Stewie - a Guru does not attract 250,000 "young gurus" to his meetings. The word Guru means a fully developed spiritual teacher, one who has achieved Self-realization. There are a tiny number of such people in this world at any given time. If there were 250,000 of them in the world, the world as we know it would be transformed beyond anything most of us can presently imagine. The word "Guru" means "dark-light"...e.g. the light that shines in the darkness. (Generally, I might add, the darkness does not comprehend it at all...if it even notices it...the dark is generally far too busy accumulating money and seeking worldly gains of one kind or another...or satisfying basic physical desires. Those are the things the ego just naturally does. Not that it's evil, it's just very limited in its viewpoint.)

Hence, a Guru does not attract young gurus, he attracts spiritual seekers, spiritual students, that type of thing. In time, through study and discipline, a tiny handful of those people attain to the point where they themselves can be termed a "guru". I'd say less than 1/100 of 1 per cent of them make it that far in a given lifetime, which is not to say that the others are wasting their time, as long as they progress part way along the path. Any progress is still progress and will not be wasted or lost.

The Indian tradition regards the life of the soul as eternal, although physical life is transitory. The soul returns again and again to physical existence until it attains Self-realization (God made real in an individual consciousness...the original Self that lies beneath the outer temporary ego brought forth into full conscious awareness and expression...the Divine fully manifested in a living being...those are ways of expressing it).

A follower of a guru can be termed a Sadhak (spiritual seeker, worker and student)...but he is not himself a guru at that point.

I've met exactly one fully fledged guru in my whole life so far, among the uncountable thousands of people who have crossed my path...and I've met a handful of people who were clearly progressing reasonably well toward a higher consciousness, but had a way still to go.

And, yes, there are some phony gurus out there, just like there's counterfeit money out there. I've heard of more than a few of those and I've seen how they misuse their influence on the credulous who follow them.

Like I said, I've met exactly one real one. How did I know he was real? It was plainly obvious. Period.

- LH