In Tantra the guru is regarded as a divine Being. Why we should not turn to an invented image of God, and why the material image of the guru is a gateway to the sphere beyond all images.
"I am drunk from head to foot with love for my master, Shams of Tabriz. People call me an idol-worshipper. And what do I answer them? >— Yes, I am an idol-worshipper. >What can these worldly people know of my idol-worship?" >The Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi
In A practical spiritual science of expanding the mind and freeing it from bondage; not a religion and not about sex. the guru is regarded as a divine Being. One who has known Supreme Consciousness becomes Supreme Consciousness. What will happen to a doll made of salt if it sets out to measure the depth of the ocean? The doll will dissolve and become the ocean. The same thing happens to the unit consciousness of a mystic who directs all their attention to knowing the divine and strives to measure the ocean of Cosmic Consciousness. There comes a moment when the line between unit and Cosmic Consciousness is erased. The goal of human life is reached — unit consciousness merges with the Cosmic.
Only that one is a true guru who has the knowledge of how to lead a person to the realization of life's goal.
Why not turn to God, Supreme Consciousness, directly? If a person turns to God directly, they are in fact turning to their own models and concepts of God, which can hardly be reliable, because the person has not attained God but has created some idealized image of God on the basis of material knowledge and come to believe in it. In that case the image of God plays the role of an idol, a graven image.
If you think about it, it is very easy to take one of the ancient masters for God, because we know little about them, and everything we do not know about them we fill in with our imagination. This satisfies our ego. We worship an image that we ourselves have created. The same thing happens when we fall in love: with a "sober" eye we see little and invent a great deal. That is, in fact we love not the person but the image we have created. This is called "making yourself a graven image."
The words "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image" reject all idealization. In our notions of Krśńa, Shiva and the Buddha there is little historical truth and a great deal of other people's idealization. In that case it is very hard to accept a living guru, because much does not fit the image of the guru we have invented for ourselves by reading legends, literature and so on.
But the image of the guru in the material world is the point closest to us that reflects the truth. There is a Sanskrit A sound or set of sounds that, repeated with its meaning in mind, carries the mind toward the Infinite.:
*Akhańd́amańd́alákáraḿ vyáptaḿ yena carácaram**Tatpadaḿ darshitaḿ yena tasmae Shrii Gurave namah**Ajiṋána timirándhasya jiṋánáiṋjana shalákayá**Cakśurunmiilitaḿ yena tasmae Shrii Gurave namah* >I salute the eternal, pure, incomprehensible,formless, stainless,all-knowing The Supreme, made of Consciousness (Shiva) and its creative energy (Shakti); everything comes from it and returns to it., full of bliss,in the form of the Guru. >I salute the supreme Guru, who pervades the whole movingand unmoving spherical universe.I salute the supreme Guru, who dispels the darkness of ignorance andopens the eyes of knowledge with the balm of spirituality.
It is precisely the material image of the guru that gives us the opportunity to know the Supreme. The Guru is not a personality or a photograph, but boundless Cosmic Consciousness. Yet thanks to the material image we are able to direct our mind inward and touch the transcendent. In essence, the image of the guru is the gateway to that sphere where there are no images. That is why the person of the guru is so important in spiritual practice.
There is no need to create idols for yourself; they are easy to believe in. Seek the true reality; be realists, not idealists.