Shloka 31
Avadhūta’s Further Teachers: Detachment, Solitude, One-Pointed Meditation, and the Lord as Āśraya
न ह्येकस्माद् गुरोर्ज्ञानं सुस्थिरं स्यात् सुपुष्कलम् । ब्रह्मैतदद्वितीयं वै गीयते बहुधर्षिभि: ॥ ३१ ॥
na hy ekasmād guror jñānaṁ su-sthiraṁ syāt su-puṣkalam brahmaitad advitīyaṁ vai gīyate bahudharṣibhiḥ
ဂုရုတစ်ဦးတည်းထံမှသာ ဉာဏ်ပညာသည် အမြဲတမ်း ခိုင်မာပြီး ပြည့်စုံလာမည်မဟုတ်။ အကြောင်းမှာ ဒုတိယမရှိသော ဗြဟ္မန်တော်ကိုပင် ရှိများက နည်းလမ်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် ချီးမွမ်းဖော်ပြထားကြသောကြောင့် ဖြစ်သည်။
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī comments on this verse as follows. “The statement that one requires many spiritual masters certainly needs explanation, since practically all great saintly persons of the past did not take shelter of many spiritual masters, but rather accepted one. The words gīyate bahudharṣibhiḥ, ‘the Absolute Truth is glorified in many ways by the sages,’ indicate the personal and impersonal understandings of the Absolute Truth. In other words, some sages describe only the Lord’s impersonal effulgence, which is without spiritual variety, whereas others describe the Lord’s manifest form as the Personality of Godhead. Thus, merely by hearing from many different authorities, one cannot actually learn the highest perfection of life. The proliferation of differing spiritual authorities is useful only to counteract the living entities’ tendency to be grossly materialistic. Different spiritual philosophers create faith in the existence of the soul and may be accepted at that level. But as will be clarified in later verses, the spiritual master who ultimately gives perfect knowledge is one.”
FAQs
This verse teaches that firm and complete spiritual understanding may not arise from relying on only one teacher; the wise learn broadly, since the one nondual Truth is expressed in many ways.
In Canto 11, Dattatreya explains his path as an avadhuta who learned from many “gurus” found in nature and life, showing that the one Truth can be realized through diverse sources of instruction.
Seek one’s main spiritual guide with faith, yet deepen understanding by studying scripture, hearing realized devotees, and learning from life’s lessons—integrating all toward steady realization of the Absolute.