Forget your Fear

If you want, you will learn. When we think it is difficult, we create a barrier. So it is our own creation. There is nothing difficult or easy if we think it is that. If a woman is afraid of the dark, but suppose her child is sick, at midnight she walks to the doctor. Why? How? Because she has forgotten her fear. Isn't it? So when you forget your fear, there is nothing to be afraid of.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 80 –Rev. Chariji

Expect Not

The main thing is not to want anything. We are always wanting something. We expect something from our friend, something from our beloved, something from society, and every time we expect, we will be disappointed - no happiness. So I gave an eleventh maxim: Don't expect and there won't be any disappointment.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 78 –Rev. Chariji

Right Thoughts

So please adopt the right means for the right end. No wrong means can give the right end. Right ends may happen because it is destined to happen. But if human effort is to succeed, you must follow the rule of the Buddha: right thought, right action, right result.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 75 –Rev. Chariji

Patience

Babuji always praised women. He said, "Woman only knows love, because she sends her children out to school, she sends her husband out to the office, and patiently waits until they come back, prayerfully perhaps, but patiently." Because prayer cannot supplant patience. Patience also shows faith that this will happen.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 73-74 -Rev. Chariji

Impatience shows lack of faith. "No, no, I want it now." You will have it when you are to have it. When it is good for you to have it - even in spiritual values, even spiritual blessings. He knows, the Giver knows, when you are ready for it.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 74 –Rev. Chariji

Guilt is sin

That is why Babuji said, "If you carry guilt with you, you are sinning much more than what made you guilty." Repentance means forgetting and determining not to do it again. No ritual can absolve you of your sins.

Heart Speak 2004, vol. 2, p. 73 –Rev. Chariji

Loneliness

Let us remember Babuji's sensitivity. Love flowers in isolation, in secrecy, in loneliness. All the love poetry in the world came from loneliness of the lover. Now they were not ecstatic songs sung by carpenters. They were songs of loneliness expressing the anguish of separation. "Let my loneliness cover me," says one ghazal [Persian Poetry]. "It is my only companion." So that is one thing about [love].

Hidden Love

He who loves must be silent, must be hidden, must not seek to be exposed. What is hidden is love. What is exposed is desire, is lust. So let us be modest in our love; let us hide its flame, not embarrass him and embarrass ourselves into the bargain.

Sacred Things

Babuji said: Love is a sacred thing. It is not secret; it is sacred. Something sacred should not be made profane by being broadcast in public.

Secret things are not sacred; like the weaponry strength of powerful nations. These are secret things but they are hateful, devilish, demoniac things; they are not sacred. So secrecy hides devilry. Sacredness veils something which is divine, which is higher in value, which cannot be exposed to the profane gaze.

Nothingness

If Sahaj Marg claims to give you anything, it is nothingness. That having which you have nothing, but without which you cannot exist--that is what Babuji said. When Lalaji made Babuji like himself, he said, "Now I have given you everything. I have made you into myself," and Babuji said, "Is that all?" So he said, "Ram Chandra, if that is all that you think about it, let me take this condition back from you." And Babuji said, "Lord, I cannot live without it." So Lalaji said, "It is that, having which you have nothing, but without which you cannot even exist." Love is like that.

Blessings

All this asking for blessings, to my mind, is unnecessary. Blessings are always there. Are we utilizing them? Babuji said, "The sun is shining for everybody. It rains, but only the man who prepares his field will harvest a crop." Isn't it? So we have to be prepared for the blessings.

Sensitivity

We should learn from our heart. Heart must respond. I have known Babuji waking up somebody who is sleeping at eleven o'clock at night and saying. "You didn't have your food." I said, "How do you know?" He said, "I feel it."

Opportunity

This famous ancient saying you know: four things come not back the sped arrow, the spoken word, the opportunity lost and the time wasted. None of these things come back. So that is the final wisdom, you know, how to use these four things properly. Never tell a word which must need to be withdrawn or has to be withdrawn. An apology is something like that. Never waste an opportunity, a Satsangh.

Strength, Wisdom and Acceptance

Strength

The proof of strength is in not evincing strength, not using strength. Babuji said, "Strength should never be used. It should be there, but never used." Like knowledge. We are not always using knowledge. We have a library of books for reference.

Wisdom

So where is wisdom? Wisdom must be permanent. Babuji said that a fool is wise after the event but not for long. A wise man is wise during the event. He knows, and now he will not do it again. A saint is wise before the event. He doesn't have to see to know; he doesn't have to experience to know.

Acceptance

I am reminded of a story where a man is walking with his son aged eighteen. He goes home and his son goes to the market. Somebody comes and tells him that his son had an accident and has broken his leg. He says, "Everything happens for the good." So the other man says, "What is this old fellow? He is a damn fool. His son's leg is broken and he says, 'Everything is for the good.'" Then there is a war declared with the neighbouring country. He says, "Everything happens for the good." [Laughter] All the young men are called up and his son is missing, somebody says, "It is a good thing your son had a broken leg." He says, "I told you everything happens for the good." [Laughter]

Simplest

Babuji said, "The simplest are those who have nothing." Because, according to the Hindu tradition, he who has nothing has everything, whereas if you have even the whole world, you have only something.

Ego

Another time I asked him, "Babuji, why do you want us to write to you about whatever we have to tell you? Why this idea of confession when you know everything?" He said, "It is true I can know everything. I don't always know everything, but I can, if I want to." So then I said, "Why then do you want us to write to you?" He said, "you know, when you are able to open yourself up and to confess (in a sense, because anything you say about yourself is tantamount to a confession), it shows that your ego is being whittled down to proper proportions, and that is what I want to see!"

Family

"The family is the greatest training ground for spiritual life," he (Babuji) said, "because in it, we learn to love, and through love we learn sacrifice; because without love there can be no sacrifice." Without love there is only what we can call exploitation.

Love and Sacrifice

Because I have a certain conviction that when we eventually get there, if we do, we will find more souls there which have been women than men. Because two things which man cannot do, they do: they suffer, they sacrifice. And without these two things there is no love.

Test of Love

The sole test of love is: Is it directed at the other person or at yourself?

Old Love

I have found it a hundred times, a thousand times, that the couples who really love each other are the old ones who have gone beyond the physical need to express their love, or even the ability to express their love. Then they really understand each other.

Love is Freedom

That is what Jesus said when he let out the doves, as they say in the Bible, meant for sacrifice. He set them free. "Don't kill them to show your love for God, set them free in your love for God." So love must give freedom.

Solomon the Great

You know that story of the judgment of Solomon the Great - the story of two women who claimed the same baby. Solomon was sitting on the throne, and of course there were a lot of lies being told. He solved it by asking for a sword, gave it to the executioner and said, "Cut it into two and give them half each." The real mother said, "Please, Majesty, let her have the baby." That is a manifestation of love: "It is my baby, but to keep it alive, I don't mind giving it away."

Be Natural

All this talk about loving and heart and this and that - I think it is too much intellectualization about a process that should be very natural. Nature made us benevolent. Benevolent is nothing but a wonderful word meaning 'good wishing' - bene volente - to wish well.

Concern

So how to know when there is love in a particular situation? When it shows concern for the other, seeks to know what the other likes, and tries to seek within yourself whether you have it to give. I think it is a very simple equation, and if this is practiced sincerely, we can always find out whether there is love in the situation or not.

What to Offer

In our own personal intercourse here on earth, we neither have the time nor the inclination to find out what the other person likes. So the safest course is to give what you like yourself. It is a test of love when it seeks to find out what really You like so that I can offer you what you like.

Offerings

I think it shows a great and profound understanding of human nature when Lord Krishna says, "When you want to offer something to me, offer what you like yourself." The reason being you cannot possibly know what He likes because He is the Lord.

Giving

Spirituality says, "Give"; it doesn't even say, "Give and take." It only says, "Give." Give and go on giving so that by the very fact of giving, you empty yourself of everything that you have, and then you will find this miraculous thing that there is a vacuum, and that has to be filled by Nature. I don't know how many of you have read Lloyd C. Douglas, who preached this very same thing. He said, "Go on giving - irrespective of whether you have or not." So, go on giving and don't expect, because, when you create a vacuum, it must be filled. This is the law of Nature.

The Heart

In Sahaj Marg, in this method of raja yoga, the focus of all self-development effort is the heart. Because it is the heart, the organ par excellence, which is signifying, which is denoting, human values.

Being Natural

To come back to the essence of my Master's teaching, that man is born as a man but dies as an animal, he started his spiritual training with this instruction, that we must first work in such a way as to restore ourselves to a human level of existence where speaking the truth is a natural thing. Not taking away somebody's property is a natural thing. Living happily with what we have becomes a natural thing. All the other things helping others, being compassionate, being loving, being merciful - all these must become a natural thing, not something to be learned from books of religion or through social teachings. He said, "Then begins the purpose of Yoga."

Life of Spirit

Just as God, through Divine will, brought into effect this vast creation, so did the man bring into effect his own tiny creation by his own will. The result was that his Real self got completely enwrapped within the thick covering of grossness. Now the agencies working for it are mainly manas (psyche), chit (consciousness), buddhi (intellect) and ahankar (ego). They lead to the formation of samskaras, and all these things collectively form a sort of network round the Real self. That is the true picture of our tiny creation. The only solution is to bring this creation to a state of dissolution (pralaya). When this covering is shattered off and the Real self emerges out of it, the real life of spirit (atman) begins.

Mindset

So the first obstacle that we have to overcome when we start practising yoga is this idea that it is difficult. There is nothing difficult about it. As Master said once in Denmark very humorously, "The difficult thing about this is that there is no difficulty. That is the difficulty." So when we remove this idea of difficulty from our minds, we overcome perhaps the biggest obstacle that we set ourselves, or set before us. That is, the feeling that it is difficult.

His Creation

God creates; He created us pure. He created us like Himself. I asked Babuji once, "How did the first original thought come?" He said it is the pure mind of God. Then we came out of that, and this attitude came or this idea came that "I exist." The moment the idea "I exist" came, I became responsible for my thoughts, for my actions; therefore, I suffer the consequences of my thoughts and actions. This is how samskara was created in the first instance. Then that becomes deeper and deeper, harder and harder; it becomes solid, it becomes grossness of such a nature that it can hardly be removed. Why do you require a Master? Precisely because without shattering us, he is able to act on us, remove the grossness, change our future for us into something glorious, something divine.

Transmission

And now, what is it that our Master gives us that is like food to the human system? He gives us the very great and Divine assistance of transmitting his spiritual self into us. I deliberately use the word 'self' because the Sanskrit word pranahuti means 'offering of the self.' When can we offer something again and again to as many people as we meet, without any loss to the giver himself? Only when our resources are infinite! So, as Master says, we have to get hold of a guru or a master, whatever you like to call him, who, by virtue of his own connection with the infinite, can make that infinity available to us. Spirituality is not a progress or a search or travel in time. It is travel in eternity. So, as we continue to progress, we continue to need this transmission in greater and greater measure, and as we rise higher and higher, his assistance becomes more and more necessary until, at the final level on stage, we can do nothing without his assistance.

In the SRCM and Sahaj Marg websites (www.srcm.org and www.sahajmarg.org), Master defines Transmission as follows: What we call transmission Master once defined as 'spiritual food'. The body lives and grows at the physical level, and so sustains itself on physical foods. The soul, being spiritual in nature, needs food of that plane.

On a different occasion Master described transmission in terms other than what I have stated above. He said, "The body is alive only because the soul is in it. At death the soul flies away, and then we say the person is dead, and call the body a corpse. So the body lives by the soul. How does the soul live? I will tell you. The soul lives by transmission which we can think of as the essence of Divinity.

Dr. Varadachari has called this 'Soul of the soul.' It is a correct description that he has given. He told me in Sanskrit it is pranasya pranaha which means the soul of the soul. So, really speaking, without transmission the soul is like a dead thing. The very first transmission makes the soul alive. It is the touch of Divinity itself.

Call of Spirituality

The call of spirituality is not an external call. It is not something which is an imposition from outside, even from the Masters. It is something you impose upon yourself in the knowledge that my inner Self and my outer self don't match. If they are to match, I have to grow.

Equalizer

Material goals are wonderful, but not everybody can achieve everything in a material existence - not even those who are endowed with certain values, certain, what shall we say, qualities, because the world is full of wise people, of wise people who have no jobs, for instance. But spirituality is a field which is the ultimate equalizer of all human beings, where any human being, irrespective of sex, race, nationality, religion, can achieve this goal of spiritual endeavour. Therefore, it is not only the great equalizer of humanity, it is also the integrator of humanity, because in a real spiritual pursuit we forget our mutual differences, and therefore it brings about an integration of human beings which has not been possible hitherto on this earth of ours. It is certainly not a dream. It is possible, it has been possible, and it will continue to be possible – provided we co-operate.

Guilt

When we come to Sahaj Marg, and we are taught and we believe and we accept the teaching that it is our samskaras which make us responsible for our existence, then we have to face the blame very squarely for the first time ourselves. Therefore, the feelings of guilt are much more terrible in a spiritual system. Why? Because we cannot possibly run away from ourselves. It is easy to run away from the home or from the church or even from your country, but where can you run away from yourself? So, that is as far as the situation is concerned. How to change it? We know very well, you see. Do the cleaning better, forget the feeling of guilt and deposit even that feeling with the Master. And then take the next very important, but more difficult step of changing your way of life, so that in the future there should be no guilt. The way is: right thought, leading to right action, leading to feelings of satisfaction, achievement and ability to face the self and say, "Yes, you are good," and then progress.

Devolution

So you see, the essence of spiritual existence is this: the ability, or acquiring the ability, to erase, to efface myself, so that that which is within me shall flow out of me in all its effulgence, in its divinity. So what is it that you are talking of becoming and achieving and getting and grasping? All this becomes senseless, you see. That is why, perhaps, in one of my talks in Vorauf I said, "Evolution, it has no meaning, you see, I am not evolving into something." Perhaps I should say, "I am devolving from that which I have become into that which I was." That would be a greater truth, a more acceptable truth. So this is what we try to do.

Self Anew

So, the only way of creating the ability to love the Master is to create the ability to love your Self. That means creating your Self anew in such a way that you can look at yourself and say, "Thank heavens. Now I can begin to love this, what I see before me." It also brings before us the possibility of separating ourselves into the two, you see, the observer Self and the observed lesser self. It is the lesser self, the lower self, that puts obstacles before us, not the Master, The Master is not interested in putting obstacles before us. He is not interested in testing us. Babuji Maharaj said so many times that, "I don't have to test, I know. Only he who does not know has to test. One who knows doesn't need to test."

Two Existences

"The reality," my Master said when I first met him, "is that we have two lives, two existences - the inner and the outer." All our aspirations, our longings, our idealisms come from inside. All our ambitions for success, for growth, for development in whatever sphere we are in come from outside. So, we have to balance our aspiration with our ambition. One is related to my life outside myself, with growth in the material sense, success reflected in possessions, in ownership, in acquisitions, to be balanced with an inner aspiration which longs to be perfect, ideal.

Guru

I think this is the most important aspect of the Sahaj Marg teaching, that to have no guru at all is better than having an unevolved or inappropriate guru. When we connect ourselves to the wrong source, the very process of vacuuming ourselves can lead to our degradation - I don't mean in moral values, I mean in the sense of evolutionary degradation - rather than to the uplift that we are so earnestly trying for.

No Demands

He [Rev. Babuji] has told me, "Abhyasis should not compel the Master. All that the Master possesses is only for the abhyasis. So compulsion should not be there. I may also say it is wrong etiquette. Can the Master ever deny anything to his associates? But see how foolish people are. They make demands and thus curtail the freedom of the Master. The Master must be made totally free to do anything that he wants. Then see the splendour of his work!"

Silence

Such silent sessions with the Master are incomparably valuable. Many abhyasis make the mistake of breaking the silence by asking unimportant questions, or by idle chatter among themselves. It is in the silent assembly that a spiritual rapport is established, and in which true communion takes place. In such a silent assembly Master is at peace, totally relaxed, and works on us in an uninhibited manner. No demands are made upon him, verbal or otherwise. He is left free to do what he pleases. In essence, he is given his freedom.

Spiritual work

In truly spiritual work, the very concept of planning may be a redundant one. How does one plan for an activity in a field where thought and action are simultaneous, are really one? In the spiritual field they are not two separate things. Master has often told me, "Think that such and such a thing shall happen, and it will happen. All that is necessary is an unfailing will."

Master's Work

I have seen Master taking up work in such a fashion that by no stretch of imagination can one say that it was pre-planned. Occasionally he comes across an abhyasi whose spiritual condition leaves him radiant with joy and wonder. He then takes up the case of that particular abhyasi, and one sees the grand and sometimes rapturous miracle of not only the abhyasi blooming under the splendour of Master's love, but one also sees the very rare but magnificent spectacle of the Master himself blooming with the effulgence of the miracle of his own discovery and work.

To SEE

Darshan in its true meaning means 'to see.' Master told me several years ago that many people come to see him, but few people really see him. Now what is this real seeing which constitutes true darshan? Our Master is able to look inside us, to analyze us spiritually, find out our shortcomings, find out our strength, find out what we lack and fulfil those lapses and thus develop us spiritually into something approximating to his own stature. We on our part should be able to look into him, going beyond the physical form which is a very big limitation for most of us. We just look at this form and think we have seen him. We evaluate him by what we see with our physical eyes.

Physical Presence

In Sahaj Marg at least, this great innovation, spiritual innovation of transmission, makes barriers of space, barriers of time, non-existent. But yet when he comes in the immediate presence of his own disciples, he is able to look into us with a much more detailed vision, and thereby diagnose our spiritual condition in a much closer, much more evocative fashion and deal with us adequately. He can do everything from wherever he is, but when he is with us he can do it with greater precision.

Vacuum Cleaners

As Master says, great saints are like vacuum cleaners. They do not draw just the dirt or the uncleanliness or the grossness from individuals. They draw it from the very atmosphere itself. Therefore it is said that if the world has one saint of caliber, it is more than enough, because he sucks into himself all the rubbish that we are throwing out from our lives.

Physical form

We always try to see God in some abstruse, abstract way, not realising that most often, or perhaps always, God presents himself to us only in a form in which we can recognize Him. That is the human form. So when Masters come to us, it is the Almighty Himself who comes to us. It is in a form which we can recognize, in a form which we can learn to love, from which we can receive our teachings. So, that is another great function of Masters when they come to us in their physical form.

Lalaji

Master [Rev. Babuji] said that a preceptor should be a model person and should try to model himself upon the ideal of the Master. He laughingly added, "That does not mean they should all start smoking just because I smoke the hookah. I mean in character, in behaviour, in approach to persons, in these things they should try for higher and higher refinements. One cannot find a Master like Lalaji. He had the greatest qualities in him which I have known in no one else. You know he was not materially well off. But he never refused help to anyone. Such a soft heart we must have."

Blossom in the Night

A special person like my Master is described in the Vedas as a flower of the tree which blooms in the night. It is there, but one cannot see it. One does not even see the tree on which it is blooming. But if you have a sensitive nose, and you follow that nose, inevitably you come to the tree and to the flower.