The following are the some signs of a True Master not in any particular order:
1. When you see the Master, you almost have a feeling from inside that he/she is your Master. This feeling can either be immediate or may take some time to naturally develop without external coaxing and coercion. There will be some who will fanatically hate and religiously avoid the master as they will not be able to withstand his or her Aura and Absolute standpoint.
2. Healing happens in the presence of a true Master through the power of the Divine. Understand that. Even a brief contact with a True Guru on an unrelated topic will heal you in some aspects based on you present spiritual condition. You will suddenly or gradually realize that certain aspects of your life have automatically healed and or have begun to heal. You will start evolving as a person.
3. Knowledge is directly transmitted to the receptive (initiate). You will experience tiny buds of new realization (wisdom) unfolding in your mind. Sometimes you will wonder, “Where did this thought come from?” Most likely it came from the continuous spiritual transmission of the Master to the receptive initiate or seeker. A True Master reveals new teachings that are original and in line with the times.
4. And then there are the experiences! After initiations and sincere practice and constant remembrance of the Divine, you will go through these internal and external experiences (not in specific order and not in the same combination) - calmness (almost as if an exam is over), aspects of your life stabilizing, sense of security and protection and a renewed purpose. Events both small and big will happen around you that will bring you back to your faith when you start to despair. You will feel vibrations, goose bumps, heat or cold in different areas of your body and around you especially during the spiritual practice. You will feel the energy moving through your hands when you do healing. Almost as if your heart and hands are pipes through which God’s love is flowing. The feeling will be unexplainable. When the chakras are healed, the advanced feeling is that of a cool energy almost like a breeze going through that body area. As soon as one cycle of healing is over, another cycle of healing will begin. You will be back to the basics many times. Do not give up.
People will unexpectedly come up to you and express the difficulties in their lives to you without any soliciting. Disturbing people will go out of your life or will become aloof and stop bothering you. However, new people will come in your life and help you work out your Karma. Not so easy!
You may get an upset stomach, mild fever, sore throat etc. as the body purifies. If you are on the right track you will feel pain in your back heart chakra. This is required for attachments to be excavated out of your back heart chakra. You may feel pain in other body areas. These will go away. You will hear the sound of “OOOOOOOMMMMM” in the center of your head. It is not tinnitus! You will be able to observe the deeper realms of your mind and will be able to go deeper into who you are. You will see images both demonic and divine. You will see lights of different colors in meditation in your mind’s eye and outside. You will go through layers of emotions – anger, depression, boredom, excitement etc. - but let them pass. You will discover many more emotions and thoughts that you thought you never had. Sexual desire will be the hardest to overcome as it is the basis for creation. Sexual desire may actually heighten because your dormant creative energy is awakening from ignorance. Exercise caution.
At some blessed point in your journey, there will be a dawn of unconditional (not emotional) love in your heart. This love is spontaneous – almost as if there is an inexhaustible fountain in your heart. You will feel like you are are intoxicated and your eyes will show it – “Buddha eyes”. You will also experience drops of Divine nectar, almost like an elixir, descending from your brain into your heart. Blissful! This is the state of Divine Rapture which is the means and the goal on many religions. When this Love soaks your being and this nectar quenches you, all unnecessary desires are dissolved. Desires that are specifically necessary for creation to continue like survival, ambition, and sexual desire will align back to its natural state like powerful horses bridled by the wisely skilled charioteer.
You will experience the tunnel of the third eye and the Kuthastha (roughly speaking, a tube-like brilliant yet soft illuminating light of consciousness surrounding the blue circle of pure essence of individual intelligence). You will see the visions of Krishna, Shiva, Radha, Mary, other Gods and deities and these will become more and more personal and will guide you. During pranayama, as your breath crosses each chakra you will naturally see in your mind’s eye (not forced imagination) deities emerging from each chakra and acknowledging you. Your powers will grow and you will feel that your aura is expanded. Sometimes it will feel as large as your entire house and beyond. People will feel your presence from a distance.
Now, don’t get hung up on experiences. They will come and go away (unless you come to the same point in the next spiral cycle of healing).
If you take rest here, you can enjoy the goodies of health and happiness bestowed by the spiritual techniques. If you do not stop (you are the cargo I hold dear), and desire nothing else but the “Brahm” or the Absolute Itself, then like a wick effect, more and more of your hard Karma will come to the surface. Sufferings and trials will come your way. Don’t let these stop you. Keep moving forward.
You will have to expand yourself to work at the level of the humanity and each time you heal someone, your will receive feedback. Healing a lady who is having trouble getting pregnant will cause pain in your own abdomen. By the same token, this will make you realize how a True Master works. A True Master doesn’t just lecture rhetorically; he silently shares your Karma as directed by the Divine to boost your progress.
After feeling the Divine as vibration, hot or cold, as light bright and colorful, as emotions of philanthropy and charity and love, as various symbols and forms of Krishna, Christ, Shiva – if you do not give up, you will be in tune with the real Divine, the anvil of creation – the eternal peace where there is no movement and the supreme power which pervades everything. This power is felt as a presence which is everywhere and everyone, which surrounds you inside and outside, which is so Loving that it dissolves you, no thoughts enter this area, no concepts, no colors, just pure river-like flow of lightless light which makes you feel its presence through is subtle vibration-less vibration. After realization, you don’t necessarily become physically or intellectually more powerful rather you become finer (from grosser). And when that happens, the need for all power goes away, the will to express goes away, and one is lost, and hence found, in Absolute Love. One who dies in such a state, anchored only in the Absolute, bypasses all the Heavens and stops only at ash of the Absolute - where it all began.
This is just a glimpse of your association with a True Master.
And as the television commercial would say in tiny print, results may vary. I went through ALL of them in the same manner or different variations.
Alternatively, the Divine in cahoots with the Master may choose to bypass your chakras, specifically, your third eye chakra and you may still be completely self-realized without any vision. But a heart full of Love is a must end result.
5. During your spiritual journey there will be a tendency to “coast” or not practice further because your basic needs are answered. This is so because our Karmic blocks delude us to find a comfort zone which stops us from evolving if there is no visible “big” problem in our life. Use your will to propel ahead. Connect again with the Master and you will start progressing further. All said and done, we all have a “Critical Karmic Speed” at which we evolve and it’s hard to change that because it is governed by the “Maha Kaal” or Eternal Time itself.
My apologies to the Divine, the Absolute, and my Guru of any errors in written expression.
“Arise awake and stop not till the goal is reached” — Swami Vivekananda
Warning: please don’t start imagining experiences just because they are written here! And don’t come to Divine Heart Center just for the glamour of spiritual experiences. A magnet however big and powerful it may be, can’t attract wood.