The Teacher has no judgmental faculty. He is beyond the pairs of the creation and is therefore equally compassionate to all beings in the creation. He is Teacher to the divine, to the human and to the diabolic as well. This is a dimension, which cannot be understood by people who live by bifurcating the creation into good and bad. One needs to anchor in the energy of synthesis to realize that the pairs have their source in the same principle. Light cannot exist without its shade. Day cannot exist without the night. Full moon is counteracted by the new moon. Likewise, goodwill shines on the background of evil.
Imagine a parent that has three sons. One is good, the other is bad and the third is average (semi good and semi bad). From the standpoint of the parent, all the three are his children, he is equally affectionate to all. In fact, his concern for the second son is much more than his concern for the first son. The second son needs to be helped more than the others. The life of Jesus the Christ, in recent times, clearly gives this message as he allowed himself to be in the company of the downtrodden and the fallen ones. He strongly advocated that they needed him more than the others.
The teacher cannot reject some and prefer some others, he has no preferences. His love and his enlightenment emanate from him with equanimity, like the sunray or the magnetic currents. The receptive ones receive differently according to their fitness and ability.
Dattatreya is therefore as much a Teacher to the divine as he is to the diabolic, besides the human. It is also for this reason that he is depicted as holding the 3 heads. There are beautiful stories in Srimad Bhagavata about the Teacher being present in all the 3 worlds and guiding them as per their objectives. Sri Guru Datta was found to be doing so by the King Celestial Indra. Indra was surprised to see that Sri Guru Datta was sharing knowledge and giving guidance to the diabolics also. He got disturbed because his Teacher is also a Teacher to his opponents!
It is common that aspirants, who style themselves as disciples, don’t feel happy when their co-aspirants, whom they do not like, are also entertained by their teacher. The teacher is beyond all partial attitudes, as he stands for synthesis and in synthesis. The petty quarrels and the jealousies are with the ignorant ones who always try to show one-upmanship.
Sri Guru Datta is known to be Trisira, three- headed. He is called Brihaspati (Celestial Jupiter) in the divine kingdom, Kapila in the infernal kingdom, and Sri Guru Datta in the human kingdom. He permeates the whole creation as a teaching principle and is the backbone of the Hierarchies of various planetary and solar systems.
Excerpt from “Sri Dattatreya. The Symbol & the Significance”
by Dr. K. Parvathi Kumar