Tribute to Ananta⁵

My Ananta, your physical absence has thrown me totally into a sea of sorrow and grief. You have been extremely close to me. Your loving heart, your heart of sacrifice, your heart of oneness with my heart, has always made me feel that there is someone who will blindly follow me. If I had said that the sun rises in the West, without the least possible hesitation you would have said that I was right. My wish was your command at every moment. How I wish to have a few more dedicated, devoted and surrendered disciples like you were.

Eight years ago we inaugurated our Puerto Rican Centre with a small group of six members. With these six members we formed a committee. To my extreme sorrow, out of the six, one by one, five left us. And now you — the most sincere, most devoted, most surrendered, the only one who stayed with us from the very beginning — now you are with our Beloved Supreme.

Even now my physical mind does not believe, cannot believe, that you have left this earth. Yesterday, at least five times I called out your name at the Centre: “Ananta, Ananta. Why are you late? What are you doing?” The physical mind cannot believe that you have left us. My heart of oneness will always feel that you are deep within my heart, and you are unconditionally for me. Since you left the body about two weeks ago (not according to medical science, but according to my spiritual realisation), I always see you in the soul’s world carrying divinely, heroically, supremely, my banner of victory. This is not my mental hallucination. This is the real reality that my third eye sees.

My Ananta. We use the term ‘selfless service’. In our Centres this service has originated with you. You are the head of selfless service. You are the pioneer, absolutely the pioneer server. Selfless service is your foremost contribution to our spiritual family. I personally did not know what selfless service truly meant in the outer life until you became my disciple. It was through your devoted service that I came to know how far and how deep one can go. We now unmistakably see that selfless service is another form of meditation. One can discover Reality on the strength of selfless service.

‘Ananta’ means ‘the endless, infinite Vast’. Six months ago you asked me whether it was my wish to give you a spiritual name since I didn’t give you the name ‘Ananta’. I told you it was not necessary, because the name that you have is extremely beautiful and soulful and it does apply to your soul’s qualities, especially in one aspect: your endless sacrifice for mankind. Therefore, I told you it was unnecessary.

The Puerto Rican Centre has been blessed with quite a few devoted, sincere seekers, but your service will eternally remain unparalleled. Some of my Puerto Rican disciples call me ‘Master’. I wish to say that it was you, my Ananta, the pioneer seeker who first started calling me Master. There were occasions when I used to cut jokes with you. I used to tell you that the Master is the Supreme. There was a time when I did not know how to drive a car. You knew how to drive a car, but you had such faith in me that you used to ask me at times what you were supposed to do. I said, “This Master cannot help you, Ananta. He does not know how to drive.” But you said, “No, Master, I cannot believe you. Anyway, you are driving inwardly. That is what I need most.”

Wherever I have been with you, you have shown me your tremendous sacrifice, your oneness. If I had to spell ‘Ananta’, then I would spell it only this way: S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E.

On radio, television and newspaper, you have helped us considerably in spreading our light in Puerto Rico. And from here the rest of the world received the same inspiration and aspiration to spread our light. This inspiration, aspiration, dedication, came from you, my Ananta.

One thing you have done for me which no other disciple has ever done or will ever do. Seven or eight years ago when I used to come here, you used to literally go from door to door and tell people, “My Master has come, my Master has come. Come to the meeting. Come and see my Master.” Then if anybody showed any interest in my path, you used to go to that person’s place and spend hours and hours there talking with him and inspiring him. Sometimes you used to take the person to a restaurant to eat, only to please him, to satisfy his needs, so that you could bring him to the Centre. You sacrificed countless hours in order to bring one person to the Centre because your Master had come. Sometimes the disciples ask me for mantras. Ananta’s mantra was always, “My Master has come, my Master has come!” I don’t think I will get any other disciple who identifies himself with me to such an extent that he will go from door to door to bring people to our Centre.

I am lucky, I am proud, that I never felt the need to scold you. My heart never allowed me to scold you, even if you had made some mistake, and for that I am proud of myself. When I think of you, my Ananta, I think of the most special flower that grows inside my heart. The physical in me, the human in me, is missing you terribly. Terribly is an understatement. But the divine in me, the realised soul in me, is feeding you with inner light, peace and bliss in boundless measure. But as long as I am on earth, the human in me — the human eyes, the human senses — will miss the human in you that was so close to me.

The day before yesterday, I went to see you. I knew your soul was not in the physical. The last message your soul gave me when I was there was, “Master, this body is not alive.” But the doctor said you were still alive. The doctor called this mechanical breathing life. I am not a doctor; I have to listen to the doctor’s verdict. But the soul in me, my oneness-soul with your soul, my realisation-soul, knows that about two weeks ago your soul left the body. Your soul came to me — a beautiful, beautiful soul — and said, “My life I have placed before the Universal Father, the Supreme.”

Your absence on the physical plane is undoubtedly an irreparable loss to us, especially to me. When I think of Puerto Rico without my Ananta, my Puerto Rican Centre seems incomplete. But again, I know that although the physical in you has left us, the absolutely real in you, the eternally real in you, is the soul, which will remain with us eternally. Your soul will help us, inspire us, serve us, fulfil us from the higher planes. Now you will do even more than what you have done for us on the physical plane.

To me, my Ananta, you have been precious, most precious. Your oneness-service to the Supreme in your spiritual Master not only today, not only for a few years, but forever will remain invaluable.