I was walking with Acharya Shree Yogeesh a few mornings ago and I asked him about why I was trapped in another organization before finding him.
The Importance of Right Timing in Finding a Guru / Spiritual Teacher
"I have been watching your soul since before you were born, and knew that you would find me by yourself. I knew where you lived and watched you grow up, but I knew if I would have approached you and your family during your childhood, you would not have understood. You were not ready. Only recently you were."
"Did I come at the right time?"
"You were suppose to meet me, actually, two years earlier before you finally did. This retreat would have been already established two years, if you were not late." He started laughing.
"Why two years late?"
"Your karma and you had to experience a few things."
"So even if there was a destined time to meet you, it was prevented by my karma?"
"Yes. Many factors play when a spiritual seeker finds his or her master. The main factors are right time, karma, and destiny. In your case, the time had come for you to meet me, but your bad karma prevented you from coming at the time you were suppose to."
"How does karma play a factor in my case?"
The Factor of Karma in Finding a Guru / Spiritual Teacher
"In your case, you had a lot of antraya-karma at that time. It's the third type of karma."
"Is that the one where I prevented someone from doing good?"
"Yes. At some point in one of your past lives, you prevented yourself from doing good and allowed yourself to be influenced by others. For example, you made a committment to do good, but you backed out of your promise, and prevented good works from happening."
"So my karma delayed my timing in meeting you?"
"Yes. It delayed you by two years. You were prevented from finding me because of your karma."
[Breaking Conversation and referring to another conversation in regards to my Karma]
Acharya Shree said to me in one conversation, "If you knew me two years before you eventually met me, I would have suggested you to not have joined the army. But because you met me when you did, you had already joined and of course then you went to war. Karma played a big role in your life, but in a way, it was a good thing for you to experience war, and the extremes of violence because of religious fanatics and cultures' extremes.
[Back to Original Conversation]
"So, why do many truth seekers get trapped under fake spiritual teachers?"
"The world is full of fake spiritual teachers, but there are a few real ones and they are hard to find. The truth seekers get trapped because of their karma. If they learn by their own practices and begin to understand and see a little truth, they will break away. But in most cases, karma and ignorance keep the spiritual seeker trapped under false gurus. If their destiny is stronger than their karma, eventually they will find their real master."
Destiny, a Factor in Finding a Guru / Spiritual Teacher
"Do truth seekers have destined enlightened masters?"
"Some seekers have a destined enlightened master, but in some cases seekers have the destiny to get in touch and learn from an enlightened master. These are two different things."
"How does destiny play a role?"
"A seeker may be destined to meet an enlightened master, maybe at the end of their life, but if they put intense efforts, they might make their destiny happen sooner, than the destined time. Like I said before, there are multiple factors: timing, karma, and destiny. For example, if a soul was destined to be a king, with efforts he can be a great king or a simple king - but his destiny was still to be a king. So same for the truth seeker, if they have the destiny to meet an enlightened master or be a disciple of an enlightened master, they can make it happen sooner with intense and right effort."
Scenarios in Finding a Guru and Spiritual Teacher based on the Factors of Time, Karma and Destiny
As Acharya Shree Yogeesh said above, there are multiple factors in finding a guru or spiritual teacher which lead to different scenarios in finding your teacher. I'd like to list a few examples
- Time is Stronger. At a certain time, maybe a specific date, month, year, or age, you will meet an enlightened master even though you have a lot of karma.
- Karma is Stronger. Even if there was a specific time you were suppose to meet an enlightened master, your bad karma prevented you from "making that appointment" so at another time you will meet. It could be this life or the next.
- Karma is Stronger (example 2): Because of too much bad karma, you might be trapped under fake teachers.
- Karma is Stronger (example 3): You may come into contact with an enlightened master, but because of bad karma, you will leave the master.
- Destiny is Stronger: Despite Timing & Karma, no matter what you will meet an enlightened master.
Karma & Timing, my Factors, in Finding Acharya Shree Yogeesh
I was destined to meet Acharya Shree Yogeesh, this is sure, but the timing was affected because of my own Karma. I was supposed to meet Acharya Shree Yogeesh in 2002, at the age of 18, but because of Karma I met him in 2004. In a 2 year span, great decisions and life changes were made, and as a result of my karma's influence:
- I joined the Army, which eventually lead to my deployment to War in Iraq
- I was trapped in an organization that promoted good things, but not spreading the real truth
- I was trapped under a dead spiritual teacher's teachings, who was never actually liberated (he had reached the second level out of eight, but eventually corrupted his path and went fully down)
Because of my karma, I missed out on 2 years of learning from Acharya Shree Yogeesh starting at the age of 20 instead of 18. However, because I was destined to meet him early, right away once my truth seeking eyes began to open and bad karma dissolve, I finally got in touch with him.
Everyone is different, but no matter what is stronger: timing, karma, and destiny, you still put efforts into finding the true enlightened master. Knowing how to find a guru, spiritual teacher, or enlightened master is not the question. The question is, how much effort do you put into seeking and meeting the master.
