The Bearded Mystic Podcast
Rahul N Singh host of The Bearded Mystic Podcast explores the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta or Nonduality in a very simple, direct and practical way.
Episodes include discussions into eastern scriptures like The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads etc and discussions about everyday spirituality.
Rahul has been on the spiritual path for over 20 years and has an open-minded approach to spirituality and finds that there is no one size fits all approach.
Subscribe to the channel and don’t miss out on a single episode.
The Bearded Mystic Podcast
The Guru's Gift: Beyond Physical Presence
Guru Purnima celebrates the sacred relationship between spiritual teacher and disciple, honoring the guru's role in revealing our true nature as formless awareness. The ultimate gift a guru offers is showing us that when we realize our nature is bliss, we no longer merely feel peace—we become peace itself.
• The guru serves as a medium for highest wisdom, revealing Brahm Gyan (knowledge of formless reality)
• True devotion to the guru means living in awareness of formless consciousness, not just offering praise
• Ethical teachings from gurus guide householders in balancing spiritual life with worldly responsibilities
• Householder path and monk path are equally valid—what matters is following your natural tendencies
• Spiritual growth comes through guru's grace rather than personal effort
• Being a sincere disciple means embodying the teachings in daily life
• The mark of true realization is maintaining awareness of the formless even when not in the guru's presence
Thank you for listening to this Guru Purnima episode. If you've found value in these teachings, please share with others who might benefit from understanding the true nature of the guru-disciple relationship.
Support this channel by joining this channel to get access to perks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEQmXLNdTDOa_7b7J0zO0ew/join
Support me via Paypal: https://www.paypal.biz/beardedmystic
Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/hnRf7wESwX
Visit my website: https://www.thebeardedmysticpodcast.com/
Buy The Bearded Mystic Podcast Merch: https://thebeardedmysticpodcast.myshopify.com/
Want a one-on-one spiritual discussion with The Bearded Mystic - book here: https://www.thebeardedmysticpodcast.com/p/spiritual-discussion/
You can follow me and contact me on social media:
TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdk3HPJh/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeardedmysticpodcast/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBeardedMysticPodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Bearded-Mystic-Podcast
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/beardedmystic.bsky.social
Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/thebeardedmysticpodcast
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Be the Mystic podcast, and today is Guru Purnima. So happy Guru Purnima to all of you and to your respective gurus and teachers. You know the guru is very important when it comes to spiritual practice. I think we all know the importance of having a guru, but sometimes we can ignore the importance of having a living teacher who can guide us, who can embody the very spiritual values that we should be applying into our own lives. I know it's very easy sometimes to over impose the physicality and the importance of the physical, but what does the Guru really do and why do we celebrate the Guru so much?
Speaker 1:Now, the Guru is a medium for the highest wisdom. The Guru is a medium for the highest wisdom In the sense of, in my own life, it's the Guru that shows you or reveals to you the Brahm Gyan, the knowledge of the formless, the knowledge of Brahman, the knowledge of the ultimate reality, and discloses that knowledge to you, imparts that knowledge to you. Now, that's the first step of what a teacher does, and it's important. It's an important step to know how to recognize our true nature. And so, through Brahmagyan, we are shown our true nature as formless consciousness or formless awareness, and that's where the guru's job is more or less done. Now, that would be ideal, and I say it's ideal because it would be easy then. However, people like me, we are householders, so we have roles to perform in society, we have jobs to maintain, we and keep up with, we have families and we have friends and we have a social circle, and with those social circles come social norms and we have to live accordingly. And how do we balance spirituality in those moments? And that's when the guru comes in with the ethical side, the morality side, where they teach us basic human values of how to keep our humanness and our humanity in check whilst pursuing a spiritual life.
Speaker 1:Now, when we are attuned to the Guru's message and the ultimate message is always Brahmagyan, by the way what does it mean to have devotion or gratitude towards the guru? Now, in my opinion, it's literally living in the awareness of formless awareness at all times. That is the best gratitude, the best practice, the best appreciation towards the guru. If you really want to show your devotion, you know, towards the guru, if you really want to show your devotion, you know, uh, giving your gurus platitudes of praise is not going to do anything if your life is not actually living according to that teaching of brahmgyan, the embodiment of brahmgyan, the living in the awareness of formless awareness. Unless that's not done, it doesn't matter what praises we give the Guru in front of the Guru, the Guru is not going to be impressed. I've seen it literally.
Speaker 1:You know, once I attended a Samagama Satsang where my Guru was present and this was during Babaji's time, so it's quite some time ago, around 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago in fact. And the reason why I'm saying that I don't want to let in on what I saw, because if I tell you the time period you know, some people will know what I'm talking about. But I attended a particular Samargam in a particular location, but I attended a particular Samargum in a particular location and the in charge of that location, of that branch of that satsang, was, you know, giving heaps of praise to Babaji and Babaji didn't smile once. And so I asked Babaji afterwards. I was like, you know, this person praised you, but you didn't smile and he just said you were observing all this. And I said, yeah, you know, I observed you not smiling and I said I'm assuming you didn't find it genuine. He didn't reply back, which is smart. But For me, I realise that Empty praise doesn't mean anything. But if you, if you truly are practising being connected to Nagar, to formless awareness, if you're really connected to Brahman, that matters more than anything. So, really, what I want to say here is that that's the real thing.
Speaker 1:Now, when the Guru gives us ethical teachings of how to live in the world, that's to guide us and remember. These teachings that the Guru gives is literally from householders themselves. They're more or less based from the Upanishads. So you know, when we talk about humility, they were householders. Sri Krishna, whatever he mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, he was a householder. You know, he wasn't a monk.
Speaker 1:So, and like I mentioned in yesterday's video, a householder, in my opinion, is the best path. And that may be because I'm a householder and I'm going to say so. But that doesn't mean I'm not discouraging anyone from saying that a monk is bad. I'm not saying that either. Like, oh, that's a worse path. No, they're neither better or worse.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about my own kind of tendencies, not necessarily. If someone has a tendency to be a monk, I'm fine with that. I don't think that's a bad choice. It's probably a good choice If you have a tendency to be a monk and you're forced to be a householder. You may be doing more harm than good in my honest opinion.
Speaker 1:But anyway, back to the Guru and the teachings of the guru. So the guru can give ethical teachings, but if somebody just follows the ethical teaching without understanding that the base of that is brahmgyana, then it's really missed what the guru is really highlighting. Because you can become a good ethical person, for sure, but the added dimension of spirituality that was implied when the guru gives the ethical teachings, it becomes more of. It doesn't become your being. So you'll do the ethical actions as if it's something you need to do rather than something that is automatically happening.
Speaker 1:And that automatically happening only occurs if one is actually in formless awareness, if one is actually established in the awareness of this Nirgha, this Shiva, this Brahman, this Niraka, this Formless One. So that is ultimately it For me. My Guru has shown me and revealed to me, made me perceive this Formless in all forms, where I no longer see Maya as something separate, but actually it's this Satchitananda, and once that's established, once that's understood, once that's connected with, and once one is aware of this and one merges into that awareness, not as something separate, but the appearance of two becomes one. This is the ultimate gift that the Guru gives, and some people either accept the gift, some people don't, and either one is fine, and but all I know is that the Guru completes your journey and it's the grace of the Guru that takes.
Speaker 1:You know, in my own life I feel like most of my spiritual work or spiritual efforts has been the grace of my guru. I haven't specifically done anything. Also, it appears to me so, and, you know, in a way I'm very glad for that as well. Well, because it's easy to get an ego from doing spiritual practice as well, having an ego because you know I am doing this practice, I am the one that done, in doing this, I'm the one putting effort in. But when you let go and give it to grace, there's just so much peace that comes with that. There's just so much you can just let go and you can just be in formless awareness rather than trying to keep up the image of a spiritual aspirant. Uh, yeah, so really, that's my message that I wanted to share today.
Speaker 1:I'm just truly grateful to my guru for everything. I mean I there's not enough words or feelings, feelings that I can muster up to say how grateful I am and how fortunate I feel. I am. You know, to even you know I feel so fortunate, so lucky to have even forget about coming across the Guru but to even be given the access to Brahm Gyan. I don't know if I deserved it or what I've done to deserve it. I don't know, and all I can say is that I'm eternally grateful and I just pray that I can be a good disciple.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I am a good disciple to remain a good disciple, but if I'm not a good disciple to be a good disciple. I think it's, you know, really difficult to be a true disciple. And ever since Chris has been born, I feel even more pressure to show um, not to show but to be the right disciple, to be the right example of how to be a disciple. And I think that's been important for me, and every step that I'm taking ever since he's been born is to to show that and to try and be that disciple, that one that my Guru expects, but the one that I want my son to be. Because in the end, you know, the world will always be dazzling in all its glory, but if anyone has seen the light of truth. You know that the dazzling of the world is literally an iota of the light of the truth and, again, this is all Guru's grace that comes in play. And so, when I received Brahmagyan from Babaji to today, under the guidance of Mataji, and even Satguru, mataji and Rajputaji both of them have been influential because I'm part of the Nyingari tradition and that's my foundation and, yes, I've utilized Advaita to understand this Brahmagyan fully and to actually practice this Brahmagyan fully in all its dimensions.
Speaker 1:I feel Advaita Vedanta has given those missing pieces that I found, that I felt was there, um, and all I can say is being a sincere devotee, being a sincere disciple, makes a difference. And, yeah, I, you know, yeah, what can I say? You know, the guru has to take you to where you truly are, to your true nature. And I think sometimes we don't understand that the guru is not there to make us feel blissful. And this is an important thing, because when you realize your nature is bliss, you no longer feel bliss, no longer do you feel peace, you are peace itself, and that's what the Guru really gives. And sometimes we try to think that and, yes, we do.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I remember when you're in the guru's presence, of course, you feel happy and joyful and, yes, ecstatic, definitely. But what about when you're not in the physical presence? Can you be the same in the day-to-day life when you're not in the physical presence? Can you have that same amount of love and joy? And that can only happen if we connect to the formless and then we immerse our awareness into the formless, where only the formless remains, into the formless where only the formless remains.
Speaker 1:So, ultimately, you know, that's my take and those are my few words, and I just want to wish everyone a happy Guru Purnima to you and your respective gurus and, obviously, happy Guru Purnima to my own gurus, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. You know whether that's Siddhikumar Rajpita or Swami Sivarapriyananda and so many others that I've accounted throughout the years who've helped me. Even people who may not have an official guru title, like those who have helped me on my journey, are more or less a guru to me and they have added to my spirituality, and I am grateful to them and even to those of you that have asked questions or who have encountered my podcast and have spoken to me. I've learnt from you also, and so I thank you for allowing me to learn from you, and I hope that I can continue to have that aspect in me of learning and seeking and just being grateful for the wisdom that you all share. So yeah, thank you everyone for listening. Take care, namaste.
