The Guru Has No Turban

The Arguments For, and Against, Guru Worship

Feb 10, 2023

A True Master Doesn’t Want to be Worshipped

David Lane authored an interesting book entitled “The Guru Has No Turban: Why Perfect Masters Don't Exist.” It was originally published in 2011 and it’s still available as a Kindle book on Amazon. If you care about your spiritual progress, this is a book that you’ll want to read.

It provides a fresh and honest look at the common myths surrounding gurus. David and I both followed and studied the Radha Soami Path under Huzar Charan Singh. Both of us have spent significant personal time with Charan Singh, many other gurus, and many other spiritual teachers.

We also have some similar views about guru myths. Unfortunately, there are a lot of wild myths about living and dead gurus that just aren’t true. Myths and misinformation happen and that’s a shame. But the real problem is that some of these myths create formidable barriers to spiritual progress.

A Short List of Guru Myths

Here is a brief list of common myths that are widely circulated by gurus in some, but not all, spiritual groups. Some of these myths are also frequently mentioned by the disciples in some, but not all spiritual groups.

The gurus created some of these myths, but most of these theories were created by disciples. Some gurus will try to dispel these myths. Other gurus seem to support and enjoy these myths.

Some gurus simply teach the existing dogma/doctrine that their previous guru taught. It’s fascinating to note that the prevailing attitude among the most advanced gurus is that less than five percent of most spiritual teachers and gurus never even reach the very first region of enlightenment in the eye center.

Lower-level gurus just don’t know whether most myths are true or false.

The nature of direct consciousness and celestial awareness groups is much different. Most of these myths are NEVER mentioned in these groups. Honest teachers who only practice Nirgun Bhakti (devotion to the formless Celestial Awareness) and who have also reached celestial levels of clear awareness do not want to teach these myths. They want to help their students, not hinder them.

Saint Kabir, pictured above, was the original founder of the Sant Mat path - which taught the Nirgun Bhakti cultivation practice on the inward meditation of divine awareness. He was also one of the first Indian saints to loudly condemn the widespread practice among most other gurus which claimed that the guru was more important than God and thus should be worshipped as God in human form.

Saint Kabir taught the overwhelming benefits of Nirgun Bhakti (devotion to the celestial awareness at the core of your soul and in the core of the cosmos) in direct contrast to the spiritual drawbacks and problems that are typically created by Guru Bhakti (intense devotion to self-proclaimed God-men).

Think about it for a moment. If you have experienced godly divine awareness within you, and in other individuals as well, why would you ever want to tell new seekers to worship you - instead of the divine awareness that is at the core of their own soul/awareness?

Kabir, like most other Sant Mat teachers, taught that a living, advanced spiritual teacher who has reached the highest levels of divine enlightenment is extremely helpful, and sometimes necessary, to properly guide new seekers. But he always cautioned new seekers against worshiping the guru. Instead, he advised them to love the divine awareness within themselves.

For more information about Kabir, check out “The Complete Bijak of Kabir” by Jagessar Das. It’s an excellent book.

If you read about (or follow) five or more spiritual groups during your lifetime, there’s a good chance you will hear a high percentage of these common myths that Kabir and other advanced teachers have complained about.

“Only the guru can take you to Heaven.”
“Only the guru can save you.”
“Everything that the guru says is the absolute truth.”
“A true guru never has to think or use the mind.”
“Once you’re initiated, the true guru will always be inside of you.”
“The true guru is God in a human form.”
“A perfect master will always be there when you die.”
“Guru worship is essential.”
“The guru is greater than God.”
“You can’t see or feel God inside or outside of you”
“But you can always see your guru inside and outside of you.”
“My guru died, but he can still help me while I’m alive.”
“He died, but he can still perform miracles and take me to heaven.”
“The mantra won’t work unless it’s blessed by the guru.”
“Your life is wasted without initiation by a perfect guru.”
“A perfect living master (PLM) will help you clear all your karma.”
“A perfect master will take you to heaven within 1-to-4 lifetimes.”
“A PLM is responsible for all of the miracles that you experience.”
“Gurus never make mistakes.”
“Until you meet your perfect master/guru within you and talk with him, then you cannot go to heaven.”
“You have to serve, honor, love and worship your guru above and beyond everyone and everything else.”

A Short quote from David Lane’s Book

This is the description that Amazon used to introduce David’s Book, The Guru Has No Turban.

“One of the more celebrated, if inappropriate, honorifics we have bestowed on our chosen gurus is the term "Perfect Master." It may be one thing to call a teacher a master (he or she may know more than us in a certain subject), but it is quite another to call such mastery "perfect." The first and most troublesome problem is one of definition: what do we actually mean by "perfect"? My sense is that we fundamentally misunderstand the honorific and we do not fully understand the implications involved when applying such terms to living human beings. My argument is a very simple one: The guru is not perfect, at least not in the ways that we may assume. But despite the fact that we can easily demonstrate the limitations and fallibilities of our gurus, we somehow hold on to the naive concept that a guru can be an all-knowing and all-powerful being.”

A little History of Radha Soami Saints

The Radha Soami path has become one of the largest spiritual paths on earth, with more than 50 million followers split among dozens of Radha Soami spin-offs from the original teachings of Soami Ji and Salig Ram.

The original Radha Soami path was created from the teachings of Soami Ji who was born on 25 August 1818 in Agra, India and died on 15 June 1878 in the same city. It also incorporated much of the earlier Sant Mat teachings of Kabir.

The first appointed guru of the Radha Soami path was Salig Ram, who was born in Agra, on March 14, 1829, and died in Agra on December 6, 1898. Soami Ji appointed him to teach the importance of inner experiences in divine awareness.

Faqir Ji was a humble teacher/follower of Salig Ram. Captain Ji, another highly advanced soul/teacher, was a follower of Faqir Ji.

Several decades after the establishment of the Sant Mat path of Radha Soami Agra, Sawan Singh created a separate-but-similar path called Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB). The third guru of the Beas path was Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh Ji (1916–1990). Charan Singh Ji was the Radha Soami Guru who I lovingly followed for some time.

The RSSB path started by Sawan Singh was different than the Sant Mat paths of Kabir and Soami Ji in the sense that it initially promoted the myth the gurus were greater than God and should be worshipped as God-men.

Honest Quotes from Honest Teachers

I’ve given more than 100 podcasts with quotes from dozens of highly advanced teachers who teach the same message:
The Tao/divine/celestial awareness that created the cosmos is also within the very core of your soul, and only that formless/soundless divine awareness can take you to heaven. This is not something that a physical guru can do. A guru should be treated like an honored teacher. A guru is not greater than God.

Every spiritual teacher is born as an ordinary person who eventually learns how to meditate. And eventually any human can travel deep enough inside to learn ancient wisdom and to potentially achieve divine awareness. But even after the experience of divine awareness, spiritual seekers are humans first and teachers later.

Everyone on earth is born with emotional attachments and old karma and they must deal with it for their entire lives. So, even gurus have karma.

And yet — despite this truth, the myths about guru-worship continue to confuse and misdirect hundreds of millions of spiritually-minded souls.

But we don’t have to go in that direction. Divine awareness is within you.

Here are a few brief quotes from some of the most advanced spiritual teachers.

Quotes from Kabir

“One Soul is living in the heart of all living beings, and that Soul manifests celestial consciousness within you.
There is only one hope for liberation, and it lies in the realization of God as the Indwelling Self (heavenly consciousness) of your Soul.
The celestial vibration (aka, word, soundless-sound or divine consciousness) keeps ringing within the body and this alone can destroy all confusion and take you to the final stages of heavenly consciousness.”

Quotes from Soami Ji

“I have met the perfect guru, the Lord of the Soul, who is also within you and every other human. The Lord of my Soul is my only guru.
Through His Will and Grace, the Lord of the Soul will carry everyone across the cosmic oceans of ignorance who humbly and inwardly, submits to His loving Grace.
When your attention on divine consciousness is steady within your inner awareness, the Lord of your Soul will eventually merge you into heavenly awareness.”

Quotes from Salig Ram

“Remember that our Supreme Father, the Lord of our Soul/Radha Soami, is with us and eternally blessing us. He cannot be set aside under any circumstances for He is the sole master of all. All saints are just His sons, as are all other human beings, but we sometimes know Him not.
We all went wrong in a very great way, by ignoring the Lord of the Soul and thus by identifying me as Him and worshipping me instead of Him. He is our Supreme Father, and I must be regarded only as an intermediary or a teacher. All internal and external homage, worship and love should be paid directly to Him; as by His kindness, heavenly communion is already established between Him and you.

I have made up my mind to stop all outward activities in the ashram. This includes the practices of kneeling, putting garlands on my neck, taking Prashid (food blessed by the guru) and other similar practices of guru worship (kissing the feet of the guru, worshipping pictures of the guru, bowing to the guru, practicing the magical mantra blessed by the guru, performing money/labor services to the guru, etc.
The inner consciousness of the Lord of your Soul must be worshipped, contemplated, loved, and respected by all as the only master/guru.”

Quotes from Faqir Ji

“This is a hard fact: the plain truth does not help in establishing centers; it does not increase the number of followers.
But how is anyone to understand the truth? Only after this realization: that we are a bubble of consciousness. A bubble of consciousness would not claim himself to be a yogi, sadhu, or a guru. Had I not realized this truth, I might have made claims of my greatness, got myself worshipped by you and exploited you.
The entire creation is a game of one Supreme Power that is within us. Whatever we see, feel, or know is a mere play of that internal Supreme Power. Whatever happens, good or bad (or beyond these both), is within His Order. By His Will alone, man can achieve the state of Nirvana. To His Will I bow, and to Him alone I surrender. This is the last stage of my lifelong research. His Will is Supreme.”

Quotes from Captain Ji

“The external guru has no ability that you don’t have. Most gurus never say this openly because of fears of losing all their pupils and all the wealth from donations.
Inside every man is the spirit, or soul, which is a particle of God consciousness. Spirit has no form. It is a bubble of clear, divine, consciousness.
The Spirit of God, the Superpower, and the Super Being are within you. So, this is in every human, and the perfect teacher/master is simply one who has realized God inside himself and can give you knowledge about Him and how to reach Him.”

Quotes from Charan Singh

In most of his public talks, because of both his love for his guru Sawan Singh and his promises to Sawan Singh, Charan Singh taught the Guru-Bhakti Radha Soami doctrine. But in private sessions with advanced disciples, he taught the same path as Kabir, Salig Ram, Soami Ji, Faqir Ji, and Captain Ji.

In 1970 Charan Singh gave a discourse in New York to over 2,000 disciples. During the question-and-answer session, a young man asked him, “Why do we have karma?” Maharaji’s answer was, “Brother, everyone who is born on earth is born with karma. Even gurus are born with karma. We all live on earth to learn how to deal with and potentially clear our karma — and how to help others deal with their karma.”

In other words, no one is perfect!

In 1975, Charan Singh pulled me out of a meeting in India of around 250,000 disciples - just before the Satsang was about to start. And he asked about my meditation practice. I lovingly and honestly told him that I was no longer doing the prescribed Radha Soami practices (guru bhakti, seva, repeating a mantra and listening to internal sounds).

Instead, I described my practice of allowing the attentive nature of my clear awareness (the soul) to lovingly submit to the source of its awareness (the Lord of the Soul) as that awareness gradually melted me into the divine awareness at the core of the soul.
Huzar Charan Singh then said, “You’ve discovered the secret path of the masters. There is no greater path. Don’t practice anything else. This is the path that will take you to Sach Kand (heavenly awareness) in this lifetime. Radha Soami is about to become a religion, and you need to leave Radha Soami when it does.
After you’ve reached Sach Kand, you need to teach this secret path to everyone else.”

Summary

Not everyone is ready to tread the inward mystic path of divine awareness. If, as a spiritual seeker, you’re drawn to some other type of yoga, mindful awareness, or guru-bhakti path, then that is perfectly fine.

If you follow your heart, you can’t go wrong.

Divine awareness is a long and winding road that eventually causes everyone to choose and then to grow from different spiritual experiences along the way.

However, those souls who have begun to feel the inner pull of divine awareness are ready to follow this very precious path. It’s the secret path of many of the greatest ancient Taoists as well and most modern Sant Mat, Sufi, Celestial Awareness, and direct consciousness teachers. It’s the path that Lao Tzu, Kabir, Hafiz, Soami Ji, Shiv Brat Lal, Faqir, and Captain Ji followed as well.

These are teachers who don’t want to be worshiped. These are teachers who help you to discover and follow the divine awareness within you.

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