In the scrip­tures, two types of gurus are dis­cussed. One kind of Guru is like Sukracharya, who is relat­ed to the plan­et Venus. The oth­er kind of Guru is Bri­has­pati, relat­ed to Jupiter.

Sukracharya was always on the out­look to increase his pow­ers, to get wealth, pros­per­i­ty, a large fol­low­ing and pop­u­lar acclaim. He was teach­ing these kinds of val­ues to his stu­dents. On the oth­er hand, Bri­has­pati gave only teach­ings per­tain­ing to the spir­i­tu­al well-being and even­tu­al enlight­en­ment of his dis­ci­ples. And so it hap­pened that the stu­dents of Sukracharya were asur­as or demons and the dis­ci­ples of Bri­has­pati were gods or devas. The dis­ci­ples of Sukra always end­ed up in prob­lem­at­ic sit­u­a­tions because their deep­est moti­va­tion was the wield­ing of pow­er and con­trol over peo­ple. But how long can one hold on to this power?

And one can also ask: how much peace does one get out of a pow­er trip? When there is no peace, how can there be hap­pi­ness? In pol­i­tics, in soci­ety, we see so many exam­ples of this. The things that build up your ego can nev­er give you peace.

On the path of shak­ti­pat, you don’t have to wait for many lives in order to achieve some attain­ment. If you prac­tise, you can In the scrip­tures, two types of gurus are dis­cussed. One kind of Guru is like Sukracharya, who is relat­ed to the plan­et Venus. The
oth­er kind of Guru is Bri­has­pati, relat­ed to Jupiter.

The les­son for us should be clear. Every­body who wish­es to embark on the spir­i­tu­al path should first clear­ly con­tem­plate: What is my inten­tion? Ask your­self, what is the best thing to be accom­plished while liv­ing in this world. With the right answer, one goes safe­ly in the prop­er, dharmic, direc­tion. Know that the taints of ego, jeal­ousy and anger won’t leave you at death. They will accom­pa­ny you in death and give you pain in the after­life as well.

So choose a path that gives hap­pi­ness in this life and in all oth­er lives as well.

You have to choose whether to go with Sukracharya or with Brihaspati!