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The attitude of deep and genuine veneration of all aspects of creation is underscored in the Indian
tradition. This includes the prayer to the earth goddess every morning upon awakening from sleep, begging
her forgiveness for treading upon her with one’s feet. It is commonly observed that we bow with remorse
before anyone who may be accidentally touched by the foot. Respected guests honour us by bringing into our
homes ‘the dust off their feet!’ Touching someone’s feet is a mark of great respect, which at once prevents
us from giving offence in subsequent interaction. Furthermore, we prostrate before divinity in temples, or
in front of people who raise our consciousness upwards. It is performed in recognition of merit, whether brought by
age and wisdom, through material attainments as the result of superior abilities or just good karma, or
through spiritual attainments. It is thus a transparent display of one’s own modesty and decorum, in
acknowledgment of the fact there is something here that will help raise us to a higher stage of awareness.
My world at Thy feet
The saint poet Meera, devotee of Shri Krishna sings,
I am obsessed by the vision of the guru’s feet. Nothing but the guru’s feet satisfies any longer; the world
is only a dream illusion.
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There are many plausible explanations for the importance of the guru’s feet in spiritual lore, apart from
the obvious body language of surrender and supplication. Some say that because all nerve endings are
attached to the feet, they are very sensitive energised transmitters, grounding the divine interplay of the
cosmic and individual essence in the person of the guru. Whosoever that is fortunate enough to touch the
feet of the realised master in genuine loving surrender, thus gains instant benefit of all the exalted
attainments of the Sadguru. Another explanation is that if the head and feet are considered to be akin to
the electromagnetic north and south poles in the individual, prostration before the guru (or deity) is a
mechanism for the transfer of higher refined energy through the form of the guru into the body of the
devotee, in the nature of recharging of batteries.
At another level, worshipping the guru’s feet has a very important psychological significance, in their very
appearance of inconsequence, as compared to the magnetism and overall charisma of the guru’s personality. To
the extent that gurus are human beings, they are also attendant with human frailties, hardly embodying the
idealised perfection sought by the initiate or devotee. It is well-known that very often the teacher is a
projection of the initiates’s inner need. While the wise Sadguru will be aware of the dynamics of transference
and countertransference in this profoundly transformative relationship pregnant with a world of possibilities,
the devise of charan paduka as an exalted symbol of the guru-disciple relationship itself becomes a
boundary-defining shield for both the guru and disciple.
Just as the guru is a product of the projection of the devotee, and to that extent an illusion, the person
who receives grace from above with the mantle of the exalted guru cast on his shoulders, serves as the channel
for the divine. Very few individuals are wise enough to understand this clear cut distinction between the
human being who is the guru – a person who may himself be a sadhak of higher spiritual aspiration, with
attendant failings – and the exalted position he holds for the betterment of the world. And thus, while
individual gurus may differ in myriad ways, the guru charan paduka in fact represent the higher octave of the
same presence, which is the liberating force of the Absolute, or the grace of the cosmic Shiva-Shakti dynamic.
Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, and all the ancestral gods
Are present in the sacred water which has washed the guru’s feet.
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The main pilgrimage shrine of Dattatreya is in Ganagapur in Karnataka. As in all other shrines of Lord
Dattatreya (Girnar in Gujarat, Narsobachiwadi in Maharashtra), here too, it is the foot imprints of the
archetypal Guru that are offered worship. In Ganagapur, there exists a mountain of ashes from the
‘sky clad’ naked Avadhoot’s eternal fire, burning continually since times immemorial.
Kundalini and guru charan paduka
An oft-repeated axiom in occult lore is, yatha pinde tatha brahmande, meaning, whatever that exists in the
body is also present in a higher form in the universe, and vice versa. This truism is borne out by the
alchemical Hermetic principle, ‘As Above, So Below’. It must be understood that the term ‘pinda’, meaning
body, in fact specifically refers to the kundalini.
If it is possible to reveal all sacred and scriptural learning in a single symbolic image, it is the
depiction of the guru’s feet, which represent higher consciousness, divine protection, love and grace for
the disciple and the devotee. In Kularnava Tantra, in the ongoing occult dialogue between the two polarised
aspects of the Absolute as guru and disciple, Shiva describes to Parvati that the sahasrar chakra is the
locus of the guru paduka in the body of the sadhak, located in the region of the Brahmarandhra at the top
of the skull, where the Paramahansas, or the divine swans of discernment reside. It is from these feet of
the guru in the sahasrar that the amrit or nectar of bliss and immortality keeps dripping onto the palate
of the yogi, bringing liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.
The place of the feet of the guru in the Sahasrar, lies in the realms of the goddess Tripurasundari. This is
known as the location of the sixteenth kala, or the sixteenth degree of the Moon, marked by its fullness,
bringing the sadhak into the realm of full unified consciousness. It is interesting that in occult lore, it
is the sixteenth day which is supposed to be the real day of the Full Moon, and not the fifteenth, but this
sixteenth is invisible, and only to be realised on the point of enlightenment.
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