Resonance between Guru and disciple

“When the quality of resonance occurs between two objects”, writes Ramesh Balsekar, “the Guru (God, Consciousness, Source) is made experiential for the disciple. We can say that the Guru arises or is made manifest out of this resonance. How the disciple experiences this is as varied as are the personalities and natures of the disciples themselves. And it is a curious fact that the way this resonance is experienced by a disciple is often in direct contrast to his general nature… such that disciples, who are intellectual by nature, suddenly find themselves filled with love and that disciples who are usually very emotional may find themselves intensely interested in the structure and content of the Teaching.”

In other words, as the relationship between the Guru and the disciple progresses, a transition occurs from the head to the heart. The intellect gives way to intense love. Spirituality is then transformed from intellectual cerebration to lived experience. And love is central to that experience.

According to one writer, this concept of resonance is useful in explaining how it is possible for you to be so deeply moved by Ramesh’s presence and yet when you bring a friend to see him, your friend fidgets and looks at his watch willing the clock hand to move so that he may be relieved of the torture. In the absence of resonance, there is no experience of Guru or Grace.

There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, writes Ramesh, where the Lord says: is it not astonishing that only a rare one will show any interest in this (great philosophy of Unicity). Is it not a matter of further astonishment that (among the few who have studied and deeply understood the philosophy) hardly anyone would speak on the subject and almost none to hear it, let alone someone who would not only apperceive it but actually experience it in practice?

Ramesh says: “What is the attitude of the seeker in search of a Guru? The answer would seem to be astonishingly simple: all he needs do is to know that the human being has no separate existence other than as a part of the total manifestation.