If you want to discern your dharma, kartavya and sadhana with respect to the guru, you have to first identify the kind of relationship you wish to cultivate with the guru. You cannot be an aarta or artharthi and expect moksha. You cannot be a jignasu and mumukshu and expect artha.
First decide, don’t be confused in your mind. You have to realize and understand what type of a person you are and what you are seeking. That will define your relationship with the guru. If you are searching for spiritual awareness and enlightenment, then your relationship, connection and association with the guru must reflect only that. Don’t try to mix both, don’t try to mix the husbandwife principle and the gurudisciple principle together.
The guru is nobody’s husband, wife, friend or counsellor. Guru is guru only. The well contains water and we have to extract the water from the well. How much water we are able to pull out depends on the size of the container that we put in. If you put one glass in the well, you will get one glass of water only. If you put in a bucket, you will get one bucket of water.
So, don’t confuse the relationship with the guru thinking that you will go this way and also get that in the meantime. That is why guru - disciple relationships do not succeed. Many people become disciples, but are they successful? No. Only those who are true to their commitment and path no matter to which category they belong, are successful.
Paupers have become emperors through the grace of guru, but the track has to be clear. The thought and idea has to be clear. The guru is not a counsellor. When the guru observes or instructs something, he is not looking at your present situation; his vision goes beyond that.
I know many people who have followed the instructions of Sri Swamiji and prospered in life, and many people who have questioned Sri Swamiji’s advice have regressed in life. Whether they progressed or regressed was determined by the clarity of their intentions. If the intention is clear, progress cannot be challenged.
But if there is confusion in your own mind – if you want to be spiritually awakened and at the same time follow the external, material path, combine that with this and call it yoga of synthesis or yoga of integration – that is not going to work.
Ultimately, what makes your prayers and connection work is the power of your intention and sankalpa.
From the book “Dharma of a Disciple, Yogadrishti Series”, pg. 30-31, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati