The question this evening has to do with the concept of gurus. In many of the eastern traditions a guru is seen as an indispensable part of the seeker’s journey, that no true enlightenment can occur unless the seeker follows the footsteps of the guru, and puts him or herself under the guru’s guidance and instruction. In the west we have various religious traditions, the protestant and the catholic focusing around the entity Jesus Christ and this is a kind of guruship where there is a model or there are footsteps left, patterns and rituals, the use of faith and will to live a life as described by Jesus. How important to a seeker is the concept of the guru, the dispeller of darkness, the one who makes the model or lives the life that is patterned in a fashion that can aid a seeker along the journey of evolution? How much of that quality of the guru can we find within ourselves and how much of that finding is made possible or only possible with the assistance of a guru?

[This evening we have Jim and Carla supporting the work of S’s intensive meditation channeling...]

(S channeling)

[I am Laitos.] We greet you in the love and in the light of the infinite One. We are most happy to have been given this opportunity to speak through an instrument which was not prepared for our presence but had anticipated instead the presence of another with whom it is more familiar. It is the mark of the maturing instrument that it shall recognize the nature of the call it is offered, and it is the—we correct this instrument—it is the mark of an instrument that is willing truly to serve that it place itself in the arms that are proffered.

We have come to offer a kind of comfort that [we] feel we are able to uniquely to offer to this group at this time. We wish to offer this comfort in a preliminary way and then to make room for those of Oxal who are also prepared to speak. We wish to give encouragement to a group which has known much ordeal in the past brief measure of your time and which has nevertheless courageously persisted in its seeking and its intent to serve. This kind of dedication offers opportunity upon opportunity for those of us which are, as you would say, discarnate, to serve in the small ways which are given us to serve through the instrumentalities not only of highly concentrated efforts like that which you undertake today, but in the myriad ways of everyday life dedicated wholly to service. We ourselves are comforted by your dedication and would offer this our blessing to you in love and in light, a brief silent offering. We pause.

[Pause]

I am Oxal. We feel now the instrument has profited by the steadying influence of our friends of Laitos. We greet you in the all embracing love and in the purest light of the infinite Creator. It is our privilege this evening to be called forth in response to a query that weighs upon your minds, this being the question of the nature of the role of the spiritual teacher. We most happily would address this question, but first we would ask that all present be aware that we ourselves are spiritual teachers only in a very, very limited sense, for all too well we know our own feet to be of clay, and we ask that you too be aware of this and use discrimination in taking in and weighing each of our words, for our words can have no greater effect than to resonate with what each here already knows and is willing in some measure to examine more closely.

The function of the spiritual teacher cannot be separated from the more general process of spiritual seeking. In the density that you enjoy this process of seeking spiritually has certain features that are unique to it, for in the third density seeking occurs from a position that is unknown to the seeker. The seeker gropes blindly and has but what is, at first, the faintest of inner lights to guide it. The process of seeking is one of allowing this inner light progressively to illumine more and more of the path, until the path, though it is never fully mapped out, seems sure and certain to the footfall as you walk ever more in faith, ever more in a dedication to service.

We find, however, that this experience can be a very lonely one and that the temptation arises again and again to seek in the reassuring words of one who would lead one to find more than comfort, more than solace, but also direction. Now, it is the best of our understanding that, in truth, direction can never be gathered from another. There is, indeed, the wonderful mystery of paths of seeking that cross and intertwine and run together in a mutual love and compassion which gives great comfort. We find, however, that all too often it is the case when one doubts one’s own way one relies rather too heavily upon another, which one puts before one as the teacher.

Thus, one has arising amongst your peoples traditions of religious worship which set the teacher so far above the seeker that the seeker has effectively abandoned all native power and given it over to the teacher. When this occurs, it is but a short step to hardening the words of the teacher into rock solid doctrine, which may then be slavishly followed and used as a basis for judging self and other. This leads inevitably to a loss of seeking. Like a stream bed no longer fed by the flow of water, dry and barren the seeking becomes.

Having said this, we wish to add, however, that in the relation of pupil to teacher, disciple to guru, there can be something of value and of spiritual importance. We address this point in light of the concept of sacrifice, for if the student/teacher relation is maintained with the most delicate of balances, the teacher being scrupulous to keep in perspective the fact the teacher, at best, is a gateway or a channel for that which lies beyond the teacher and which is as—we correct this instrument—which is as accessible to the student as it is to the teacher, and, in addition, the student must keep in perspective the point that the teacher is but a mutual seeker which has perhaps a certain steadying influence upon the student that contributes to a more stable pattern of seeking, within the context where these cautions are scrupulously observed, the student may look to the teacher in such a way that the teacher inspires within the student a certain highly potentiated kind of humility which the student expresses by deliberately setting aside those known personality features which may tend to distort or disrupt the seeking process.

When this process is being consciously directed and intensely perused in a sheltered environment, the teacher or the guru in this respect may accept the sacrifice or the laying aside of the Earthly personality in a symbolic way, understanding that what there is to be offered coming through the teacher is further empowered by this act. Now, this process can be successful only when the teacher has similarly laid aside the Earthly personality and is willing to join hands with the student in a fashion which allows each to participate in a sense of a greater reality to appreciate the unity that is all embracing. The strength of the teacher flows back to the student even as the student’s gift of its devotion to the teacher further empowers their function of the teaching.

We find then that this group was quite correct in its surmise that the greatest gift that the teacher has to give is the beingness of the teacher. As soon, however, as this beingness is contracted into [mere] personality which the teacher may claim as its own, it has been lost and lost as a source of inspiration to the student even though the student may continue to take it as such. There are connections of energy that connect student to teacher, though we find in principle that these connections are not different than those connections of energy which prevail from one loved one to another, and just as the lover must be prepared also and equally to be the beloved, so must the teacher be prepared also and equally to be the student. All are fellow seekers in the spiritual world. All of the distinctions which can in the veiled experience seem so important vanish into utter nothingness, leaving but a full democracy of spirit. One seeks, then, with all of creation, and the seeking of all creation is within one.

We ourselves seek with you as we attempt in reaching out to you and in reaching within ourselves to touch this center of seeking, and to allow it beingness that it may be the more our beingness, which we most happily share with you as you have most happily shared your beingness upon this occasion with us.

We find that there is so very much more that could be said upon the topic of the guru, but what we have said serves as a sufficient beginning, and we would ask if there are more specific queries to which we may address ourselves in response. Are there queries at this time?

[Inaudible]

I am Oxal. It has been our very great pleasure to be given the opportunity once again to speak through this instrument which desires to serve, but finds itself frustrated in this capacity. May we offer the encouragement that what has happened, is happening, and will happen, is but part of a much larger process, and the entire process can be viewed as a mode and a moment of the same service. We thank this group for its dedication and its persistence. At this time we take our leave, leaving you in the love and in the light and in the all embracing glory of the one infinite Creator. Adonai, my friends. Adonai.