Today is the sacred day of Guru Purnima, the full moon dedicated to the guru, to the one who dispels the darkness of ignorance and illusion in our lives and shows us the light, the light of our true self and the light of the path we need to walk. As I thought about what best to share today, I thought I would highlight a few of the core teachings I have been given by Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, my guru, over these miraculous 30 years as they are not only for me, but they are for us all.

It doesn’t matter whether Pujya Swamiji is your guru or not, or whether you even subscribe to the Sanatana Dharma tradition, or any religious tradition. These are lessons that take us to truth from falsehood, to freedom from bondage, to light from darkness, to wisdom from ignorance, and toward an end of suffering from being mired in suffering.

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They are all very simple, but not easy! But don’t worry, you can start with one of them and just allow it to be your intention and attention each day. Then add on a second one, and so on.

Lesson One: I am not a pen.

One of my very first lessons came when Pujya Swamiji told me that I was not a pen.

I laughed.

He smiled and said, “You laugh because you know you are not a pen. But you also are not your body, your history, your emotions, your thoughts or your story. You are no more any of those things than you are a pen.”

It was such a simple teaching, yet it contained one of the deepest truths of Vedanta. We spend so much of our lives identifying with the experiences we’ve had, the labels we’ve been given and the stories we tell ourselves. Pujya Swamiji showed me that none of those things are who we truly are.

He explained that just as I could so easily recognise that I wasn’t a pen, I could learn to recognise that I wasn’t the body or mind either. My body is mine, but it isn’t me. My thoughts, emotions and memories arise within me, but they are not my identity. The moment we stop confusing ourselves with the temporary objects of our experience, we begin to discover the unchanging Self that Vedanta points us toward.

Lesson Two: Only I can decide whether to hold onto pain or let it go.

He once sent me into the sacred waters of Mother Ganga with a simple instruction: offer Her all of my anger and pain.

He explained that the choice was entirely mine. I could carry that anger and pain with me for the rest of my life, all the way to my deathbed, or I could surrender it in that very moment. No one else was going to make that decision for me. No one was going to draw the line. The only person who could choose freedom was me.

That teaching changed the way I understood healing forever.

I thought his instruction sounded almost absurd. How could I simply give years of pain to a river? Yet I had promised myself to keep my heart open, so I walked into Mother Ganga, cupped Her water in my hands and offered Her my fear, my anger and every memory that had bound me. Standing in Her waters, I found not only the capacity to forgive, but the freedom that comes when we stop identifying with our suffering. The memories remained, but they were no longer me.

Lesson Three: Service is the highest path.

Pujya Swamiji taught me that service is not only one of the highest actions we can perform, but also the clearest and fastest path to the joy, peace, meaning and purpose we are all seeking.

Through his teachings and, even more importantly, through his example, the focus of my life shifted from asking, “What for me?” to asking, “What through me?” That one shift has changed everything.

Pujya Swamiji taught that seva is not something we do because people need our help. It is something we do because we need it. Service purifies the heart, dissolves the ego and reminds us that we are not separate from one another. Every act, no matter how small, becomes an opportunity to serve the Divine in all beings. It is not about changing the world through our own power, but allowing ourselves to become instruments through which love, compassion and grace can flow.

Lesson Four: Our drama is neither important nor interesting.

As anyone who has ever tried to bring a story of drama to Pujya Swamiji knows, he’s simply not interested.

I cannot tell you the number of times I tried to engage him in some emotional drama of my current mental or emotional situation. He who is truly an ocean of compassion literally looks so bored that I can’t even finish the story! In the beginning I felt insulted before I realized that his disinterest was, in and of itself, a powerful teaching of what is important, and what is not. Through refusing to engage in the dramatic vacillations of my ego self (who can be quite a drama queen) he modeled how I should also be less interested, less attached, less distracted.

He doesn’t want to spend time hearing the gossip, replaying the story or feeding the drama. Instead, he gently but firmly reminds us that we are not the role. We are the Soul.

Again and again, he brings us back to what is real and invites us to stop identifying with the passing drama of life. We must play our roles – fully and sincerely – but not identify with them and certainly not get wrapped up in the drama!

Lesson Five: Trust yourself.

When Pujya Swamiji first started putting me on stages, handing me the microphone and asking me to answer questions in satsang, I thought there was no way I could do it. I felt insecure, unworthy and completely unqualified.

Over the years, I have come to understand that it isn’t about the small-s self. It isn’t my personality or ego to whom he was entrusting the mike or the stage. It was my capital-S Self. He was teaching me to trust the Divine flow, to empty myself and allow Grace to flow through me, not from me. For 30 years my daily prayer has remained the same: Oh God, empty me. Empty me of everything I think I am. Everything I think I need. Everything I think I know. Empty me so that I may be a clear channel for Your Grace to flow. When I empty myself of ego, of the story and of the drama, Grace flows naturally, and the greatest miracles manifest through me.

These are only five of the countless teachings Pujya Swamiji has given me over the years. Every day his very presence continues to be a lesson, an invitation to grow, to serve, to love more deeply and to remember the Truth of who I really am.

Today as we celebrate Guru Purnima, the sacred full moon, let us remember that the moon has actually no light of her own. She is a lightless piece of rock in the atmosphere. BUT through her exquisite alignment between the sun and the earth, she is able to reflect the light of the sun onto the earth, to bring clarity, safety, direction and beauty to us all. She doesn’t need to manufacture light. She just has to get in alignment. In the same way, on this sacred day, ask yourself: How can I get in better alignment? How can I come back into humble alignment with the light of the Divine so that I, like the moon, can reflect that light onto all those around me and be a light for this world!

So, so much love to you all on this very sacred day. May we all come into holy alignment like the full moon, so that we too can be instruments of reflection of divine light onto the world.