I say, if you are true to your guru – revolt!

What has the guru done? He has also revolted.

Revolt does not mean insult or overthrow. Revolt means giving a new interpretation to dead scriptures, to gasping tomes and barely breathing teachings.

Have the courage to revolt, like a chick breaking free from its shell. Break the protective shells of your guru’s teachings and find your self.

Have they not taught you to go forth and find your self?

If not, then you have not learned well. Every guru has gone beyond his guru. They were able to do this because they learned well. The fragrance and the essence of the revolts remain the same. With each inhalation the interpretation becomes new, becomes fresh, and with each exhalation, the revolt subsides, only to then again rise with the next inhalation…

A spiritual call is not enough. A spiritual earthquake or a spiritual tsunami is needed to wake up from deep slumber.

If you are true to your Guru—revolt!

Break free from the rigidity of conditioning, the rituals and the practices. Break free – liberate yourself. Rip apart, tear away and get rid of the straight jackets that has enslaved you to pseudo gurus, babas, churches, mosques and temples. Restore your power centre; restore it to your true self, where it really belongs.

The Mahabharata says, “yena tyajasi, tat tyaja,” which means, ‘Give that up, with the help of which you could give up everything else.”

In Vedic traditions, when a brahmachari starts his education at a Gurukul, he shaves most of his head except for a little tuft of hair. When he is initiated into the fourth ashram of life, the guru cuts off that tuft of hair. The tuft symbolizes the attachment that the disciple has towards Ishwar, guru and Shastras (God, Teacher and Scriptures). Initially these are regarded as necessary in order to drop a multitude of worldly attachments. The Vedanta insists that the true seeker drop even these props to be unconditionally free.

If you are even an iota faithful to your guru’s teachings – break free. Slash the binding apron strings and grow; the guru must have planted the seeds in you to make you grow into mighty trees. Call upon your guru to free you from all bondages, including your bondage to him. That is your biggest obeisance to him, and his ultimate gift to you. If not, then you have not learned well.

Do not blame me if I revolt, blame my guru for he has taught me to revolt. His teachings are revolutionary. If I am not a revolutionary, I have failed my guru.

I do not become a good sadhak by accepting my guru’s teachings, but by revolting and then spreading his revolution and teachings. I thereby pay my ultimate homage to my guru. I will never die for my guru, as that would be letting him down. I can’t do that. I will live for him and spread his teachings.

My guru is samarth (total, complete). It does not matter to him what I do or do not do He does not need me. I need him. He now has to make me revolt, not to outdate his teachings – that can never be – but to give them a new language.

I ask, if love is not revolt, then what is?

I say, my guru has taught me to revolt unconditionally and to love unconditionally.

That is my guru.

JAI HO GURUDEV!

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Ramanjit Garewal is a master of yoga and has been teaching classical, traditional and the art of Hatha yoga for more than 20 years. He presently teaches at The Yoga House, a destination for the health conscious in Mumbai, India. His teachers have been: Life, Nature and the Universal Self present in all of us.Thirst, hunger, longing, to know the Self, to realize the Divine, to experience Union (Yoga) have pulled him to yoga and the realization that “yoga is a celebration of life.”