling out of love, or that the kind of love we feel is changing. ?Whereas before everything seemed harmonious and blissful, now there is tension; now there is resistance; now there is rebellion. ?Now there is a sense of effort and work where there once was ease. ?We begin to question the relationship and examine our commitment. ?Where there was faith, there is now doubt.

In this stage, many of us divorce or break up with our partner or leave our guru–and in some cases with due reason, where the relationship wasn’t serving our highest good or helping us to grow. ?But in many cases, we leave because we simply can’t handle the discomfort or difficulty. ?We leave because we cannot take responsibility for ourselves and face all the places in us that get triggered, that we don’t want to see–the anger, insecurity, frustration, indifference, smallness. ?We cannot accept the challenge to love or surrender when it’s not easy.

When we do accept this challenge and move through it, we arrive at a deeper phase: a return to this sense of being in love where everything is infused with the presence of the partner/guru–only this time it comes from within. ?It is a more self-sufficient love. ?We do not attribute our state to our partner/guru but, rather, realize that it comes from ourselves. ?We are eternally grateful for the presence of our?partner/guru, but we no longer need him/her to experience deep love and surrender. ?We have touched our own wholeness, our own essence–thanks to the guidance of our partner/guru–and we can now rest in this state.

These phases are represented by a Zen expression: “At first the mountains are mountains and streams are streams. ?Then the mountains are not mountains and the streams are not streams. ?But in the end, mountains are mountains again and streams are streams again.”

In this final stage–the stage of Self-Marriage–everything we seek in life becomes integrated with everything life presents us. ?We realize that everything we seek can be found, at its essence, in this very moment. ?For the partner comes from the inside, and the guru is within.