The Master's compassion cannot be bought

There was once a spiritual Master who had only twenty disciples. Most of his disciples were sincere, devoted and aspiring. Only two or three were very unspiritual and undivine. One of these unspiritual disciples used to come and cry before the Master twice a week. She was in her late sixties, and she happened to be the Master's oldest disciple in terms of age. She used to cry and cry, and when the Master asked her what was wrong, she always said, "Oh, one day I will tell you. One day I will tell you."

This went on for about a year and a half. Then one day she said, "I am really sorry to tell you that my husband has been very sick for the last few years. Now he has suffered a minor stroke; he can't move his right hand. When both of us were young, we were fond of each other, but now we hate each other. We are staying together just because society may laugh at us or condemn us if we leave each other. However, I do feel sad that my husband is suffering so much. If you can be of any help, please tell me."

The Master said, "I can be of no help to you. I could have been of help to you only if you yourself had been very spiritual and if your husband had been spiritual. But your husband has never even come to my house."

"Oh, spirituality is not meant for him," she said, "but I come here regularly."

"You come regularly, but your aspiration is not intense enough."

"But will you not see my husband once?" the disciple pleaded.

"Certainly I will see your husband. You can bring him to my house, and I will give him a short interview."

So the woman brought her husband to the Master. The Master, out of his sincere compassion, touched the man's right hand, and suddenly it moved a few times. The Master then caressed and massaged it, and to the disciple's astonishment, a little bit of life came into it. Both she and her husband were thrilled, and they left the Master's house very happy.

But this life-energy flowed for only a couple of hours. Then it went away, and again the hand did not function. The woman became very sad. The next time she was at the Master's house, she asked him, "How is it that your healing power does not last?"

The Master said, "God does not want to nullify your husband's previous karma, so I can't do anything more than that."

Three times she brought her husband, and each time the Master performed this kind of fleeting miracle. Always after that he said, "I can't do more, because it is not God's wish."

Both husband and wife became angry with the Master, but there was nothing they could do. Still the wife used to come regularly to the Master's house. She kept hoping that one day the Master would be really pleased with her and would cure her husband fully.

One day the wife came up with a brilliant plan which she thought might make the Master change his mind. She offered the Master a ten-dollar bill, and she made him feel that this was all she could afford; otherwise she would have given him much more. Another day, some time later, she put another ten-dollar bill into the Master's pocket. Then she did it once more. In this way, the Master got thirty dollars from her, which was all she had ever given him in the three years she had been his disciple. Her brother and sister disciples used to scorn her because they knew that she was very, very rich, and that her husband had been even richer once upon a time. Still they had thousands of dollars in the bank, but she would never put anything in the love-offering box. In any event, the Master kept telling her that her husband's karma was not going to be nullified.

Six months later the Master moved to a different town, and all of a sudden many, many seekers wanted to follow his path. In the course of three months the Master got thousands of disciples. When the woman saw that the Master had thousands of disciples, she thought that it would be impossible to try to get him to cure her husband. She thought to herself, "Even when he had twenty disciples I could not influence him. Even in those days it was difficult to approach him. Now that he has thousands of disciples, it will be simply useless. The best thing will be for me to give up his path." So the woman left the Master.

Now, it happened that her husband suffered a lot for some time, and then he passed away. Before she had left the Master's path, she had heard quite a few stories about how the Master had invoked and blessed the souls of departed human beings. This was all a matter of belief. There was a time when she believed all these stories, but now that she had left the Master, she no longer had faith in him. So she decided not to inform the Master that her husband had died.

This woman had an intimate friend who was still a disciple of the Master. Her friend said, "Now that the Master has thousands of disciples, he never pays attention to us. You left him because he did not pay attention to you, and I am also going to leave him very soon for the same reason. But I have a little faith in him and I feel that he does have the capacity to bring down peace to departed souls. I really feel that you should inform him about your husband's death."

"My husband has died and now he is in perfect peace. If the Master invokes my husband's soul, immediately life will enter into his soul and disturb him. Then he will feel miserable and all his peace will be ruined. Also, I feel that I will be under obligation to give the Master some money if he says that he has done something for my husband. First of all, I don't believe in this. And also, I am not prepared to give him any money, although you know I do have some money."

These two women were on very intimate terms, so the friend asked, "How much money do you actually have?"

She replied, "This is not the kind of thing to discuss right now. But since you are my friend, I will show you my bank book." In her savings account she had seventy-six thousand dollars.

Her friend looked as though she had dropped from Heaven, she was so surprised. "Seventy-six thousand dollars!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, and I am going to give all this money to a distant nephew. He deserves it. He is thinking of opening up a hospital for the poor. That is a good cause. But I am not going to give a cent to that rogue, that foreigner who was once my Master. Perhaps he will take all our money and go back to his native land, where he will act like a king. So the best thing is for me not to give him anything. And please, if you are my real friend, do not tell the Master that my husband has died. Otherwise, he will create problems for me and say he has done this and that for the departed soul of my husband, and I will be under obligation to give him money. But I do not want to have anything to do with him."

Now, the disciple who was still with the Master felt a kind of inner pang, an inner necessity and remorse. She said to herself, "My time is fast approaching, and I will also leave the Master soon. But as long as I am staying with him, I should be a little sincere. So let me tell him what has happened."

After the lady had told him the story, the Master said, "Even though she has no faith in me, just because I saw the man while he was on earth, I feel a kind of inner obligation to help him. In the outer world I am a beggar. But I know who I am in the inner world; in the inner world I am an emperor. Such being the case, it is my bounden duty to be of some service to this soul."

The lady said, "On the one hand I am very happy that I have told you, but on the other hand I am worried that what she said may be right. She said that if you invoke the soul, you will agitate the soul. And if something goes wrong with the soul, then what will happen?"

The Master laughed and laughed. He said, "If you doubt my spiritual capacity to such an extent, then you should not remain my disciple." That was the day the Master lost his second disciple, for this lady also left his path.

Meanwhile, the Master entered into the soul's world and helped the husband's soul considerably. The husband's soul was extremely grateful to the Master, and it came to the wife in a dream and said, "Your Master has helped me so much. He has lifted me to a very high plane. If he had not helped me, I could not have come to this place. Never, never, never! It is beyond my imagination. So I wish you to give him at least four thousand dollars out of the seventy-six thousand dollars that I left you. Poor man, I am sure he has no money. You give him four thousand dollars, and with the rest you can do whatever you want."

When the lady awoke, she immediately decided that the dream was all a mental hallucination, so she disregarded it. But the following day her husband's soul again came and gave her the same message. This went on for ten or eleven days, and the woman started becoming nervous and upset. She said to herself, "Oh, if this goes on every night, what will I do? For the last three or four days, he has come with such a threatening attitude. He told me, 'You have to give him the money; otherwise I will do something to you. I will punish you.'"

She was terribly frightened. She had left the Master's path about a year earlier, but now she came to the Master's new house and bowed down before him and cried and cried. "Is it true that my husband's soul has been coming to me? Was it right on your part to go to my husband and help him against my express will? I repeatedly asked my friend not to inform you. You have done me a favour against my will. You have played a trick on me, and now you want me to give you four thousand dollars. I have seventy-six thousand dollars, true, but I don't want to give you even one cent."

The Master said, "I did it out of sheer goodwill. I saw your husband while he was on earth, but I was not able to help him as much as I wanted because of his past undivine karma. But now that he is in the soul's world, I can help him in a different way. You don't have to give me a cent, though. I don't need or want your money."

"You do want something from me. Otherwise, you would not have helped my husband. In this world nobody helps others without a motive."

"Again and again I am telling you, I did it out of my goodwill. I do not need anything from you. When you used to come to my spiritual Centre, you never gave any indication that you had that much money. You gave me thirty dollars in three years' time. So how could it have been because of your money that I helped your husband? No! It was my compassion that helped your husband before, and it was my compassion that has helped him now. Did I ask your husband's soul to come and bother you at night?"

The disciple said, "If you are really not crying for money, then can you not do something for me? Can you not ask my husband's soul not to bother me any more? You know that I do not want to give you any money."

The Master said, "Certainly I can. I will ask your husband not to come and bother you."

That night the Master entered into the soul's world and said to the husband's soul, "Look what kind of problem you have created for me! I helped you and I am still ready to help you, just out of sheer goodwill, out of pure compassion. But your wife misunderstands me; she is scolding me and insulting me and finding fault with me. The best thing is for you not to go and bother her again or insist on her giving me four thousand dollars. I don't need anything. I don't work for money, I work out of love."

The husband's soul was seriously displeased. "Such an ungrateful wife I have! This time I am really going to punish her. I will bring beings from the vital world to threaten her and frighten her. Then she will be compelled to offer four thousand dollars at your feet. Let her do anything she wants to do with the rest of the money. But I should have asked her to give you more money. Please tell me if you need money. I can force her to give you even more money!"

"No, no, I do not need any money. Only your joy I need. You are happy here, so I am happy that I have been of some service to you."

But the husband said, "No, I am not going to listen to you. This time I am really going to do something to her. I will get some beings from the vital world and frighten her to such an extent that perhaps she will give you more than four thousand dollars."

The Master felt miserable, and he said, "Are you happy here in the soul's world where I have brought you?"

"I am so happy, so grateful."

"If you create any problem for your wife by bringing down beings from the vital world, or if you frighten her in any way, then I shall not allow you to remain in this plane. I shall take away my conscious force and light, and you will have to go back to a place much lower and far inferior to this place. You will have to return to where you were before I brought you here. Do you remember? There you had very little joy, very little satisfaction. God alone knows how many incarnations it would take you to come back to this place."

The soul said, "I really want to stay here, and I know that if I show you my most sincere gratitude, one day you will take me to a plane much higher even than this. So I leave it up to you and God to do whatever you want to do with my wife."

The Master said, "I leave your wife with God. He knows what is best for her. He knows what is best for you. He knows what is best for me. At this point, let us each go in our own way. But if you need my help, you can call upon me, and I shall definitely help you in every possible divine way. Your wife I place at the Feet of the Lord Supreme."

September 14, 1974