Guru Poornima being observed today
Posted on: 22/Jul/2013 12:45:55 PM
Today is Guru Poornima or Teacher´s Day, the day when students pay respects to their teachers for enlightening them.
The day is also commemorated and celebrated by Hindus as the birth anniversary of Vedvyas, the author of great epics like the Mahabharata, Srimadbhagwat, Athara Purans and Bishnu Sahasranama.
As per Hindu values, people senior with age, knowledge, strength and experience are regarded as teachers while father, mother, maternal uncle, father-in-law, grandfather, great-grandfather, Brahmins and uncle are also respected as teachers.
The Role of the Guru
Swami Sivananda asks: "Do you realize now the sacred significance and the supreme importance of the Guru`s role in the evolution of man? It was not without reason that the India of the past carefully tended and kept alive the lamp of Guru-Tattva. It is therefore not without reason that India, year after year, age after age, commemorates anew this ancient concept of the Guru, adores it and pays homage to it again and again, and thereby re-affirms its belief and allegiance to it. For, the true Indian knows that the Guru is the only guarantee for the individual to transcend the bondage of sorrow and death, and experience the Consciousness of the Reality."
