What is a guru? A guru is a teacher, and a master. I have openly spoken about my coaches in the past, I have a life coach, a spiritual coach and a business coach so why not speak about my other teacher?

I grew up in Bangladesh and India and in the west as well, the word Guru is used as a teacher. The first time I heard the word used in a way that was more special than just any teacher was in a yoga class. I go to Triyoga in London, an amazing yoga studio and this one time the teacher was talking about her guru saying how he came to her in a dream while she was in hospital recovering from something serious. I heard this and was like “Aaah, weird. Whatever lady!” The second time I heard of a serious guru was in the book Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert said that the moment she saw the picture of this woman, she was drawn to her and eventually accepted her as her guru. She hadn’t even met her yet and she did this. That didn’t sound right to me either.

Then, through my meditation class, as you guys know, I am very hardcore about my meditation because it has changed my life, anyway, the person who has given the meditation techniques in Atma Kriya meditation yoga, which I practice, is a guru. His name is Premavatar Sri Swami Vishwananda and you can learn about him on this site. For me it wasn’t easy. In fact, it took me 4 months to be ready to call him my guru and commit myself as his disciple and it was an intense learning process.

What I learnt from this is humility. We as human beings, and especially as women in the post-feminist era, find it really hard to put someone else above us. It was really hard for me to accept that this person, a guru, was smarter than me in every which way possible, wiser than me, more loving than me. It was really hard to put him above me. But I eventually did and now I have a spiritual guidance in my life beyond anything I had ever imagined.

Now, can I ask you?

So, I want to ask you now, can you think of anyone you respect more than yourself? This is going to be very hard to answer as it goes against our current human instinct.

How can you [themecolor]harness your humility?[/themecolor] What is one thing you can do that will make you feel humble? Not just something that will make someone else say “Oh look at her, she is doing something charitable, she is so humble.” What is one thing you can do that will piss your own ego off? Think about it and find a way to do it within the next 2 days. Let me know in the comments what your act was and how it made you feel. I bet it will make you feel good.