The word ‘Guru’ that has iterated, notoriously, into ‘Goldman’ in contemporary India does not find mention in the oldest spiritual texts of the Vedas. The Vedic precept of salvation was exclusively sacrificial in nature and concept, and it wasn’t until the age of Vedanta or Upanishads (when the focus shifted to Jnana or knowledge as the pre-requisite of ‘moksha’ or liberation of the soul from the cycle of re-birth) did the need of a Guru warrant to impart that eclectic knowledge. The Pauranika and Tantrika schools of thought in AD 300 transformed Guruism into an institutional lineage, doctrinally sectarian and with the advent of Sikhism in the 15th century, the institution of Guru was redefined structurally into a religio-military entity of the Godman.
An existential vacuum pervaded the West with the fall of Christianity and the rise of science and rationalistic epistemology, the principle of acquisition of knowledge and unravelling of truth through rational means and empirical evidence. Though scientific materialism paved the way for rapid human advances and technological progress, this philosophy was grossly inadequate in addressing fundamental metaphysical, moral and spiritual questions of mankind. Human beings were reduced to mere machines, cogs in the wheel of profit-making enterprises where psychology replaced spirituality, economics substituted humanness and feelings were reduced to mere biochemical reactions.
Every human activity was commercialised and dehumanised. Naturally, human beings rebelled against such a mechanistic worldview, and it provided a fertile ground for exporting Guruism to the West as an alternative, a new counterculture. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Swami Prabhupada led this spiritual renaissance in the West in the rebellious 1960s, long after Swami Vivekananda delivered his historic sermon at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, heralding the resurgence of Hindu mysticism and spirituality. The spiritual quest of man was resuscitated, and these Gurus addressed the imperative of creating a new culture.
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