What is the importance of having a Guru?

Babaji:
Once somebody asked this question to my Guru. He said, “Just like a just-born baby needs a mother.” That type of relationship.

The very literal meaning of Guru means, 'the one who dispels the darkness of ignorance.' So that's how in our culture such an importance is given to Guru. It is the Guru who teaches about the Truth. He gives the technique, He shows the path, He inspires and He motivates the person, 'go for this, you can overcome this ignorance. You can achieve this, you can achieve the Divinity, you can achieve this peace, you can know about yourself. This Truth is there.' So that is the essence of a Guru.

A Guru-disciple relationship is very much recommended. Also to have a reverence to the Guru is very important. That's when I told, you can become serious and you will understand the need and then you will go for that.

The first time I heard from my mother about the Guru, how it is taught in our culture, she used to tell, “Even if God gets annoyed a Guru can protect you. But if a Guru gets annoyed, no God can protect you.” That had an impact on my childhood mind. I developed such an attachment and understood the importance of the Guru.

There is a Saint Kabirdas who was a Self Realized soul who lived more than four hundred years ago in India. He has composed a song telling, “If both Guru and God comes in front of me for a while the mind is slightly confused 'to whom should I prostrate first? Is Guru great or God great?'” God is great of course, He is the Supreme Being, however the mind coming out of that confusion tells again, “Oh Guru, let me prostrate to you, my Lord, to you first because it is YOU who told me about God. You are the first important for me, so I love you.”

So that's what Saint Kabirdas tells, so these are some of the points of the importance of having a Guru.