SW: To the problem of understanding, tradition gives a formal and verbal
approach. In the breakaway tradition, this is not so. The break is not away from
society. Both traditions exist. In the maṭhas or monasteries, they talked of the
Vedas but what they said has nothing to do with life; there were others who
related all that they understood to life. But whatever was said had nothing to do
with society.
R: How is it that the guru tradition has become so important?
K: Shall we discuss this question of the guru? Shall we begin with that? What
does the word ‘guru’ mean?
SW: Desika is the right word, not guru. Desika means ‘one who helps to awaken
the disciple; one who helps the seeker to understand’. The word means ‘one who
learns’.
R: The disciple is called a śiṣya. A śiṣya is one who is capable of learning.
SW: Guru means ‘vast, beyond, great’.
K: If the guru is one who is great, beyond, one who is profound, then what
relationship has he to a disciple?
SW: In the Upaniṣads, it is one of love and compassion. The Upaniṣads
maintain that compassion is the contact between the guru and the disciple.
K: How has the tradition now become authoritarian? How has a sense of
discipline, of following, of accepting whatever the guru says been introduced into
the relationship? The authoritarian, compulsive, destructive relationship comes in
the way of real thinking; it destroys initiative. How has this relationship come
into being?
SW: It is difficult to say. The two approaches must have existed for a long time.
In one tradition, the guru is taken as a friend, as a person the disciple loves; in
that the guru is not authoritarian at all. The other tradition exploits. It wants
authority, followers.
A: Swāmiji’s main point is that there has not been a homogeneous stream. There
is the outsider and there is the conformist. A non-conformist is one who rejects
society; he is outside society.
R: We come back to your first question: What is it all about? Apart from the
gurus, what is the fundamental answer to life?
K: I wonder if we could find out. Could you dig into it? Could you dig
everything out of me? Do you understand what I mean? You come to a well and