On the occasion of Guru Poornima a Hindu festival dedicated to spiritual and academic teachers, celebrated on full moon day (Purnima) in the Hindu month of Ashadha (June–July), here is a parable [there are several translations/versions], copied [but annotated/abbreviated here and there] from an external link :
Twenty Four Gurus [ from the Srimad Bhagavatam]
Once King Yadu saw Lord Dattatreya (Avadhoot) in a forest and asked "Sir, you are indeed quite capable, energetic and wise. Such as you are, why do you live in the forest, free from all desires? Even though you have neither kith and kin nor even a family, how are you so blissful and self-contented?"
The Avadhoot (one who has shaken off all worldly desires) replied, "My bliss and contentment are the fruits of self-realization. I have gained the necessary wisdom from the whole creation, through 24 Gurus. I shall elaborate the same for you...many are my preceptors selected by my keen sense, from whom acquiring wisdom freely, I wander in the world.... The earth, air, sky, fire, the sun, pigeon, python, sea, moth, elephant, ant, fish, prostitute, arrow-maker, child, moon, honeybee, deer, bird of prey, young girl, serpent, spider, caterpillar and water are my twenty four preceptors.
1. Earth: All creatures, in accordance with their previous store of karma (action) assume different physical forms and live on earth. People plough, dig and tread the earth. They light fires on it. Still, the earth does not swerve from its course even by a hair's breadth. On the other hand, it feeds and houses all creatures. Seeing this, I learned that the wise one should never swerve from his vow of patience, love and righteousness under any circumstances and one should dedicate his life for the welfare of living beings. The earth along with its mountains and rivers is my guru.
2. Air: I observed that air is pure and odorless in itself. Though it momentarily seems to take on the smell of its surroundings, in a short while, it reveals its pristine quality. From this I learned that a spiritual aspirant should live in the world, unaffected by the dualities of life like joy and sorrow and by the objects of the senses. He should keep his heart's feeling and his speech unpolluted by vain objects. As I have learned all this by observing it, air is my second guru.
3. Sky: The soul is also like the sky, which is omnipresent. Sometimes the sky gets thickly overcast, or filled with dust or smoke. At sunrise and during night, it apparently takes on different colors. But in fact, it ever retains its colorless self, and it is never touched or stained by any thing. A true sage should remain ever pure like the sky or space, untouched or unaffected by anything in the phenomenal universe in time, including his own physical processes. His inner being is totally free from emotional reaction to things and events even like the space. Thus I accepted the sky or space as my guru.
4. Fire: My teacher is the element of fire. Sometimes blazing , sometimes smoldering covered by ash but always present as latent heat. Fire accepts the offering of all, irrespective of moral worth and burns down sins; and it still remains the ever-pure divinity as the fire-god; untainted. So too, a sage of perfect realization accepts offerings of everyone, burns down his sins and blesses the giver. Though fire has no specific form of its own, when it is associated with fuel that burns, it assumes such apparent forms. So too, the true Self, though formless in itself, appears in the forms of deities, human beings, animals and trees when it is associated with the respective physical structures. The source of all forms in the universe, as also their end, remains ever mysterious. All the things are manifest only in between their origin and their end. Their source and end is the true Self, which is eternal, unchanging, unmanifest and omnipresent. The manifest fire transforms the various things it consumes into the same ash. So too, the wisdom of self-realization sees the manifest forms and properties of things as illusion and realizes their one original essence as itself.
