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.