Amma’s senior-most disciple, Swami Amritaswarupananda, explains why Guru Purnima is the most sacred day in the Indian calendar.
“Religious texts of all faiths present God as the embodiment of compassion, love, selflessness and other noble qualities. But is it possible to speak with God? Can that Divinity be seen, touched, felt and experienced?
It can be — in and through the perfected spiritual masters.
Permanently established in the state of oneness with the Divine — the unalterable truth of existence — they verily are God, the extraordinary, in an ordinary human form. It is through associating with and observing them that we come to tangibly understand that God exists. It is through them, that we come to behold God’s glory, feel God’s power and experience God’s beauty. Thus, it is the Guru who serves as the bridge — a link between the world of name and form and the nameless and formless Supreme Being. That bridge takes us to God ourselves. Therefore, even though the calendar of Sanātana Dharma is a continuous succession of religious and spiritual observances, for the disciple, the most sacred is Guru Pūrṇima.”
