There are various reasons why some disciples, after following our path for some time, do not want to continue following our path or do not want to reach their destination with our path. Each individual immediately has an answer why he or she wants to leave our path. There is no hard and fast rule. One reason is that they are tired. They are tired of following this path. Another reason is that they feel that if they follow some other path, then they will run faster. Or they feel that they don’t need any path. They feel that all paths are corrupted, unlit, obscure, and that no single path is illumined. For five minutes a path is illumined and for ten hours it is all dark and dingy, like going through a tunnel. Or they feel that the person in whom they have faith is not the right one for them or that he can be found not only in this Centre, but also in other spiritual places.
Sometimes they say that the path is bad or the followers are bad. They say to the Master, “No, no, no, we don’t suspect you. You are divine. Only it is the disciples who are displeasing us.” But I tell you, no. When members of a family want to fight, at that time they do fight. In Indian villages, we all stay together — seven or eight members of a family. Every day, perhaps, the brothers and sisters quarrel and fight. But they don’t leave their parents. They don’t start calling somebody else their brother. They don’t say, “Since my brothers and sisters are very bad, the best thing is for me to call somebody else Mother and Father and to go to a different family.” In the spiritual life also, it is the same.
I tell you, eventually the Master becomes the culprit. Many, many people who have left say that they left because the disciples are bad. But when they go, the real arrow they aim at the Master. “Why did he keep those rascals in the first place?” First they say, “Because of those rascals, I am leaving.” Then comes the thought, “But who kept those rascals? The Master kept them.” So, in this way or that way, ultimately the Master becomes the culprit. No disciple will leave the Centre unless he feels that the Master is the culprit in some way.
When people leave us, in some way or other we have failed them in their own expectations. If I don’t approach you and speak to you, if I don’t smile at you, then immediately you become displeased with me. But when it is a matter of Master and disciple, since I am the Master, I have to say that I know whom I have to please. I have to please only one Person on earth and in Heaven, and that is the Supreme. As long as I can please the Supreme, I feel that He has the capacity to please you, to please him, to please everybody here. But if I try to please all of you here and forget about the Supreme, then, I tell you, I won’t be able to please even one person even for one fleeting second. It is not my false modesty. No, believe me. Right now, some of you are pleased with me. Why? Not because I am trying to please you, but because I am pleasing Someone who has the capacity to please you. Just because I am pleasing Him, I am still able to keep so many here.
Then again, you have to know that this is a matter of faith. Those who know and feel that I am pleasing the Supreme, these people immediately I am able to please. But some whom I am not pleasing feel that I am not in touch with the Source. They feel that I have no connection with the Supreme, but that I am only exploiting the Supreme. They feel that I am using the Supreme only to escape when they get angry with me. They feel that if I displease them, then I will put all the blame on the Supreme. But if I do something good or divine, then immediately I will come forward and say, “I have done it, I have done it.” This is what some people think I do. But I am not a fool. Always I say, “Supreme, Supreme, let Thy Will be done.” But people who have left us, or who will leave us, have the feeling, consciously or unconsciously, that there is a yawning gap between the Supreme’s Height and my own way of operation. They feel that there is a yawning gap or that there is no connection even. They come even to that point.
If you feel that the Master is good but the disciples or the path are bad, then you are making a mistake. The Master is one with his path and his disciples. In my case, since I am the pathfinder, I have to say that my path is the path of the heart. Since it is the path of the heart, we have to act like the mother and the child. The mother accepts the child’s weaknesses, deficiencies and everything, as her very own. She feels that the child’s imperfections are her own imperfections. Then, from the child’s point of view, the mother is always the mother. If the mother does not have her Master’s degree, it does not bother the child at all. The child will not leave the mother just because she is ignorant. No, here it is only a matter of love. Where love is thick, fault is thin.
In one of my stories I have said that the spiritual Master just hides the disciples’ imperfections. When he hides the disciples’ imperfections, God does not consider him a thief. On the contrary, God is pleased with him because He feels that the Master really loves his children. God has given the Master patience, light, everything, so that the Master will do a job for God. The spiritual Master works for God and God knows that the Master is taking time and hiding his children’s imperfections so that he can illumine them.
So, when people leave the Centre after walking along our path for a few years, ultimately it is I who become the culprit. I am very glad that they consider me the culprit rather than my path or any individual, because after all it was not the disciples or the path that actually brought them. It was my realisation. It was the Peace or the Light or something else that they saw in me. In some part of their being there was the conscious conviction that I had the capacity to solve their life-long problem, their problem of millennia, which is ignorance. It was not because he had already come or she had already come that you came to our path. Far from it. If you are under the impression that he has brought you or she has brought you to the Centre, then you are totally wrong. A particular person may have been an instrument. Somebody on the street has shown you the church where I am. The church is your goal, let us say. But once you reach the goal, you do not go outside and search for the person who has shown you the goal. He himself may not even care for the goal. No, that person has played his role.
So, to all of you I wish to say that I am fully prepared to take the blame for everyone who has left the Centre. Everybody knows what is best for him according to his own standard. But ultimately, I tell you, we are all one. Whether one is in this boat or in that boat, when one reaches the destination, there we are all one. Many have left and many will leave, but you people must not feel that you are the culprit or that the path is not satisfactory. No. The path is satisfactory. That is why you stay with us.From:Sri Chinmoy,Warriors of the inner world, Agni Press, 1976
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