Guru Purnima

Today the full moon looks the biggest among all the full moons of the year. This is because at this time the earth and the moon are closer so as we look at the moon in the sky it looks bigger than usual. In the tradition that I follow on this night we celebrate the Guru or spiritual teacher. I met my teacher in 1996 during a Meditation retreat weekend I was attending at the Masonic Center in Pasadena, California. I decided to attend because I thought it would be a great way to spend a relaxed weekend. Little did I know that life would take a turn I had not even thought was possible or existed. In some many ways the world was still the same and yet so different after that weekend. I still contemplate every now and then how things shifted on that day and continue to shift to this day.

I am forever grateful to my teacher for the knowledge, wisdom, and experiences I was offered on that day. Gratitude, Love, and Respect is what I feel for my teacher, specially today. In the yoga scriptures it is said that the debt that we incur towards our spiritual teachers cannot be repaid. So what we do is to learn, study, practice, and apply the knowledge we are given. We make this knowledge our own and find out its true worth.

At a different level the Guru is not necessarily a person but actually a principle, the Guru Principle. In that sense life and this whole universe becomes the Guru, the teacher, for each and everyone of us. What are we learning? The ultimate lesson: To Know ourselves. This all encompassing Principle is what we remember today.

I look forward to seeing you in class

Blessings

Jorge Nihāl