Almost all Indians acknowledge the importance of teacher, and often place them even above God. They learn the following couplet by Saint Kabir in our schools.
Hindi Original
“Guru Govind dou khade, kaake laagoon paye
Balihari guru aapki, Govind diyo milaye.”
English Translation
Who should I bow to first if I face God and my Guru?
I bow to my Guru first because he has introduced me to God.
The above Doha states that the place of Guru is higher because the Guru has told me about God.
This couplet is the favourite quote of all teachers, particularly spiritual teachers, who use it to elevate themselves to an exalted position, which is even higher than God.
Millions of people, including top politicians, businessmen, and educated people, worship these Gurus like God, and quite often these Gurus exploit their trust to acquire huge wealth and enormous power.
Who is more important: Guru or God?
If we think rationally, God can’t be more important than Guru because THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTANCE OF GOD.
How can a nonexistent being become superior to an existing person?
Yet, in reality, billions of people worldwide believe in God.
So, the question arises: ‘How can so many people believe in the nonexistent God?’
The credit goes to GURU, who exist in the world in multiple manifestations, such as religious leaders, sadgurus, prophets, saints, rishis, and yogis, who claim to listen to the voice of God.
Since Gurus claimed to have a direct connection with God, they convinced humanity that what they thought was coming directly from God, so they must be obeyed unconditionally.
Most Gurus ask disciples or followers not to apply their minds and develop independent thinking but instead to follow the words of the Gurus as the words of God.
As a result, Indians, who placed the Guru above God, failed to develop independent thinking as they could not defy their Guru and challenge their knowledge.
The last independent thinker in India was perhaps Gautam Buddha, who developed his independent philosophy. Everybody else kept parroting the philosophy of the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, or Puranas as the ultimate truth, which could never be challenged or proven wrong.
It is no wonder that Indians have performed so poorly in creating new knowledge for centuries, and they still have to rely on the knowledge created by scholars and thinkers thousands of years ago.
If we want Indias to become a global leader in knowledge creation (Vishwa Guru), they have to discard its reliance on God and the religious Scriptures (the so-called words of God) and stop treating the Guru as God.
If we wish to discover truth and acquire true knowledge, we must develop independent minds through critical thinking and keep God and Gurus out of our learning paths.
