Part VI
SCA 296-304. Questions asked in April and May of 1995.Question: You often tell us the story of when Lord Krishna asked Arjuna the colour of some fruit on a nearby tree. Each time Arjuna said it was one colour, Krishna said it was a different colour, and immediately Arjuna changed his opinion to agree with Krishna. When we are dealing with you, how can we know when we should agree with you and when we should offer our own personal opinion?
Sri Chinmoy: A spiritual Master deals with many, many planes of consciousness. There is a plane of consciousness where earthly realities do not exist as such. If you say that something is blue or red, you are describing the earthly reality. But realities in the higher worlds are not like that; they entirely depend upon God or the cosmic gods. Lord Krishna knew that on the earth-plane the fruits that Arjuna was seeing had a particular colour. But he wanted Arjuna to go to a higher plane where fruits do not even exist, where the tree itself does not exist. On that plane, all that exists is oneness with God’s Will. For Arjuna, Lord Krishna was the embodiment of God. So, to reach this higher plane, what Arjuna needed was oneness with Lord Krishna’s Will.No matter how many times Krishna contradicted himself, Arjuna agreed with him. If Arjuna had been an ordinary human being, he would have said, “How many times do I have to agree with you? You corrected me and I agreed with you. Now why are you changing your mind again? What kind of man are you?” But Arjuna did not do that. He showed his obedience and also tremendous patience. All spiritual people have to go through this kind of examination.
To you, Arjuna may appear stupid because he continually changed his opinion. But Arjuna was not a fool. He was not as well-educated as his brother Yudhishthira, but he was far better educated than many people of his day, including Bhima, his other brothers, his cousins and so on. But Arjuna realised that he had to go beyond both form and formless to be one with Lord Krishna. Arjuna’s prayer was, “Lord, I want to be one with You. I want to see through Your Eyes; I want to feel with Your Heart.” Some people are clever. They say this prayer but continue to see with their own eyes and feel with their own heart. But Arjuna was not one of those; for him, this prayer was not mere words. He knew that Lord Krishna was a God-figure. That is why he made the promise, “Lord, from now on, I will make full surrender to You and become one with Your Will.”
This kind of oneness also exists in the ordinary human world. A Bengali mother will teach her child the word phul, which means ‘flower’. But a small child often is unable to pronounce it properly. He says, phu, phu! and does not use the ‘l’ sound. Even after twenty times he still says, phu, phu. The mother sees that by saying phu, the child is getting tremendous joy. So, if her heart is all oneness, she also starts saying phu to make the child happy. Her love for her child is infinitely more important to her than the correct pronunciation of the word. Her mother’s love exists one hundred per cent on the human level, and it is so strong that she surrenders to the child’s way of speaking. Sometimes twenty or thirty years later, after their children have grown up, you find Bengali mothers still using those wrong words that they learned from their children! Still they are getting so much joy from these childish words. This is called love between two human beings on the ordinary human plane.
On the human level, if the mother will call a flower phu to please her small child, on the divine level can the disciple not also surrender, out of his heart’s love, to the Master’s way of seeing reality? If the Master says, “One plus one equals four,” ordinary humans will say, “The Master is obviously an idiot. I do not want to be associated with him.” But the true disciple will say, “My Master is an ocean of love, light and delight. If he says that one plus one equals four, then he must be correct.” The disciples who insist that one plus one equals two are correct in mathematics, but spiritually they are millions and billions of miles away from the supreme truth.
On the human level, if you flatter a small child and agree with him, then the child will go into the kitchen and bring you some delicious food to eat. If you do not agree with him, he is not going to bring you such nice food. Sometimes God acts exactly like a child. By listening to yourself, you will get some satisfaction, certainly. But will you get your Master’s ocean of love and light? Who is going to give it to you? The one with whom you did not agree?
The problem is that each and every human being has formulated certain ideas on the mental plane. But a spiritual Master cares not for your mental ideas; he cares only for how much oneness you have established with him. When you agree with him, he gives you such a smile, such affection, such blessings. No matter how certain your mind is, it cannot give you that kind of smile, that kind of affection or blessings. So you have to make a comparison. See what you can get from your own mind-room and what you can get from your Master’s heart-room. By agreeing with the Master, you will be able to get infinitely more of the Master’s inner wealth than by remaining with your own limited mental conception of truth.
