#1
I once said to my grown son, “It sucks being a guru.” He laughed and said, “That’s a good line.” I’m not sure what the implications of “line” are, but there was truth in what I said, and what began as a long memo to my son to explain myself grew into this short memoir that might also explain the role of a teacher.
Guru is the Sanskrit word translated as “teacher,” but its meaning is much more expansive than the Western counterpart, a guru being a fount of fundamental truths, with knowledge of the “higher” realms—a combination of our teacher and preacher, perhaps—rather than “merely” the instructor in a particular category of knowledge such as history or math (as rooted in ancient Athens).
While Americans generally aspire to wealth or fame more or less any way they can get it, being a guru might be the most desirable ambition because it elevates a person’s stature mentally and spiritually, beyond material rewards (and not that gurus themselves can’t also acquire wealth and fame). It is not unusual even among the rich to find individuals who crave to be heard for their wisdom. However, not many people would think to seek out Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, who is called the “oracle” of Omaha for his auguries about anything other than the affairs of business, and were he to proffer his ideas on the purely mental, natural or supernatural, he would likely be branded a “nut” even though a man of his experience might well have much else to offer about life.
Yet the whole truth about being a guru is not often shared, much like the negative sides of being rich and famous. There are two sides to everything, and it was the downside of guruship that deterred me from embracing it when it was being thrust on me, and my reluctance was due not to modesty but to self-indulgence.
No Guru 