THE WORLD IS THE ULTIMATE GURU
THE WORLD IS THE ULTIMATE GURU
You Are What Is Requested of You
[a 5 to 6-minute read]
After listening to another bout of my complaints, one of my outstanding teachers often repeated the phrase, “The world is your ultimate guru.”
Relating to the world as a guru was a tough training and development assignment for me. But having a renowned teacher, someone who guides philosophical inquiry, life wisdom, and existential questions, if he said something rather than question whether it made sense or not, I took it as a truth that I didn’t understand, that needed to be understood.
He was a sage who taught me abstract ideas to guide my development and deeper understanding of life and self. So, I finally surrendered and engaged with the concept that “the world is the ultimate guru.”
I began with the words themselves, which is the usual way for me to open a consciousness-raising inquiry. Start with the objective, rather than get sucked into the subjective. A koan cannot be solved in the subjective.
What does the word guru mean?
The term "guru" comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "teacher" or "master," but a guru's role extends far beyond instruction. A guru provides a special relationship and a condition that delivers profound spiritual guidance, transformative wisdom, and deep personal growth while nurturing a profound connection between disciple and spiritual truth. Gurus open you to a deeper understanding of yourself, the world, and yes, the cosmos.
Now, after knowing the “who” and the “what” of a guru, I was taken to the next layer, which was understanding the guru's responsibilities.
A guru’s responsibility is to deliver higher wisdom, provide their students with new understanding to navigate both the inner and outer worlds, and help them reach higher levels of consciousness, personal growth, and understanding.
I didn't feel I got any of that from the world, maybe a few select spots and people, but not the rest of the world. It was more of a struggle than ease, flow, and harmony, where things unfold naturally without resistance or difficulty. That was not my experience of the world. Strain, scuffle, scrap, fight, was more my experience.
But my teacher’s teachings always turned out to be both personally and universally true, so I knew I was missing something.
It was difficult for me to comprehend the world, this world, with its pain, hate, suffering, threats, and wars. I also found it challenging to experience the world as my master instructor, a trustworthy guide on my journey of self-realization and awakening. I wanted to escape the world's awfulness, not have it be my teacher.
But as I followed “the world is the ultimate guru,” I began learning its overpowering lessons. One of these critical and transformational lessons was the harshest, most authentic, and most accurate. That lesson taught me the way the world knows me. And maybe that’s much more of the real me.
THE WORLD SPEAKS IN REQUESTS
The world was telling me directly who I am to the world by what was being asked of me. What requests were people making of me? That was the “real-real.” Self-deception has no power here. The world is a highly accurate yet disinterested party, The world is an absolute straight shooter.
You know who you are in the world, not by what you think of yourself, but by the requests made of you. What you are putting out, consciously and unconsciously, is coming straight back at you in the form of requests.
As an aside, an invitation is a weak request, so fold invitations into this conversation.
A request or invitation is the unabashed, bare bones truth about how the world perceives and understands you.
Back long ago, when I was in college, a pre-med requirement was Organic Chemistry. Part of an organic molecule carries its fraternal or its identical twin as part of the constituent molecular makeup. The twin is called an isomorph. There are some isomorphs called enantiomers, which are exact mirror images of each other.
You’re an enantiomer with the world. How the world sees you and what requests are made of you are more of the real you than the one in your head.
Whatever you are putting out into the world, that you is you. There is no rebuttal, argument, justification, or explanation available. It’s your Jack Webb, Dragnet moment: “Just the facts.”
But to hear the lesson as a teaching, you need to own up to the fact that you are causing these responses in the world. If you can’t be “cause” for the way the world sees you, you cannot change to adjust yourself to impact the world’s perception.
When you finally let it sink in and realize you’re the agent responsible for how the world sees you, until then, no real change is possible.
But that’s just what gurus do. They have you see your unvarnished, undiluted, undistorted bedrock truth about yourself. And then you need to decide if you want to change or not.
Yes, the world is the ultimate guru.
CHALLENGE NOT COMMENT
A request reflects not only how others see you, but also a real opportunity to examine how you have positioned yourself to be seen this way.
When someone requests something from you, it is an outward expression of their recognition of your capabilities, worth, and the impact they believe you can have. Not what you think you have.
The nature of the request speaks volumes about how the world views you. So yes, the world is the ultimate guru.
Most posts like this on LinkedIn and Substack ask for “Comments” at the end. As an Elder, I prefer Challenge. My challenge to you is to reflect, consider, investigate, and explore yourself inside the phrase, “the world is the ultimate guru.” Then, comment on what you discovered about yourself.
The lesson is, “The world is the ultimate guru.” It lets you know precisely how you are seen in he world. The world has agreed about who you are, elucidated by the requests made of you.
What requests and invitations do you want but haven’t yet received? What invitations have you not gotten that you think you deserve to receive? What does that say about how the world perceives you? Is that what you want? If not, what do you need to change about yourself?
