When Milk Overflows: Guru, Gatekeeping, and the Freedom of Anugraha

A clay pot of milk boiling over during Pongal, symbolizing abundance and the overflowing grace of Devi.

When the Voice of Control Poses as Guru

There are moments in history when rivers overflow their banks. The old canals and dams break, and the water no longer obeys the keepers who once claimed to regulate its flow. We are living through such a time. Whole paramparās vanish within a single generation. Ṭarīqas that once held thousands now echo with silence. What was “classical tradition” is dissolving before our eyes — and Devi’s Current rushes to find new channels, new mouths, new forms.

And in such times, a certain kind of voice always rises. It is the voice of control.
It says:

Guru means heavy. Laghu means light. Therefore the Guru must always be heavy, unquestionable, never light or playful.
Anugraha flows only downward, like milk from a jug. If you treat Guru as equal, or as friend, or dare to argue — the milk spills and is wasted forever.

On the surface, these words look venerable, even scriptural. In reality, they are psychology — the psychology of fear. When the living current is slipping from the grasp of institutions, when thrones tremble, the response is to shout louder: “Only I am the channel! Only through hierarchy does the grace come!”

But let us be clear: this is not Devi’s voice. This is not the truth of transmission. It is the anxiety of someone who feels the river moving beyond his dam. It is the voice of a gatekeeper afraid that the locks will burst and the water will flow freely, as it always has.

And so threat is dressed as doctrine. Fear is painted as reverence. Dependence is marketed as necessity. “If you do not bow as I prescribe, grace is lost. If you dare treat me as friend, nothing will remain.”

Yet this is the opposite of truth. Grace is not so fragile. Anugraha is not so easily spoiled. The milk of Devi does not sour because you laughed with Her, or because the Siddha sitting before you refused to wear the mask of “unquestionable authority.”

The Poison in the Milk Metaphor

“Anugraha flows only vertically, like milk poured downward. If you treat the Guru as an equal, it spills and is wasted.”

At first, this image feels simple, even elegant. Who would argue with gravity? But look closer: the metaphor is not innocent — it is a tool of control.

It instills fear. The disciple is told: “If you do not bow in the exact posture I demand, the stream will spill, and you will lose everything.”
It builds dependence. Grace is depicted not as Devi’s omnipresent Current but as a fragile liquid held in one man’s jug. If you want milk, you must line up beneath his spout.
It weaponizes imagery. Milk is sacred in nearly every Indian tradition — symbol of nourishment, purity, sweetness. To say that it will “spill and be wasted” if you approach wrongly is to plant deep anxiety in the heart of the seeker.

But the truth is very different.

Spilled milk is not wasted. It soaks into the soil, feeding plants and insects. It sours into yogurt, ferments into unexpected intoxication. It may no longer be in your cup, but it has entered the world in another form. Anugraha, once poured, cannot be lost. It transforms, overflows, feeds in ways we do not control.

The Current of Devi is not fragile plumbing. It is flood. It is monsoon. To call it “wasted” because it did not flow in one direction is blindness.

Kaula wisdom laughs at this image. Grace is not a vertical trickle but a great overflowing feast. Sometimes She pours from above. Sometimes She splashes sideways, through a child’s word or a drunkard’s stumble. Sometimes She bubbles up from below, rising like milk boiling over a clay pot.

To reduce this vastness to a single spout, to say it “only flows vertically,” is not reverence. It is monopoly. It is the psychology of a man who cannot trust Devi to flow without him as the gate.

Gatekeeping in an Age of Collapse

Look around: the map of living traditions is changing faster than at any time in memory.

Ancient paramparās that stood for centuries vanish in a single generation.
Ṭarīqas that once gathered thousands dwindle into a few aging keepers of ritual.
Whole chains of transmission go silent, while seekers scatter into new paths, new languages, new media.

This is not theory; it is the world we live in. The old scaffolding is collapsing.

And what happens when a river breaks its banks? Those who once controlled the canals cry out even louder. They stand on the crumbling dams shouting: “The water flows only here! Only through this gate! Without me it spills into waste!”

It is no accident that the rhetoric of “vertical-only anugraha” grows sharper now. It is not revelation, but reaction. Not śakti speaking, but anxiety. The man who insists that Guru must always be “heavy, unquestionable, never friend” is not describing reality — he is defending his throne.

Because when grace is acknowledged as free, unpredictable, untamable, his monopoly dissolves. His claim to be the jug-holder of milk is exposed as fantasy.

This is the paradox of our age: precisely as Devi’s Current bursts out in new channels — through songs, strangers, moments of raw encounter — the loudest voices are those who try to narrow Her to a single spout.

But no dam can hold back the flood.

The Reality of Guidance: One Size Does Not Fit All

Every sādhaka is unique, and so the mode of guidance must also be unique. To insist on a single model — “always vertical, always unquestionable, always heavy” — is blindness, not wisdom.

a) For the Novice

For one just entering the path, total trust and obedience can be medicine. Following fully, without debate, helps dissolve the ego’s constant interference. Sometimes what a beginner most needs is to surrender to a hand that knows the way.

b) For the Mature

But for the one already 99% through the journey, the same medicine becomes poison. At that stage, the Current often asks for intimacy, subtlety, freedom — sometimes even silence, where no “higher” person is needed at all. To impose hierarchy here is to stunt what Devi Herself has ripened.

c) Beyond One Lifetime

Relations with Guru rarely begin and end in a single life. They are woven through samskāras and vāsanās carried across births. The style of interaction — strict, tender, playful, equal — depends on this karmic tapestry. To say that only one model is valid is to be blind to the depth of the soul’s journey.

d) The Mask of “I am Guru”

Siddhas simply do not wear the mask of “I am Guru” as a self-concept. To cling to that identity would sever them from the Current itself. They may be recognized as Guru by others, but they never impose it. When it happens, it is spontaneous and organic — never enforced by doctrine, never demanded by fear.

This is why the truly realized never thunder, “I am unquestionable authority.” They do not need to. Their gravity is natural, like the silence of Ramana, like the roar of Nityananda. It works without proclamation.

Counter-Witness: Ramana Maharshi Speaks

When the gatekeepers insist that Guru must always be “heavy,” never friend, never equal, never sideways — let us hear another voice. Not theory, not rhetoric, but the living words of Ramana Maharshi, spoken in the Hall at Tiruvannamalai on 30th October, 1945, recorded by S.S. Cohen in Guru Ramana:

Sri Dilip Kumar Roy (of Sri Aurobindo Ashram) sang in the morning before Maharshi. In the evening he asked:

Dilip: Some people reported you to have said that there was no need for a guru. Others gave the opposite report. What does Maharshi say?
Bhagavan: I have never said that there is no need for a guru.

Dilip: Sri Aurobindo and others refer to you as having had no guru.
Bhagavan: All depends on what you call guru. He need not be in a human form. Dattatreya had twenty-four gurus: the five elements – earth, water, etc., which means that every object in this world was his guru. Guru is absolutely necessary. The Upanishads say that none but a guru can take a man out of the jungle of intellect and sense-perceptions. So there must be a guru.

Dilip: I mean a human guru – the Maharshi did not have one.
Bhagavan: I might have had one at one time or other. But did I not sing hymns to Arunachala? What is a guru? Guru is God or the Self. First a man prays to God to fulfil his desires. A time comes when he will no more pray for the fulfilment of material desires but for God Himself. God then appears to him in some form or other, human or non-human, to guide him to Himself in answer to his prayer and according to his needs.

Here the truth is simple:

Guru is necessary. But not monopolized.
Guru may be human, or not. Guru may be mountain, element, silence.
Guru is Devi answering the soul’s longing, taking whatever form is needed.

No threats. No milk spilling in waste. No demand for unquestionable authority. Just the vast play of the Self, guiding each soul according to its need.

Heavy and Light Together

Yes, guru means heavy, and laghu means light. The etymology is real. But to wield it as a weapon — “Guru must always be heavy, unquestionable, never light, never friend” — is to amputate half of Devi’s play.

For She moves as both.

Sometimes Guru is mountain: crushing, immovable, the sheer gravity of presence that breaks your ego to dust.
Sometimes Guru is feather: playful, tender, laughing, teasing the disciple into freedom.
Sometimes Guru is silence so weighty it collapses thought.
Sometimes Guru is simplicity so light it disarms fear and melts the heart.

Think of Ramana Maharshi, whose silence carried infinite weight, yet who could laugh like a child, utterly laghu.
Think of Bhagavan Nityananda, whose roar shattered illusions, yet whose bare feet comforted like a mother’s lap.

This is the paradox: true Guru is not bound to heaviness alone. Gravity does not announce itself. It simply works. The siddha does not proclaim, “I am weighty.” He does not need to.

To declare that Guru must only be heavy is to mistrust Devi. It is to imagine She needs doctrinal enforcement to maintain Her gravity. But the real Current does not need propaganda. It is heavy and light in the same breath.

The Kaula Turn: When Milk Overflows

Let us return to the milk. The gatekeeper warns: “Grace flows only downward, like milk in a jug. If you treat the Guru as equal, the milk spills and is wasted.”

But Kaula vision laughs. Spilled milk is never wasted. It seeps into the earth, feeds roots and worms, ferments into yogurt and intoxication. It may not reach your neat little cup, but Devi has poured it into the world in ways beyond your control.

So it is with anugraha. Once poured, it cannot be lost. It floods. It ferments. It intoxicates. It slips sideways through a child’s word, a beggar’s song, a stranger’s kindness. It boils up from within when you least expect it. Sometimes it scalds, sometimes it sweetens, but never does it “spill in vain.”

The truth is fierce and tender:

Yes, Guru is necessary — but not as monopoly.
Yes, reverence is needed — but not as fear of “unquestionable authority.”
Yes, the Current carries gravity — but it is not bound to heaviness.

Devi Herself is the jug, the milk, the spill, the feast. She flows exactly where She wills. Sometimes from above, sometimes from beside you, sometimes from below your very feet.

And the moment someone insists: “Only through me, only from above, only when you bow as I prescribe” — know this: Devi is already laughing, already spilling milk across the whole table, already turning the world itself into Her overflowing cup.

The throne does not belong to any gatekeeper. The throne belongs to Her alone.

Closing Benediction

In Tamil tradition, the boiling pot of Pongal is not feared as “wasted milk.” On the contrary, its overflow is the sign of blessing, the mark of abundance. The whole village cheers when the pot spills, for it means Devi has accepted the offering.

So it is with anugraha. When Her Current overflows, it is not loss but feast. Not waste, but benediction.

And just as Tamil hearts cry out “Pongalo Pongal!” when the milk rises and spills, so too let us greet Her overflowing grace: not with fear of loss, but with joy in the certainty that She pours everywhere, in ways no gatekeeper can contain.