guru

I just had a conversation with someone that always challenges me..love him dearly but sometimes I just want to strangle him, of course this is said with love...
He always make me think, always pushing me to better myself, throws me some challenges, and in the years I've known him, I consider him a very important person in my life, a teacher an upa guru is what I call him.

Now the guru is one, but the upa-guru can be many, from whom anything is learned.
Guru itself is defined as:
Gu-like goo-darkness
Ru-light
Out of darkness into the light

The true guru is god himself, the human guru is an instrument of himself. In the beginning we can have many teachers on our path for self-realization and if we are earnest disciples we might be lucky enough to meet a Sat Guru.

A Sat Guru is the man or woman of God, an instrument of the Lord, who will quicken the enlightening process. He or she enables you, the seeker, to overcome your ego and delusion — not only gaining realization of higher consciousness but enabling you to live in higher consciousness.

It's said that no book, however noble, is a substitute for the guru. And my upa-guru today remind me that "information is useless without experience" and though I love to read all about yoga and all it's components, (and that will never change).
I will try and do what he asked of me today. It was for one month to do 10 rounds of Japa...I'll let you know how that goes.
Om Namah Sivaya