For his Ashramites and close devotees around the world, Nithyananda is neither the social visionary, nor the spiritual teacher nor the successful Vedic pioneer. He is the Guru who works tirelessly for their own spiritual transformation. Traditionally, this is a dimension of an enlightened being that only a privileged few are fortunate (and courageous) enough to experience. Today, with humanity becoming ripe for rapid spiritual transformation, the necessity for a spiritual evolutionary who can effectively guide us towards the goal is becoming more apparent every day.
A spiritual evolutionary Every path-breaker is essentially a rule-breaker. The visionary bears the burden of being ahead of his time – more so when the path he forges is for a hard and unsettling journey inward. A visionary is always a revolutionary - or more aptly, an evolutionary - and the ordinary mind always resists change! By nature, he stirs up change in our lives, while we hold on hard, fighting to preserve our comfortable relationship with ourselves and with the world. The visionary tears aside the veil of our complacency, stirring in us a deep dissatisfaction with the duplicity of our lives, daring us to drop our false identities and claim responsibility for being ourselves.
Intimate mystery The scriptures say: Drawn to the light of enlightened consciousness by the ardent quest of many lifetimes, seekers hasten to the Master like bees to the newly blossomed lotus. The Guru means both - complete surrender to the path one has chosen, and the ultimate liberation from all bondage. Living and learning in the presence of the guru in the Bidadi ashram are over 200 brahmacharis,
sannyasis and rishis. In return for spiritual guidance and the basic necessities of life, they offer their lives in the service of their master’s mission. Incomprehensible to the eyes of a newcomer is this intimate relationship of complete trust and dedication on both sides. The guru takes complete responsibility for his spiritual children, revealing to them the deeper mysteries of yoga and meditation, educating them in the subtle mystical sciences of enlightenment, training them through severe spiritual disciplines that only his own gracious presence can help them endure, pruning and nurturing them with ruthless compassion to the very fulfillment that they seek.
