Head of the Guru

As she drinks her milk bottle, baby Ajuni keeps looking at the Guru’s picture, across from her on a shelf. Her mother and my wife, Sukriti, appears moved by this sight, evidently drawing a spiritual conclusion from this display of spontaneous interest, whereas I, noticing that the upper part of the picture presents a perfectly round, white skull on a black background, make a comment about high contrast pictures attracting, as is well known, a baby’s gaze. For that, I receive a look of silent disapproval from Sukriti, as this isn’t the first time that I smile at the small miracles of her quotidian, which she interprets as disrespectful and inherently cynical, disbelieving of me. Yet, think I:

That there be, as her reaction seems to presume, a contradiction between the material realm (the visual abilities of a newborn and the characteristics of an image) and the spiritual (to muse that one’s baby is spontaneously attracted by that which one worships), that would be the sad thing! That a rational explanation contradict our miracle or, on the contrary, that to enjoy the wonders of the spirit one have to disavow reason, and all hope is lost.

That the divine incarnate materially, it’s at least amusing. This person that she considers as being “God”, which we must accept in principle as a spiritual belief, this person has indeed existed as a human being, with all the humility of the flesh (having sometimes an itchy butt, etc.). It isn’t negating the former to assert the latter, and if it deserves a reaction, rather than indignation I would suggest a smile: if we have a notion of God, that he sometimes be human, completely human, is pretty funny (unless one sticks crosses everywhere, which isn’t the case here). I like to think that he would smile at it also.

More seriously, an absence of separation between, in this case: 1) the fact that this baby, exposed for the first time to this image, in the arms of her mother who venerates it, pays it noticeable attention; and 2) the fact that this image possess specific visual characteristics, certainly intended by the photographer who (as this is a picture signed and gifted by the Guru) was part of the efferent religious organization, characteristics which attract the gaze of a newborn and, differently, of adults (I have also observed it more than once, as this skull, extending from the features of the Guru’s face, becomes a rather primordial, geometrical image, a white half-circle on a black background); this absence of separation would precisely be what is meant by an incarnation of the divine. A complete correspondence, in reality, between two aspects that are only separated by analysis (and this distinction, the fruit of a forbidden fruit, may cause regret): this is faith, and it works pretty well as long as the analysis isn’t false (although it is preferable to direct one’s thoughts, rather than to analysis, toward imaginative domains where true and false don’t exist), and as long as the aforementioned religious organization does not excessively consist in mercantile manipulation (even if there is some “staging” of the object of veneration, as long as it aims to help a spiritual approach, rather than controlling or exploiting individuals).

It still remains that this notion of a “man-God”, the incarnation of the divine in a man made of flesh and blood, entails a vast cultural incomprehension. Not that, ironically, it were at all foreign to my Christian culture, but because for the past two thousand years, Jesus’s disciples have fiercely maintained that he was the only one (which in itself, from the point of view of professional gurus, is quite impressive as far as post mortem performances go). Jews, while promoting the possibility of such an event, consider that it hasn’t happened yet. We live in a definite scarcity of divinity, over here, in spite of these prophets that are a bit godly, but not all the way; whereas in India, the abundance of avatars (which are punctual incarnations of multiple gods, themselves facets or reiterations of the same God, in a summarized Hinduism, obviously much more complex in reality) may seem to us a bit excessive, raising doubts as to their authenticity… Which is rather funny, as from their point of view, the admiration that we have for Jesus is manifestly exaggerated, as miracles like his are so frequent to be almost common, and the divine nature of some extremely “accomplished” individuals is uncontested and obvious… So, it is a quite reciprocal incomprehension!

But that God be in each of us, it is an easier idea to accept (as long as the notion of “God” makes sense to us; but every spiritualism, every recognition of a “shared humanity”, of a “person” worthy of respect, etc., also “exists in each of us”). We wouldn’t quite know how to quantify this presence, but can easily conceive that some of us, saints, “charismatic” celebrities, deserve a qualitative, superior designation. This does not make them “God”: the “pure” divinity remains of another realm, “beyond”, after death or an apocalyptic reconciliation in which we would all partake, even those of us who are not saints. Since “we live only once”, well, we wait for the end. You see what I’m hinting at… With reincarnation (the idea of successive lives) the obvious limitations of our present existence do not preclude the next one from being better, and the next one. If God is a little bit in each of us, but not completely, and if it seems impossible to reach him entirely in one lifetime from where we currently are (which most of us might think of ourselves), we can still try to make some progress, as much as we can, and in the next life we will start closer, and make more progress, and in time, sooner or later the perspective of entirely joining in (“becoming”) God is conceivable.

And as the world is very old, logically there are some among us have already reached that stage, and we honor them for it. They are our “gurus”, entirely human but also, in the process of their current incarnation, which is their last, reaching into the entirely divine. Having realized that, they use their remaining time to help each of us in our own progression, before retreating from the cycle of existence. There is not “scientific truth” to this: we cannot confirm or demonstrate the relation to the divine of our Guru, we can only, if we feel this relation to be relevant to our own heart, put our faith in it. Someone else will see God somewhere else; that is fine; some may be wrong or wronged, as fake prophets also exist; but that doesn’t change the heart of the matter, the possibility of that genuine process.

We honor those among us who we perceive to have reached this state of attaining the divine, and we think and decide which models to apply for ourselves. Personally, I think I’ll need at least one more life to reconcile my inner divinity and my outer existence. Unless I can reach it in this life, who knows, that’s anyways an encouraging idea: if I don’t make it before dying, I’ll have a head start in the next class. And in that hope of mine, there is all the more veneration for those who have made it, and all the more recognition of God in everyone.