Sometimes a disciple may tell me about a situation through letters. Some time ago you left a message for me about a domestic problem. When I received the note, even before I opened it, my inner being said to me that everything was already done. That is, the situation had been resolved in the way the Divine, the Supreme, wanted. My mind did not know the outer details until I read the note line by line.
When I become aware that a problem has been dealt with inwardly, then my mind may ask my soul what was done on the physical plane and what is going to happen now. Otherwise the soul may not necessarily give the message to the physical mind. In the ordinary human life, unless the mind is aware of something, we feel that we do not know about it. But although our physical mind may not know something, another part of our being may be aware of it.
The soul almost all the time asks the physical mind to enlarge itself. The physical mind may read newspapers and learn millions of things — that somebody was stabbed here, a scandal is taking place there. This information gives the physical mind temporary joy. But after an hour, like a garbage collector, the soul takes this away from the mind, since this information does not help us at all in the spiritual life. We are on earth, so we get pleasure by knowing what others are doing. But this does not feed the soul, expedite our manifestation or give us fulfilment.
A spiritual Master need not know or does not know what you are going to have for breakfast or what the President said to his wife yesterday. But he does know the central, most important thing, and that is whether the disciple's soul is climbing up or climbing down the tree, or whether he is stationed at one particular place, be it a very low or a very high place. What compels the soul to come down? It is the emotional vital or the doubting mind that is bringing the soul down. And what lifts up the soul? It is the inner cry, aspiration.
Some people ask me why I do not use occult power to discover outer information, but why should I use it in order to know what is going on in the outer plane? These powers can be used for very high purposes. If you have one dollar, that doesn't mean that you will spend it all on tea and coffee. If you have a dollar, then you will spend it on something worthwhile. Again, there is something which brings outer information even more quickly than occult power, and that is soul power. Inside your house, your being, the main inmate is the soul-bird. If I catch the bird and ask it what is happening, the bird will immediately tell me about its cage. Of course, the soul need not constantly tell the Master what is happening.
Some people may wonder why some close disciples seek my guidance in outer matters, for God has given us enough intelligence to know what to say to others. But sometimes we feel that intelligence does not help at all. We know what is to be said to our friends or to our enemies. Yet even by saying the right thing, often we do not get satisfactory results. But if we tell a spiritual Master about outer circumstances and he knows what we are going to say, immediately there will be additional force behind our words. That additional force does not mean that we will always win. The force will only be applied to you and it will come to you as additional help. Then when you talk to a person, the answer that you receive will not affect you. You may either be victorious or lose the battle, but due to the help the Master has given you, you will not be upset. This is the most important thing: the after-effect, the result of the incident, will not affect you. You will maintain peace. Similarly, I ask my disciples to tell me where they are going even if it is only on a vacation or some ordinary trip because many incidents may take place on such trips. And if they go to do something for our mission such as open a Centre, then there is more reason to keep me informed.
Some ask me why I have to know what a particular disciple is doing, in which place he is putting up posters or with whom he is talking. If the disciple keeps me informed, that he is going to do this or that, then I can put a tremendous force on him. This force enters into him, and even if everything goes wrong, even if there is no outer positive result, he will still feel some inner joy that he is doing his very best for the Supreme. If you know that I am aware of the matter on the outer plane, there is inner joy. That inner joy is itself progress. But if the disciple does not tell me something on the physical plane, my knowledge remains inner.
It is up to the seeker to inform the Master about something. If the seeker feels that the Master is involved, then no matter what the result is, he will be happy and cheerful. But the seeker may feel that he does not need the Master in a particular instance. He has intelligence, he has lawyers, he has everything he needs to face the situation. At that time the Master will not call you a fool. No, the Master will only say that if you can manage the situation yourself, then well and good. The capacity and the confidence you have in yourself, if it is real confidence, has come from above, from the Supreme. So the Master is very happy because there is no difference between his guidance and guidance from the Highest.A spiritual Master is not a camel, true. The consciousness of a spiritual Master is considerably higher than the consciousness of a camel. But a spiritual Master who consciously takes the responsibility of hundreds and thousands of disciples on his shoulders is like a camel. The camel does not ask you to put a heavy load on his back. But the spiritual Master not only consciously takes a person's responsibilities but also tries to help that person come out of ignorance. You are doing something wrong and I am trying to be inside your suffering. But it is another thing to bring you out of the suffering itself. This is more difficult and much more important. If you are suffering, an ordinary human being has the power to identify and show you sympathy. But a spiritual Master will not only show sympathy, but will also try to take your pangs, sorrows and burdens out of your system. To enter into somebody's suffering is difficult, true, but to take away all that person's suffering is much more difficult. This is what a spiritual Master consciously does. Nobody can impose responsibilities on the spiritual Master if he does not want to shoulder them. But again, if he takes responsibility, he does it with his love, concern and compassion.
A camel is not aware of God-realisation; far from it. But man is aware of it, although he may not be making an effort to realise God. He knows that there is someone called God and that He has to be realised. When a spiritual Master comes into the life of a seeker, he makes the seeker consciously feel, at every moment, that he has to realise God. First the Master injects into the spiritual seekers the necessity of God-realisation. Then he inspires the disciple-seekers. And finally he brings down God's Light, Peace and Bliss and God-realisation for his disciples. These are the responsibilities and self-imposed duties of a spiritual Master. From the highest point of view, these duties are ordained by God.
Who can take this kind of responsibility? A camel? A camel takes his burden for six to ten years and then its body becomes useless and it dies. But a spiritual Master never becomes useless. Even when he leaves the body, he has to work for his disciples. That is the difference between the burden of a camel and the duties of a spiritual Master. The spiritual Master takes eternal responsibility for his dearest and closest disciples. So he has the shoulders of a divine camel.Once in India, someone who used to be my mentor was walking with me in the street. I was very close to him. While we were walking, this individual identified so strongly with me that he became aware of four things that I was doing at that time on the inner plane.
In the inner plane each individual has much more capacity than in the outer plane. The outer plane is very small, but the inner plane is very large. When a seeker is conscious of his capacity on the inner plane, he runs the fastest and achieves his goal sooner than at once.Arjuna saw this lotus in Krishna. But Arjuna could not maintain this vision, so he asked Krishna to show him a second time. Krishna insulted him. He said, "If you had faith in me, then you would have maintained the vision." What Krishna showed to him was his celestial Form. I have shown a similar form to three or four of my disciples, but they could not maintain it.
Strangely enough, one person who was a psychiatrist saw it, but his pride did not allow him to maintain it. He saw it on the strength of his utmost surrender and devotion. Then he wrote me such a pathetic letter. He said, "I know what you are, but I am a teacher. People come and touch my feet. They come to me for advice. When I am in the heart and the soul, I know what you are and what I am. I am a tiny drop and you are the ocean itself. But when I am in the mind, I think only that there are many who have come and touched my feet, so how can I come and touch your feet."In my case, since I have written considerably, I tell my disciples to read my writings first. See how many years it will take you to read my writings soulfully! You should mark the sections that appeal to you most, and then read them again. Feel that these sections are like mantras that you repeat again and again and again. If you like a poem, you can read it every day if you want to. But you have to read everything at least once in order to make a selection. If you do not read everything once, how will you know which one you like best? In order to make a selection you go to a store and select the thing you like best. But without seeing everything, how will you make the choice?
If a disciple reads my writings as a form of meditation on me and on the Supreme, then he is in my consciousness. If he reads my writings a second time, then again he will get my consciousness.But your advice is bound to be helpful and fruitful if you feel my presence and have tremendous devotion for me while you are giving advice to your spiritual brothers and sisters. If you have tremendous devotion when you are giving advice, at that time I tell you, you will not be able to make a mistake.
When some of my disciples give advice, they immediately consider themselves equal to me. They totally forget that they are my disciples and that I know a little more than they do. They are getting the utmost opportunity to reveal themselves. At that time, they negate my existence in their life.
Let us say that somebody needs advice from you or, even if he does not need advice, you feel that it is your bounden duty to give him advice. He has been your friend for a long time, and now he is under a cloud. Doubt or some other wrong force has entered into him. While you are advising the person out of your necessity, if you are full of devotion for me, then like a magnet you are pulling my wisdom and light. This will go to the person to whom you want to offer it. People make mistakes because they totally forget me. For a few minutes they become the Master of the particular seeker that they are speaking to. And then they make mistakes.
Sometimes when people don't ask us for advice, they will misunderstand us if we advise them. Still, we have to try. A daughter won't ask advice from her mother. But if she is doing something wrong, then will her mother just wait? Will her mother say, "Let her ask for my guidance, for my advice; until then I will be silent. Let her burn her fingers; then she will learn." No, the mother's heart will not allow the daughter to burn her fingers. The mother may be misunderstood if she tries to interfere and the child may get angry, but the mother's duty is to save the child. So, when you give advice, feel that the other person is a child, totally lost. Many times it has happened and many times it will happen that the Supreme wants a particular person to have an experience, so that in the future he will be more careful in his spiritual life. By giving advice to him you may make a mistake. Your heart is there because you know that he is doing something wrong. But how do you know if it is God's Will to help that person at that moment? How do you know if your advice is timely? Help he needs, but your best help you can offer during your meditation. Then you are going to the right person, to the Supreme. "Supreme, I feel that this person needs help. But who am I to help? It is only You who can help him." The Supreme is bound to hear your prayer, and then He will do it in His own Way.
Very often spiritual Masters work in this way. They always offer their good will, even if disciples have left their path. If those people are having difficulties, at that time they pray to the Supreme to illumine them. This way is the most effective because the Supreme Himself is accepting your request.
But if you find it difficult at that time to surrender your will to the Supreme, and if you have a very good heart and you feel that the person does need your help, then the other way is to have tremendous devotion while you are giving advice. You have to have devotion for the Supreme or for the Master. If you offer your devotion to the Master, immediately he will take your devotion and put it in the right place, at the Feet of the Supreme. Devotion is like a flower. Either you yourself can place the flower on the shrine, or you can leave it at the door and the person who is there will put it on the shrine. But the flower will be put at the right place.In the case of students, I always say that it is necessary to study. Your parents have allowed you to go to school and they meet with your expenses. So you have to please them. As long as I ask you to study, please study. First comes regular morning meditation, then Centre meditation, then your studies; then comes the press or some other selfless service. Otherwise, if you fail in your studies, you will be in serious trouble. For students, school life comes first.
There are many who do nothing after work. They are not students; they just work six or seven hours at their job and then they go home and wallow in the pleasures of ignorance. They have to make a choice between serving the Supreme, and sleeping at home or just wasting time. In these cases, if they are good disciples, the Centre activities count. The divine manifestation comes first. For some disciples, there is no Sunday, Monday or Tuesday; seven days a week they are active. In this way they will make the fastest progress.Now, how can you not think of yourself? You have thought of yourself for the last twenty-three years. By thinking of yourself what have you got? You have become a college graduate and you have a career, that is all. All right, you almost have your Master's degree. But your spiritual brother who is next to you also has his Master's degree. Why is he crying for something else? Is he satisfied with his Master's degree? If you ask him, he will say, "No, no, no." He is not satisfied. He wants something else. Now think of somebody who has his PhD or somebody who is really a great scholar. It may happen that that person actually wants the spiritual life like Dr Radhakrishnan, who was the President of India. Again, there have been many great scholars who didn't enter into the spiritual life. They cared only for books, books, books. If you enter into these scholars with your own aspiration, you will feel that in this incarnation, although you are only twenty-three years old, you have already got much more joy than they have. If you think of the prayer and meditation that you have done for the last three or four years, you will see that you have received much more joy in the inner worlds. Although you have been jealous of others or some people have said nasty things to you, when you think of your own inner life you will see that you have got at least ten times the real joy, peace, love or light. The depth, the profundity, the intensity of peace that you have felt even for a fleeting second, those scholars or very intellectual people have not felt. I tell you, they have read millions of books, they have written hundreds of books, but the intense joy, the sublime joy of peace that you have felt, if even for a fleeting second in these three years, these so-called scholars have not felt. This I am telling you on the strength of my own realisation. My realisation knows how much joy or how much peace these so-called scholars have got. They have mental satisfaction and they have illumined the world with their mental capacity, let us say; but your inner joy, which is of the heart, can house and feed the entire universe, while their mental achievement can't do it. Mental achievement will not be able to feed even the scholar himself. The person who has got tremendous mental achievement will not be able to feed himself for even a second.
So, by achieving things on the physical plane, on the vital plane or on the mental plane, you can never be satisfied. You are proud of yourself because you have got this degree, which was necessary, absolutely necessary in your case. I told you to study and you did it. But you have to know that here on earth, nothing you get will give you abiding satisfaction. You say, "I want this," but after you get it you see that it does not give you satisfaction. Finally there comes a time when you say, "I have tried in my own way, with my mind's limited capacity. Now let me make surrender to the Will of God, to the Will of the Supreme. Since I have tried my best and I have got the things that I wanted and even then I am not getting lasting satisfaction, let me do something else. Let me ask God to do everything for me. Let Him think of me. I have thought of myself so much. Now I have seen that it is not giving me real joy. Whatever I have asked for, I have received; but I am not getting any lasting satisfaction." That is the time for you to pray to God, to pray to the Supreme and let Him think of you. Say to God, "I have thought of myself; I have made a fool of myself. Now I am praying to you to think of me." At that time God will think of you.
If you allow God to think of you, God is always ready to think of you. But as soon as He comes near you to think of you, He sees that you are already occupied in thinking of others or thinking of yourself. God is a gentleman. If you don't allow Him to enter into you, then He won't break open the door. He may knock at your door; that much He will do, but He won't break the door. He will see that either you have already invited your friends and you have bolted the door or you are all alone and you don't want to have any visitors.
Always feel what you have achieved by thinking of yourself and what you can achieve by thinking of God, by thinking of the Supreme. The best thing is to meditate on Him, through surrender, through devotion and through love; to pray to Him to think of you. He is already doing it, but you have to become conscious of the fact that He is thinking of you. Right now you are under the impression that I think of you once in six months. If you imagine that I think of you only once in six months, then how can you make progress? But if you think, "Every day Guru meditates on me," then you will make the fastest progress. The best thing is to feel: "Since he is a spiritual Master, let us believe him when he says that he has quite a few emanations, quite a few representatives. As he is the representative of the Supreme for us, he also has quite a few inner beings, hundreds of inner beings. Let us believe him. He has kept at least one inner being for me, to meditate for me, to think of me." If you have that kind of faith that I am not fooling you, I am not deceiving you, you will make very good progress. Instead of thinking that I think of you only once in six months, once in a blue moon, if you can think that at least once a day I think of you, then you are bound to make progress. Again, if you think that every hour I think of you then you can make very good progress. The next step is to think, "Every minute he has someone to think of me. His physical mind may not be at all aware of it, but who cares for the physical mind?" Just feel that I have inside me hundreds and millions of inner beings. These inner beings I call emanations. I have many divine soldiers within me, so one of them is always taking care of you. If you have that kind of feeling, then you can make the fastest progress.
The disciples who make the fastest progress are those who think that I think of them more, infinitely more, than they think of me. If they think that I think of them only once in two months and they think of me every minute, every second of their lives, then they are fooling themselves. Nobody is thinking of me that much. But if somebody can feel that I think of him much more than he thinks of me, if not all the time, then he is not deceiving himself. Perhaps the mind does not allow you to feel that I am thinking of you at every moment. You think, "He is now eating, he is not thinking of me. He is now running, he is not thinking of me." But if you feel that, "He has many beings. His physical being may be running, but his inner being is thinking of me," then what you feel is absolutely true for each of those who have accepted me wholeheartedly, who are my real disciples. In your case, you are a real disciple of mine, and you also have one of my inner beings. Like that, all those who are my real disciples do have one. My physical mind may not be at all aware of what you are doing. I need not be aware; it is not necessary at all. If you can make yourself feel that I think of you infinitely more than you think of me, then your progress is bound to be the fastest.Since you are with us, please jump into the sea of reality, the reality that we are trying to identify with. We have had unfortunate experiences with some people. Aspiration they accept, but manifestation they won't accept. Only one or two of these people are still with us and they are not safe in our boat. Needless to say, if they don't accept our path, how can I be satisfied with them? If you are not satisfied with me, then no matter how hard I try, I am not going to be satisfied with you either. I am pulling you or you are pulling me. These people suffer and they make us suffer. We want to see them happy. We are happy with our path, but if we see someone who is unhappy, then we feel miserable.
If you want to remain with us, I wish you to accept our path of manifestation as well as you have accepted our path of aspiration. They are inseparable; they are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. They must go together, although right now they are puzzling you, confusing you. With our aspiration we do pray and meditate. We hold many meditation meetings. We have different times to meditate for special purposes. If you observe the faces of the disciples, you will feel that they do pray and meditate. Now if manifestation is confusing you, then please feel that it has to be accepted as part and parcel of our life, along with aspiration.If the disciples are not communicating or not mixing, even though they are members of the same family, then they have to remember that their common root is God. The Source is God, the Supreme. If you don't talk to somebody you are not going to lose your reality and he is not going to lose his reality. But if you don't try to talk to the Supreme within you, then you are losing everything. Your brother and sister disciples didn't come to the Centre for you, and you didn't come to the Centre for them. You and they both came for the Supreme in me. What is important is to go deep within and see if the Supreme cares for you or not. You came to school for the teacher, to please the teacher, so why worry about the students sitting beside you? What matters is how much connection you have established with me in your inner life. Even if you are the worst student and you are sitting beside the best student, you will be examined by the teacher according to your own merit. It doesn't matter who you are sitting next to. The best student may inspire the other students, but he may also create jealousy in them. Or it may happen that the person who is beside you is insecure. He will write his examination and then he will be scared to death. You are jealous of him because he is better than you are, and he is insecure because he feels that you will surpass him. So the best thing is not to look around you. Be responsible for your own spirituality only.
Here you stay in a group. Others may not mix with you the way you want them to, but still you are on speaking terms with them. More than that is not necessary. But there is a bad effect from too much mixing. Let us say you have taken a shower and are about to meditate. At that time you get a phone call from your friend, who asks you to go out to dinner. So you go. But if you hadn't been so close to your friend, it would have been a real blessing for you to meditate.
Here some of the disciples mix too much, but others don't mix at all. It is not because they are afraid of losing something; it is not out of fear. It is because they feel it is not necessary. When you do not want to make friends because you have a feeling of superiority or inferiority, then it is a mistake. But if you feel that you want only inner light, then why should you remain on the surface? In this case it is always advisable to have the inner friend. Outer friends will disappoint you when they are needed. Even your own body, vital and mind will disappoint you. As soon as you get a shock, your mind and your intelligence go away. Your only real friend is inside you and that real friend won't disappoint you.When I worked at the Indian Consulate, I used to live in Brooklyn, and it took me an hour and ten minutes, or sometimes even more, to get to work. I went on the subway with the attitude that it was a great opportunity, because then I didn't have to talk to anybody. At the Indian Consulate I had to talk and work eight hours a day. So there for at least an hour and a half I was so lucky. My attitude was that I had an hour and a half in which I was able to meditate. Otherwise, I could have said, "I am so unlucky! I am poor, that is why I have to stay in Brooklyn. It takes me more than an hour and a half to get to work, and I am tired and exhausted even before work starts." If I had had this kind of attitude, it would have tortured me. But instead I said, "I am so lucky — I am getting an hour and a half to meditate here." So it all depends on your attitude.
When you are putting up posters and taking pictures, you can say, "I am so lucky that I am able to prove my sincerity. I am going through these difficulties but I don't consider them as difficulties. I only take them as hurdles." Once you cross one hurdle, you go on to another hurdle. There will be quite a few hurdles to cross before you reach your destination. If there is no hurdle, there is no game. You have to run some distance in order to reach the goal. If the starting point and the goal are the same place, then how can you run the race?
On the highest plane of consciousness, the starting point and the goal are the same. They go together. On the highest plane the starting point is vision and the goal is reality. There, the goal and the vision always go together. You can't separate vision from reality or reality from vision. But here on the physical, vital and mental planes, the goal and the starting point are in two different places. If you are sincere and devoted, you will feel blessings right from the beginning of your journey, because you have sincerely tried. Your sincerity is your reward. If you get sincerity, you get tremendous joy, so please work for it.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."From:Sri Chinmoy,Obedience or oneness, Agni Press, 1977
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