← Guru-Bhakti YogaHis teaching on the Guru

FOUR CLASSES OF MEN

The ordinary worldly man is like milk. When he comes into contact with wicked people, he gets lost, irretrievably. Into this very milk, a little bit of buttermilk is poured: then it becomes curd. The worldly man is initiated by a Guru. The Guru is like the curd: already been complacently transformed. After adding the buttermilk, the milk is put away for some time. Like that the initiate also should resort to seclusion and assimilation of the initiation. Then the milk is transformed into curd: the disciple is transformed into a wise man.

Now the curd will not so readily mix with the water. If water is poured over it, it will sink at the bottom. Only if the curd is beaten up vigorously, will it mix with water. Similarly, the wise man when he gets into wicked company, does not so readily mix with the vicious people; but if the influence is very deep, he, too, might be lost. Then, if this curd is well churned, in Brahmamuhurta (before sunrise), you obtain butter from it. Similarly if the wise man meditates deeply on God, during the Brahmamuhurta he gets the butter of Self-knowledge: he becomes the butter of a Self-realised sage.

This butter can be easily thrown into water. It will not get mixed with water. And, it will float. If the Self-realised sage comes into contact with worldly people, he will not get lost; on the contrary, he will float happily unpolluted by worldliness. If this butter is melted and made into ghee, and then if it is put in water, then it will impart the ghee-flavour to the entire water; similarly, if this sage is melted by the fire of cosmic love, he will become the ghee of a divine being whose contact purifies all and who elevates all by his contact, and infuses his wisdom, his glory and his divinity into everyone who comes into contact with him.