Part V — Obedience or oneness

Obedience or oneness

I am asking this Centre, which is a very well-established Centre, and also other Centres which have been with me for over one year, to please feel the necessity of listening to my requests. My one and only request is that you allow your lower existence to become one with your higher existence. You have to feel that my request is not the request of a third person in your life. My request is coming from above, on the strength of my oneness with the Highest. I come from the higher plane and tell you to do the needful on the lower plane. It is only in this way that you will be able to bring your real reality and divinity to the fore.

To all the Centres I am saying that if I observe disobedience or other undivine qualities on the outer plane, then you will have to forgive me if I make divine retribution. Only in this way will you make very good, very fast progress.

I am not an autocrat and I will never be an autocrat. But if you call me the supreme autocrat I won't dare deny it. I wish to say only that the Supreme in me is trying to perfect you and this is one of the ways that I am doing it. I am not frightening you or threatening you. But I feel that the time has come, especially for the well-established Centres, to do absolutely the right thing. Other Centres which have just started may take their time. But if Centres are well-established, if they have stayed in existence for four or five years, then they have to listen to my request.

Last Saturday disciples came to New York from several distant Centres. In the New York area there are over four hundred disciples. But to my surprise, from these Centres we had only about two hundred people at the meeting. I was really disgusted. This celebration was not only a celebration; it was our offering of aspiration. The human in me felt sad and miserable just because the disciples had not established their oneness with me. I always say that my success and your success are the same, absolutely the same. If you can't feel that, if you feel that my success is my success and your success is your success, all right. What can I do? The proper attitude is that when the father has received some success in a particular field, is it not necessary for all the members of the family to at least come and congratulate the father? But no, my spiritual children are watching television, reading the newspapers or going to a party. I decided to punish these disobedient disciples. But then, in half an hour's time, the compassion in me defeated the justice in me. What can I do?

When I do something on earth, I beg of you to also do something so that your achievement and my achievement will become one. Tonight you have offered me amusement. With utmost sincerity I am telling you that, to me, this amusement, this achievement of yours, is as good as your highest meditation. In your amusement I found something. What is it? It is your oneness with him, with her, with everybody. This is something which you cannot accomplish during your most soulful, powerful meditation. With that kind of samadhi you cannot establish your oneness. But here you are offering me your oneness through comedy — through merrymaking and amusement. Oneness has to be established on every plane of consciousness.

Here you are all brothers and sisters — students. You have to please the teacher, either by meditating very soulfully or by offering the teacher your soulful gratitude or by doing something else that pleases him. If you please me in one way, then rest assured that I will then please you in ten ways. But first you have to claim me. The difficulty is that some of the newer disciples don't claim me. If they did claim me, then immediately they would come whenever we have a function. Quite a few times we have had a most special function and these disciples have known about it for at least eleven days in advance. A few people worked so hard to make it a most spectacular performance. But quite a few disciples did not come to the function. They watched television, or went to visit their friends.

Some of you have come here tonight from distant Centres. Why? What brings you here? It is your love. It is your oneness. People who have come from distant states deserve my most soulful appreciation and admiration. You are showing what oneness is.

Some members of our local Centres either have not come or have come but were able to stay for only a few minutes. There was no real necessity on their part to leave, but they did. They could have come here and spent a few hours meditating with us; but no, they don't do it. They have to do something different. They feel that it is beneath their dignity to mix with every Tom, Dick and Harry. But here they are making a serious mistake. When you can mix with your brother and sister disciples, only then will your realisation take place.

Some of my disciples like to talk about "women's liberation". Liberation is good, extremely good. I fully agree that we need liberation. But spiritual liberation is the one form of liberation which most of you ignore. Your liberation is to be free from your husbands or from the male members of the family. But I wish to say that real liberation is not like that. Real liberation is liberation from separation. If you are separated from your husband, then there is no liberation. If you are separated from your brothers, from your father, from the male members of your family, then there is no liberation. Liberation and separation cannot go together. If you really want liberation, then do not separate yourself from the Oneness-Reality.

If you want to have separation, then you have to separate yourself from ignorance, from the ignorance that has separated you from brothers, husband and parents. Liberation from ignorance is the real liberation, not liberation from such and such a person. If you are really liberated from ignorance, then no individual human being can stand in your way. At that time there will be no masculine, no feminine; everybody will be neuter. Everybody is going on to the one Goal; and this Goal, God, is neither masculine nor feminine. That is why in our Indian Vedanta philosophy we do not call God "He" or "She". We say, "That Thou art."