Padpadm was one of the prime disciples of Shankaracharya and was highly ambitious in life. He served his Guru a lot in his life. By doing so, he learned lots of sadhanas from Shankaracharya and obtained success in them. He also accomplished the Jal Gaman sadhana by which he gained the ability to walk on water just like a person walks on land. A lotus flower used to emerge out for his each step that he used to put in the water and by this process he used to cross the ponds, rivers and even oceans. And due to this reason only, he was named Padpadm (In Sanskrit Pad means foot and Padm means lotus flower).
A person can obtain such a great sadhana only if a person is able to find a great Guru who can guide him properly and the person follows His guidelines. Duties of both these people are different. It is the duty of the Guru to attack His disciple. He doesn’t have any other choice but to attack His disciple. And the only choice for the disciple is to bear that attack. A person can’t become a disciple if he can’t tolerate the attacks and a person can’t become a Guru if He can’t attack.
This process is similar to the treatment of gold. If gold is not treated, it can’t be converted into an ornament. It can’t be given the shape of a crown which is worn by Gods. No matter how costly gold is, it is first melted in fire, then it is beaten by the jeweler, it is pulled in several direction to give it a shape and then only it gets converted into a crown. A valuable crown which gets placed on the head of Gods. Gold gets converted into a crown because a jeweler has attacked on it and it had the capability to bear the attacks. This similar situation exists between disciple and Guru. However, both these situations have changed now. The Guru nowadays have become beggars, there is a lack of knowledge in them.
Guru is the person who possesses knowledge in life, Goddess Saraswati exists in the voice of such a person. His words directly impacts our heart, our soul. A person listening to His preaching can feel that definitely a great personality is speaking. A Guru always tries to bring His disciple to the stage where he can also possess this trait. However, this entire process is very painful, the Guru has to attack on the disciple to make him pious and worthy of such a highly ranked knowledge. Guru doesn’t feel anything great while attacking on His disciples, He doesn’t get any delight in doing so, however it is His duty and He has to do it.
If He doesn’t attack, a person can never get converted into a true disciple. Becoming disciple means he should be able to withstand all the attacks. And if he is able to bear those attacks, then he will be able to stand against any Tantrik, any Mantrik, Yogi or ascetic in life, he will be able to answer their questions, he will be able to counter attack their attacks. Cowards can’t attack any person and they can’t even stand against any attack. It is an abuse for a disciple to be called as coward in life. If someone attacks on the disciple by means of questions or words and if he doesn’t reply back or if someone is defaming His Guru and he doesn’t do anything, then he is the greatest sinner on this earth.
It has been clearly mentioned in Guru Gita and Skand Puran that the greatest sinner is the person who quietly listens against Guru. And you quietly listen to such words because you don’t have that capability to attack on someone. It is because the Guru has never attacked on you. Had the Guru attacked on you, you would have obtained the capability to withstand against the odds. A coward person lives his life just like an animal.
Meaning of life is – to live it to the fullest with a great zeal. Shankaracharya also did the same and made the life of that disciple worth living. It was also because he had faith in his Guru, he served his Guru and he offered himself in the holy feet of the Guru. These three traits are the real wealth of a disciple. If a person possesses anything apart than these three traits, then such a person can’t be termed as a disciple. If a person doesn’t have faith in Guru, then also he can’t become a disciple, no matter how long he keep on massaging Guru’s feet.
It is necessary to follow Guru’s guidelines and His orders. A disciple must do what the Guru asks him to do and not that what the Guru is doing. A Guru has to behave differently with different people. He has to take care of many other disciples at the same moment. He has to remain alert every moment. A Guru is just like a fully grown tree and a disciple is like a small plant. A plant can’t withstand harsh sunlight, it can’t withstand storms whereas the tree can survive these circumstances. It is because, the tree has already sustained many harsh seasons in life.
Similarly, a Guru has gone through many rough phases of life to reach to this high level. Apart from faith, the disciple must also know the process of offering oneself in the feet of Guru. Guru doesn’t get any greatness by this act, He is termed great because of the knowledge that He has acquired in His life. If you leave today, someone else will come there. There were different disciples prior to you people, tomorrow different disciples will come but same Guru will exist if He has the essence of Gurutva…and if he is a fraud, then he won’t survive after few steps. Then he won’t be able to proclaim himself as being a knowledgeable person in this country. It takes a huge courage to pronounce yourself as the best. You never know, when a new challenge might come before you.
A person can challenge against Vedas, Shastra or Grammar. Any challenge can appear at any time before such a person and if the person doesn’t rise to the expectation, then there is no greater insult of a Guru than to get insulted in front of His disciples. Hence a Guru must possess deep knowledge and a great capability and on the other hand to become a disciple, a person must be able to offer himself to Guru. This offering means , “Twadiyam Vastu Govind Tubhyamevam Samarpyet”… I am nothing, I just said that you are like a clay, you are neither a lamp nor a pot. You have not been converted into anything till now because you have not been attacked upon till now.
Even a piece of clay has to bear a lot of pain to get converted into a lamp and if I try to attack a little bit on you, you get disturbed in life. I think that if you really want to become a pot, then the Guru has to attack several times upon you. He must test that whether this person possess the capability to work for twenty hours a day or not.
Guru knows the fact that a person can’t work on the second day also for twenty hours and definitely the person will not be possible to work for twenty hours on the third day…he will definitely get tired. Guru also knows that there are twenty four hours within a day and night and the body will be able to work for twenty hours or eighteen hours in it and then it will definitely get tired. However, the Guru will ask you to work for twenty one hours on the first day and then again for twenty one hours the next day and then again for twenty one hours on the third day…there must be some thought process behind Guru’s action.
And then Guru abuses you in front of ten people, not while you are alone, and that too when you are not at any fault. He might scold you in front of twenty people without any of your fault….and you get disturbed, you think that Guru Ji must have overheard someone, I haven’t done any mistake. Guru tries to ascertain whether the disciple has gained that capability or not to stand at the designation which Guru has dreamed for him. The ropes of the drum needs to be pulled properly to get the correct sound from it….and even you will not be able to become a disciple if you are not stretched in life, if you are not pulled out of your comfort zone in life. If you want to remain a common man, then there is no need to put you through all these processes, then you don’t have to prepare yourself to bear all these tests in life.
Due to this reason only, the disciple must surrender himself in the feet of Guru. He understands your caliber, he knows where you should stand in your life. He is not a mean person who will die under the burden of your favors. A person can’t get nirvana if has any sort of debt in his life. There is a debt from disciple, there is a debt from Guru too, from son, from wife. If you give me a glass of water to drink, then I owe this favor from you and I am indebted towards you. I can payoff this debt by any means, by giving money, or by giving knowledge or by any other means….the Guru knows how he can payoff the debt and if He doesn’t know, then he can’t get nirvana in life.
This feeling of surrendering oneself in the feet of Guru gets developed by means of serving Him and by showing faith in Him. Serving means, to do what the Guru says, not what we wish to do for Him. We sit in the holy feet of Guru and start massaging it, however if His feet are not paining, then such a service is worthless. When I was an ascetic, I had a disciple named, Nirbhayanand. He stayed with me for six-seven years. Even today, I am proud of him.
He still meets me with the same love, devotion and affection. I am mentioning his name because he was able to attain that level where he was able to understand my wish by mere closing of my eyelids! He got so much amalgamated into me, he understood me in such a detail! If I say something and the disciple do it, then such a disciple is a normal disciple. If I say something and the disciple doesn’t do it, then that disciple is a demon. However, if the disciple can understand my wish by mere looking into my eyes, then such a disciple is a God. His attention always remained on my eyes. I don’t remember even a single day when he woke up later than me, he used to massage my feet daily and would go to sleep only after I slept. He used to get up earlier than me everyday. He gave me faith, affection and surrendered himself and I gave him everything that he deserved in life.
Due to this reason, if you serve your Guru and have faith in Him, then He can’t keep that debt upon Him if He wishes to obtain nirvana in life. When the disciple starts to get success in sadhanas, then his ego starts to build up. This is the shortcoming of a disciple. It’s a shortcoming, because some dirty blood is flowing within his body and he can’t get rid of it by himself. As I told before a masher always tries to see eroticism in any picture, because his nature is like that. If this drawback is not earned by him, he must have inherited it from his father or forefathers. Only a Guru can purify your blood. However, it can be done only if you allow Him to bring a transformation within you. Guru won’t do anything, He can’t do anything. Ocean doesn’t step ahead and reaches to Gangotri and say that Ganga come and meet me. Ganga has to travel the entire path from Gangotri till the ocean. If Ganga won’t reach the ocean, it will get dried up within the path. The ocean will always remain at its own place. If you want to purify your blood, and you are ready to get it purified then your path is to follow the three golden rules – service, faith and devotion. This is the only path following which you will be able to purify your blood. And till the time the disciple doesn’t become worthy, he may obtain success in sadhanas but then ego is also bound to follow. This situation is really painful.
This ego doesn’t die easily and the day this ego vanishes, the person obtains completeness in life. If I sit with you and take my meal, then I just have it with you. I will talk to you the way you are, I will talk to my wife according to my relationship with her. A person can live a life in twenty five different ways. However, everyone can’t do this, they find it difficult to adjust with their wife, they can’t adjust with their sons, they abuse them, the house always remain full of quarrels. Their blood is like that….your blood is different. You have chosen a different path, you are traveling on the path to glory, this is the path which leads to completeness in life.
And this ego emerged in Padpadm because Shankaracharya was not able to purify his blood. This was the biggest fault of Shankaracharya, it was the biggest shortcoming of Shankaracharya that he entirely trusted upon his disciple. The disciple must have shown devotion towards the Guru, however the Guru showed devotion towards His disciple. And Shankaracharya had to pay for it with His life. Not only Shankaracharya, even the coming generations paid for it, we paid for it. Shankaracharya died at an age of thirty two years only. He died because Padpadm started to think that till the time Shankaracharya is alive, no one will worship him. If Padpadm had devotion towards his Guru, he would have not done this.
And to fulfill his envy, to fulfill his evil desire, he gave poisonous milk to Shankaracharya… and Shankaracharya had to die at an early age of thirty two years. Jesus Christ got crucified at an early age because of His disciple. Jesus’ disciple told the king where Jesus was hiding. The disciple betrayed the Guru because it was Jesus’ fault. And this sin was caused because all our holy texts, Vedas and Shastras mentiones that forgiveness is the jewel of courageous people. However, I think that forgiveness is the biggest crime, it’s the greatest sin. If someone gives one slap, then the other person must give him twenty tight slaps so that the first person must always remember this thing in his entire life that there is someone who can attack me. If he can do this, then he is a Guru, if not, then he is not a Guru.
Forgiveness is cowardice. Sinners should not be forgiven, bad persons must not be forgiven in life. They don’t understand this language, they will never be able to understand the value of forgiveness. They can only understand the language of getting being attacked . Shankaracharya did the same mistake in His life and was able to just write a single text Shankarabhasya. If he would have lived for next ten to fifteen years, he would have brought a new revolution.
Continued in next month….
It is mandatory to obtain Guru Diksha from Revered Gurudev before performing any Sadhana or taking any other Diksha. Please contact Kailash Siddhashram, Jodhpur through Email , Whatsapp, Phone or Submit Request to obtain consecrated-energized and mantra-sanctified Sadhana material and further guidance,