Guru Purnima is celebrated on the July full moon day - this year on 16 July, 2019.
We feel that we are small individuals, little persons. Occupied as we are in our daily activities of factory life, office life and family life, we are frightened by the world, afraid of people, afraid of nature, and afraid of everything. We may not be able to appreciate or are unable to feel a sense of communion with that fullness which actually belongs to us and in which we are inextricably involved. But we remain in our own egoistic affirmations as an isolated, finite person, parts of a whole but not capable of entertaining the wholeness of Reality in our own selves.
Sunlight is energizing, but if we are sitting inside a cave under the earth, the forces of sunlight will not benefit us. We have to keep ourselves open to the influx of the forces of the sun in order that this blessing may be upon us. But we have gone into the cave of this physically bound egoistic existence and shut ourselves up so that the influx of the rays of the benedictions may not enter us at all.
Guru Purnima, is very much connected with the purnima or the fullness of the devotion of the aspiring soul to the Guru of this universe; is the fullness of our approach to the Guru.
That which is transcendent to us, which propels us, which is our ideal, which keeps us restless because of its presence, which fulfils us and makes us complete, can be regarded as our Guru.
The Guru, the Master or the divine presence is not to be regarded as an external reality in front of us which we keep as a photograph. It is a Master’s presence which overcomes us, overwhelms us, rises above us, transcends us, engulfs us, and includes us in its presence.
The Guru is above us. The aboveness of the Guru is not merely an external personality. It is a spiritual presence; a higher presence. The spirituality implied in the presence of the Guru makes us to involve in its total existence - we flow into it, melt into it, become it, and it inundates us. At that time it is that we feel that power inside us. We feel as if some energy has entered us, and that we are more than a person.
It is a total dedication of ourselves. When our lower degrees of fullness are involved, subsumed and absorbed in such a way, there is only one fullness and it becomes the final fullness - will make us purna, complete. So it is necessary for us to learn the art of invoking this purnatva.
This is our meditation, this prayer that Guru Purnima, the fullness of the moon, may also be the fullness of our mental structure, our understanding, our psychophysical makeup, and everything that we are. The modification, the transformation, the transvaluation of values of our own personality, a becoming better and a becoming different altogether in ourselves is our essential of prayer on this day of Guru Purnima.
Therefore, may we recollect our memories, bring our wills to action, our feelings to operate and our understanding to stand in unison with these feelings, is our collective prayer before the great Masters who are actually not different, one from the other, as rays of the sun are not different.
May all our Gurus, these great divinities to lead us, guide us to this higher understanding. We pay our humble gratitude for this protection bestowed upon us by their physical and subtle presence on this full moon.
Hari Om Tat Sat