The Song of the Guru

The Guru Gita, literally, The Song of the Guru, is a dialogue between the god, Shiva, and his beloved wife, Parvati. Shiva is depicted as the eternal, archetypal yogi and the primal guru, the fountainhead of yogic teachings. Parvati represents the Divine Mother, Nature as the feminine force of power and beauty. From the personal perspective, the guru is a human being who teaches. She has two arms, two legs, and all of the physical traits of any other mortal. From the transcendent level, the external teacher is but a channel for guru tattva, the essence of guru-hood, whose job is to awaken the student to the truth revealed by his own inner guru. To appreciate the teachings of the Guru Gita, the aspirant must be willing to entertain the tension of holding both the personal and transcendent paradigms in consciousness. Neither is to be accepted at the expense of rejecting the other. The friction created by holding opposites in the psyche generates an energy which will lift the student to a higher level of consciousness if he remains earnest.