People Practice - Teachers and TextGuru Sergey Bugaev | Question Four
Translated by Anrew Turivnuj
Question: There are often quite contrary statements and facts in the Texts of different Teachers. What is the aim of such Texts?
The aim of all words that a Guru says isn’t that the people would perceive and understand something, and then blindly rush to fulfill His words. The point is that the people would take His words as a guideline to their own actions, that they would begin to make some work, or if they make something wrong then they would see the right direction for their work. So the Teachers make some actions and utter some words for this purpose. Their aim doesn’t lie in convincing the people of something or giving some information and facts or something like this. That’s why there is no sense in looking at the Texts from the point of information because they serve for quite another purpose. It’s foolish to look up for some facts in the words of the different Gurus. The people, who extract only the material aspect, don’t see the inner sense and don’t see where the Guru directs all people. That’s why the people, who limit themselves only with the mental understanding of what they have been told, thief themselves. It can’t be said they get nothing, they might get something and nevertheless they deprive themselves from the rest. They really deprive themselves because the job, they must fulfill, turns out closed for them. The Gurus give the guideline to action for people would begin to work, only begin. Thus if a man comes to a Guru and He pays him attention, it doesn’t mean that the problems are solved because they just begin. Here a path only begins to open before the man. If the man makes a mistake and the Guru points it out, it doesn’t mean that the problem is solved already because it’ll be the disciple, who’ll correct the mistake and will go on working further. When a man meets with a Guru who pays him attention, it isn’t the end of the problems; it’s just the beginning of them.
Any achievement in the spiritual practice, any state the man has isn’t the end of the practice, it just the beginning of the next phase. Having achieved next state, next level of practice, a man will see only the new heights. He’ll see new opportunities for his spiritual enhancement. That’s why when they say that the level of Wisdom or level of enlightenment is an ultimate level, it doesn’t mean that the man reaches it and his practice is accomplished. The ancient sages just had called all further practice that way. They called all further levels of the practice by this term because there is no sense to classify them. These levels stay so far from the level of an average person, from his usual state that there is no sense even talking about them because it’ll be the mental speculations only. That’s why the sages say that further will be the Wisdom, enlightenment. But this isn’t the end; it’s the beginning of a next phase.
*Three Pillars of the practice:
1- Teaching;
2- Master;
3- Confidence-in-oneself or Control-over-situation.
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