On the spiritual level, you ought to be willing to acknowledge that in essence we are energy. Physics proves this: at the core, matter is only energy; our bodies are literally made up of states of energy at the most fundamental level.
Part of this energy holds us together as physical things. It bonds our atoms into molecules, organizes the molecules into elaborate structures, and through these structures flows other molecules that we use for physical energy.
Another part of this energy organizes us into sentient beings. The nature of this part has not been described by science yet. But we commonly refer to it as the soul or the spirit. It is the part with which we identify as individuals, and which makes each of us unique.
While there are many ways to observe this energy, the most useful is to conceptualize it as a set of chakras or energy centers. They are self-evident, and are easy to feel if you look for them. Discovering your chakras is just like discovering how to flex a muscle you never worked out before. There are many of them, with the seven main ones beginning near the base of your spine and ending just above the top of your head. This last one, the crown chakra, is actually not inside of you, but is just beyond your physical body.
A guru can help you align your seven chakras so they are working in optimal harmony. This is the ultimate aim of any spiritual practice: to clarify and open your energy body so that energy flows through you with complete ease. It is a state of Zen concentration, or a state of Christian grace.
When an aspirant turns to a guru, the guru overtly tells him that this is what he will help him do. What he doesn't tell he aspirant is that he will do it by aligning the aspirant's energy not only within himself, but also with his own energy. When the aspirant is perfectly aligned with himself, he is also perfectly aligned with the guru.
The resonance or attachment between the guru's energy and the aspirant's energy forms the guru cord. It attaches at the crown chakra.
The aspirant gives up something of himself to become part of this guru cord. And this alignment can last more than one lifetime -- it can last millennium. The guru becomes his master in the energy realm. The guru can help him maintain his alignment from afar. He can even help the aspirant maintain alignment from beyond the grave.
The guru can also try to force the aspirant to remain aligned with him. He can sort of "whip" the cord to snap him back into alignment should he stray -- or should he attempt to disconnect.
When you see people begging their guru for grace, this is what is happening on the energy level. The aspirant wants the guru to strengthen and maintain the cord forever, and the guru happily complies. The aspirant will feel this affinity as love, or enlightenment, or grace, or any number of positive things. Often, the aspirant believes he needs the guru to feel any sort of grace or love or peace at all.
Which brings us to the psychological part. An insidious and evil aspect of most any religion is that it can make the aspirant into a beggar. Since the aspirant is convinced that he needs the guru to attain a state of grace, he begs for it. He begs for help on this energy level, and he becomes dependent on the guru's beneficence.
A psychological state of dependence and begging is not natural and it is certainly not optimal. But most of us have been there.
As soon as we find an outside source that can have this seemingly positive influence upon us, we grab onto it and feed hungrily, like an infant at its mother's breast. That image has been used since the beginning of time to symbolize the guru cord relationship.
As a dependent beggar, the aspirant becomes a servant. He needs his master, and so he will serve his master. Why is it that so many of the gurus end up owning everything their aspirants once owned? Why will people work for them for nothing? It is because he has placed them in a state of servitude.
Within a short span of time, this may seem innocuous. The aspirant does, after all, have a sense of clarity and energy alignment while he is attached to the guru cord. So what if the guru gains power over him? So what if the aspirant must use the guru to overcome his own shortcomings or fears?
On a longer time scale, what becomes apparent is that the aspirant's vision of the cosmos places the guru at the center. The aspirant is no longer free to see the big picture as it actually is. He sees it only through the support and assistance of the guru.
Should the aspirant realize this and decide to decouple from the guru, the guru cord can be used to punish him. Whatever drove him into the guru's presence in the first place -- an addiction, repeated failures, a desperate need for love, a feeling of isolation from the divine -- whatever it was, it comes back. And when it comes back, it is much worse than it was before.
Now that the aspirant has been attached to the guru cord, the guru can use it to disrupt his attempts to go it on his own. The guru can prevent him from aligning his energy. Even when the aspirant thinks he has escaped, he can be wrong, and the guru will enter his life forcefully when he least expects it.
I've been through this. For some reason, when I was a teenager I decided to break the guru cord between myself and the Catholic Church -- a guru cord that I suspect I was born with.
It has taken my whole life. All of it. Enormous amounts of time and energy and suffering. But it has been a worth while task.
Only those who are free of the guru cord can complete their true, most profound spiritual awakening. One can not become fully aware when that awareness is tempered by a guru.
Each of us is perfectly capable of pure spiritual awareness. By its very nature, our energy body enables each of us to experience that state of awareness.
But it can be experienced only when an individual connects with the cosmos directly. An intermediary guru is not needed. In fact, any guru who attempts to insert himself between you and the cosmos ultimately hs his own interests at hart -- not yours.
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