The Master surrenders¹

“Master, Master! Today at least I would like you to be sincere with me. Of late you have only been cutting jokes with me. I pray to you to be sincere and serious today.”

“When have I been insincere to you, my son?”

“Master, forgive me. What I actually meant was that you do not go deep within nowadays to answer my questions.”

“My child, my answers depend on the kind of questions you ask me. They entirely depend on the kind of questions you ask me.”

“All right, Master, today I am going to ask you a few most serious questions. My first question is, how many years or incarnations did it take your Master to realise God?”

“Seven long incarnations.”

“Seven long incarnations? I can’t believe it!”

“Who wants you to believe it? Who is begging you to believe it?”

“I am sorry. Master, my second question is, how many years or how many incarnations did it take you to realise God?”

“Three quick incarnations.”

“It took you three incarnations to realise God? You are such a great Master. How is it that it took you three incarnations?”

“What is wrong with that, my son?”

“Nothing, Master. But three whole incarnations? Anyway, I am very glad that my Master realised God in only three incarnations, whereas his Master took seven incarnations.”

“So you are proud of your Master?”

“Of course I am. I am positive that you have far surpassed your Master. Therefore, I should be more proud of you than I am now.”

The Master gave his disciple a sweet smile and said, “I love your innocent wisdom.”

“Master, this is my third question. How many incarnations shall I take to realise God?”

“Just one brief incarnation.”

“O Master, now you have lost all your seriousness once again! How can I realise God in one incarnation, when it took you three incarnations and it took your Master seven incarnations? It is impossible!”

“Why, my child? Why?”

“Master, I have never understood you, and I shall never understand you.”

“You don’t have to understand me. You just have to believe me. Let me make my philosophy simpler and clearer to you. Let us take my Master as a villager. A villager does not get as much opportunity to study as a town-dweller. With great difficulty he goes to school. With great difficulty he learns and becomes a man of knowledge. This was the case with my Master. But I was like a town-dweller. Naturally I got more opportunity to study than my village Master. So I didn’t have as much difficulty as he in studying and becoming a man of knowledge. Now, you are my spiritual son. You are like a city-dweller. You are getting every possible opportunity to go to school and become a man of learning. So for you it will be easy to acquire knowledge.”

“But Master, I still don’t understand you.”

“You will never understand me. I have decided from now on to understand everything for you on your behalf.”

“Master, I really don’t want to equal you in spirituality.”

“My child, I want you not only to equal me in spirituality, but to surpass me.”

“Master, on your part this is a most kind, blessingful wish, and on my part the thought is nothing but sheer stupidity and absurdity.”

“My son, my Master realised God, I realised God and you will realise God. Now, I surpassed my Master. And the way I surpassed my Master, you will also surpass me.”

“But Master, how will I dare to bless you? You know perfectly well that a son is not entitled to bless his father no matter how great he becomes and how ignorant and illiterate his father is.”

“Son, you are giving me earthly wisdom. I want to give you heavenly wisdom. When a son realises God, he is in a perfect position to bless his father, for he is in constant touch with the Highest. When he blesses his father at that time, it is just as though God Himself were blessing his father.”

“But Master, if both son and father are equally realised, how can the son bless the father?”

“Why not? They can bless each other. And as I said before, you should not only equal me but surpass me. So, without the least possible hesitation, I can say that you will be entitled to bless me.”

“O Master, I have pleased you in thousands of ways, hundreds of times. Of course, it was your compassion that made me succeed every time. You have made me an unconditional disciple of yours. Will it ever be possible, Master, for me to ask you to become unconditional to me, even once in this lifetime?”

“Son, I have always been unconditional. Had I not been unconditional ever since I accepted you as a true disciple of mine, by this time you would have left me. And this applies not only to you, but to all my spiritual children. I have always been an unconditional Master to my disciples. God Himself has taught me this supreme, secret lesson. Had I not been unconditional, no disciple would have or could have stayed with me even for a day.”

“Master, this time I really believe you. But will you fulfil my last prayer on earth?”

“Certainly I will.”

“Then, Master, never allow me to be your equal, let alone dream of surpassing you. I wish to be always at your feet. I wish always to kiss the dust of your feet. You have told me repeatedly that you have come into the world to make everybody happy. Such being the case, please make me happy. Please stick to your philosophy that we are all progressing ceaselessly into the ever-transcending Beyond. Just as you are far ahead of me now, I wish you always to remain far ahead of me. You sing the song of your highest self-transcendence from your own height, and let me constantly sing the song of my self-transcendence from my own height.”

“Son, in this world, when two persons do not see eye-to-eye with each other, in order to create a compromise it is always advisable for one to surrender. So I shall surrender to your most fascinating philosophy, since you are unwilling to surrender to my most illumining realisation.”

Deception and God-Realisation are two eternal strangers²

Venu and his wife, Rekha, were leading a very spiritual life. Venu and Rekha had two children, who were also very spiritual. When Venu reached middle age, he felt the necessity of entering into an ashram to devote himself to the spiritual life. Rekha wanted to do the same, and their son and daughter, who were now teenagers and leading a pure life, gladly followed the example of their parents.

Venu was a very rich man. He was a diamond dealer by profession, and also he had inherited a very large sum of money at the time of his father’s death. Venu gave up his business, collected all his money and offered it to his spiritual Master. Then he and his whole family went to the Master’s ashram to live.

The Master gave Venu tremendous affection and special attention. Some disciples thought that the Master was doing this just because of the money Venu had given him. Others thought that it was not because of his money, but because of his love, devotion and surrender to his Master’s will that Venu had become so close to the Master. Venu and all the members of his family were liked by hundreds of people at the ashram because of their simplicity, sincerity, kindness and deep feeling for the spiritual life. They were extremely close to one another as well. Indeed, it was a remarkably happy family.

Days passed into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and a day came when it was time for Venu’s family to celebrate Venu’s sixtieth birthday. They had been in the ashram for ten years, and therefore this birthday had a special significance for them. That significance was added to the joy and glory of Venu’s most auspicious sixtieth birthday. But alas, their heart of light, delight and joy was captured by destruction-night. On his very birthday Venu was attacked by cholera, and in three hours’ time death snatched him away. The entire family was thrown into a sea of grief.

The Master was simply shocked at Venu’s abrupt departure from the earthly scene. He invited the whole family to come to him for consolation. Venu’s wife and his son and daughter went to their Master shedding soulful tears. The Master blessed them one by one. He said to Venu’s wife, “Rekha, you have lost your husband and I have lost my spiritual son. I do not know whose loss is greater.” Then the Master said to Venu’s son and daughter, “Your father is inside my heart. I have two homes: one is here on earth; the other is in Heaven. Soon I shall take him to my other home with my occult and spiritual power. As you know, I rarely use my occult power, but in this case I am more than willing to use it, for Venu’s soul is extremely dear to my heart.

“I shall tell you something else: your father is bound to come back in five years. He will take birth under my inner guidance in a very spiritual family. All this I shall do because his soul is extremely dear to me. And I assure you that when the child comes to my ashram, I shall let you know.” Hearing all this, the stricken family was greatly consoled. The Master’s precious words had assuaged their grief. They went back home and shared the secret news with all those who came to console them.

Three years passed by. Eager to see her father again, Venu’s daughter, Mula, asked the spiritual Master if her father had taken a new incarnation yet. The Master said, “Yes, Venu has taken a new incarnation, and in two years you will see him here at my ashram.” Venu’s whole family was highly excited at this blessingful news, and they started counting the days. Two years later, a spiritual family came to the ashram with a son who was two years old. This child’s name was Kush. The young husband and wife prayed to the Master to give their child a spiritual name, and the Master gave him the name Venu.

Soon the family of the departed Venu came to learn about this Venu. Once more Mula went to the Master and enquired whether this Venu had any connection with her father. The Master said, “Not only does he have the deepest connection, but this Venu is none other than your father.” On hearing this, Mula went home hurriedly and shared the news with her mother and brother, Tushar. They were all excited, and immediately went to visit the new Venu. Rekha took some grapes for her child-husband, Tushar took a toy flute for his child-father and Mula took a crayon for her child-father.

Venu’s young mother greeted the family with great love and with all the natural warmth of her heart. She, too, was excited when she heard the news. Since the Master himself had given this news, no one had even a shadow of doubt about its truth.

Every day Rekha came to visit Venu. She gave the child most delicious fruits and candies to eat and often brought him expensive toys. Venu’s mother and his former wife became very close friends. Venu’s son and daughter also used to come and visit their child-father quite often and offer him toys. They got tremendous joy by playing with him.

But only one thing bothered Tushar a little. He did not notice anything in the child Venu which would make him feel that this child had been his father previously. So one day Tushar went to his Master and said, “Master, forgive me. I don’t deny your inner vision. You are the greatest living Master on earth. But how is it that I don’t see anything of my father in this child? His face does not resemble my father’s at all. His movements and gestures are not in any way like father’s.”

The Master replied, “My son, the soul is not bound by anything. The soul has every right to assume a different consciousness and a different mode of life each time it enters into the physical world. Your father’s soul did not feel the necessity of assuming and revealing the same qualities that it had before. His is a very progressive soul. It cares only for the ever-transcending new. New peace, new light and new height are entering into this child. What you actually want and need is the highest achievement from your father and not the outer likeness.”

Tushar touched the feet of his Master and said, “Master, you have removed all the doubts from my mind. You have immensely increased my heart’s faith in you. From now on I shall never argue with you or doubt you again. My life of ignorance I place at your feet of Light.”

Alas, human life is not always smooth sailing. After some time, Venu’s mother and his former wife were at daggers drawn. His mother, observing the way Rekha was gaining love and affection from her child, felt that Rekha would take Venu away from her. She noticed that her son had become more fond of Rekha than of her, his own mother. Sometimes he would cry inconsolably when he did not see Rekha around him. This pained and irritated his mother deeply. So she wrote a sad letter to the Master explaining in detail everything about her most deplorable situation.

The Master consoled her and asked Rekha to stop going to Venu’s house daily. Only on rare occasions could she go and visit her child-husband, who by this time was four years old. Venu missed his dearest friend when she did not come and he cried for her and told his mother he wanted to see her every day as he used to. Helpless, Venu’s mother wrote another letter to the Master, bringing to his outer notice the deplorable situation in the family. In the meantime, Rekha was also feeling miserable because she was not able to visit her child-husband regularly.

After receiving the second letter from Venu’s mother, the Master told her that he would ask Rekha not to go to visit Venu at all. And this was only the beginning of their suffering. The Master said that both the parties must remain totally apart. He asked Venu’s mother to tell the boy that Rekha had left the ashram. There were seven thousand disciples living at the ashram, so it would take Venu a few years to discover that his friend had not actually left. The Master then strictly ordered Rekha not to go to Venu’s house any more. He said, “For forty years you enjoyed the company of your husband. Now let this poor woman enjoy the company of her son for forty years. God is always kind and just. You had Venu; now let her have him.”

The human mind and doubt are inseparable friends. Tushar again started doubting the Master. Granted, this child was his father, he argued. But how was it, he asked himself, that the child never impressed him in any way? He never had any inner feeling for the boy. He thought that something was wrong. Meanwhile, at home, his mother was miserable because the Master had prohibited her from seeing her former husband. His sister, Mula, was also extremely sad over this situation and Tushar was not in a position to console either of them. Who could console them after the Master had made this irrevocable decision? Finally an idea entered his mind. He decided to go and visit another spiritual Master of great eminence, whom he had heard much about from his friends and acquaintances. This Master had a very small ashram, with only forty disciples, as compared to Tushar’s Master who had thousands of disciples.

So one day Tushar went to this Master’s ashram and asked to have an interview with the Master. The interview was granted. Tushar narrated his sad story to the spiritual Master and asked whether all that his Master had said about the child was true.

The spiritual Master said, “First of all, I must tell you that it is quite immaterial whether or not the child was your father. You will not be able to claim him as a member of your family in any case. You were curious to know about your father. Now look where curiosity has led you. To misery! I feel especially sorry for your mother. When you go home, tell your mother that since she has accepted the spiritual life, it is God alone who is her husband, child, father, mother, brother and sister. God is her all. My philosophy says that the past is dust. Since her past has not given her God-realisation, she should not look into the warehouse of the past, but into the treasure-house of the golden future — the future that will give her Love, Light and Fulfilment in boundless measure. You know perfectly well that curiosity is not spirituality. But God has given me a heart of compassion. Since your mother has been suffering badly over this situation, I shall console her in a special way. If you have faith in me, then get married as soon as possible. In a year’s time, I will bring the soul of your father into your family. I shall be able to prove to you, your mother and your sister that this time it is really your father who has come into your family.”

Tushar bowed down to the spiritual Master and touched his feet. Then he went back home and told his mother this incredible story. Rekha immediately arranged for her son’s marriage. In three weeks she found a most beautiful and spiritual girl for him. After one year of marriage, Tushar’s wife was blessed with a child.

When Tushar’s child was one year old he used to stretch out his hands and bless Rekha, his grandmother, most affectionately. This was exactly what Venu used to do to his wife every morning and evening. When the child was two years old, he stopped drinking milk. When his mother and grandmother tried to feed him milk, he would say, “No milk! No milk!” The very sight of milk made him sad and angry. Rekha remembered that her husband had always hated milk.

One day, when the child was four years old, he called out to his grandmother, “Rekha.” Everybody was astonished to hear the name “Rekha,” since no one in the family would call her by her own name except her husband. The son could not call his mother by her first name, nor could the daughter or the daughter-in-law. The child had never heard his grandmother’s first name. But he said to his grandmother, “Rekha, what have you done with the money?”

Rekha, who was overwhelmed, asked him, “What money?”

“Don’t you remember that in my bedroom, right under my cot, you and I dug a hole, and there we placed a small tumbler in which we kept twenty thousand rupees for our children?”

Rekha, poor Rekha! She had totally forgotten about the money. She took the child in her arms and brought him to the spot he had spoken of. Tushar dug a hole in that same spot and discovered a large tumbler with twenty thousand rupees inside it.

When he was seven years old, the child asked his grandmother, “Rekha, where is our Lord? I want to go and see him.” Now Venu had always called his Master “Lord,” and he was the only one in the family who did so. “I want to go and see him. I wish to go and see my Lord.”

On behalf of his son, Tushar wrote a letter to his Master. By this time, the Master had heard quite a few striking stories about Tushar’s son, and he had also heard about the Master whom Tushar had visited. On reading Tushar’s letter, the Master became furious. He wrote a nasty letter to Tushar, saying that he and his whole family had to leave the ashram on that very day. Tushar, his mother, his wife and his sister did not feel at all sorry. On the contrary, they were glad that they could go away from that ashram quite peacefully, without creating any further embarrassment for their Master. Long before this they had been thoroughly convinced that this young child was a reincarnation of their beloved Venu. By this time, they were more than eager to go to the other Master and become his disciples.

A few days later, Tushar’s ex-Master most vehemently attacked the new Master with all his occult power. But the ex-Master was no match for the present Master. The ex-Master inwardly said to the new Master, “Because of you, I have lost a spiritual family. Because of you, seven thousand disciples of mine have started losing faith in me.”

Tushar’s new Master replied, “You have played your role, and I have exposed your deception to the world at large. You have over seven thousand disciples, while I have only forty disciples. But I am warning you! Do not exploit innocent and sincere hearts! Otherwise, God will expose you again and again through other instruments like me.

“You thought that since you had seven thousand disciples, you were a great spiritual giant; whereas poor me, with only forty disciples, could be of no consequence. I tell you, it is not the number of disciples one has, not the quantity, but the quality that matters and I tell you, because of their sincere inner cry and pure life, my disciples have far surpassed yours. Time will prove it.

“It is not the ego in me that is speaking; it is the Wisdom-light that is speaking. There is no competition between you and me, and there can be no competition between my spiritual children and your spiritual children. My children and I are walking along one road; you and your children are walking along another road. Our road is sunlit precisely because we are simple, sincere, dedicated and totally consecrated to our goal. No doubt your goal and our goal are one and the same, but the path that you are walking along is very long and narrow because you are consciously and deliberately wedded to deception, darkness and ignorance. Most of your children are living in the world of luxury and pleasure. But spiritual life is a life of self-dedication and not a life of enjoyment. Be sincere to yourself. Your sincerity will give birth to your children’s sincerity. Sincerity is our eternal safeguard.

“My last warning to you is this: if you again exploit innocent hearts, you will not only lose all your disciples, but they all will surpass you in the real spiritual world, the world of inner achievement. And what is worse, you will have to get your liberation, salvation and illumination from one of your disciples at some remote future time. Mind you, this will take place hundreds of years from now, when you become totally sincere and dedicated.

“God, out of His infinite Bounty, has blessed me with occult and spiritual power which far surpasses yours. Therefore, today you have to accept this most deplorable defeat at my hands. You have a little bit of occult power. But mere acquisition of occult power, no matter how great, does not indicate that one is a God-realised soul. You are a shining example. For you God-realisation is still a far cry. My only advice to you is this: deception and God-realisation are two eternal strangers.”

Silence is the best truth³

Many years ago in Bengal, India, there lived several spiritual Masters who were renowned for their sincerity. They were sincerity incarnate, and many times they suffered severely for this. Nevertheless, they were determined not to swerve from the path of truth.

One day, with his fifty intimate disciples, the Master Kudal went to a religious festival. Thousands of seekers and hundreds of disciples with their respective Masters came to attend this religious festival. The disciples of various Masters sang spiritual songs and staged spiritual plays. It was a colossal gathering. In the street that afternoon, all of a sudden Kudal approached a beautiful girl of seventeen who was with her parents, and he cried out, “Mother, Mother, you are here! You were my mother in your last incarnation. Mother, bless me. I am your son, Kudal.”

Kudal’s disciples were at first amazed, because they had never encountered this kind of behaviour in their Master before. Sushila, the girl, was embarrassed and shocked. Her mother thought that Kudal was crazy. Her father became furious and threatened Kudal.

When Kudal’s disciples saw that their Master was being threatened by the girl’s father, one disciple said to him, “How dare you insult our Master? Our Master is a great Yogi! If you ever again dare to insult him, we shall send you to the other world. Fifty of his disciples are here now. If you don’t want to believe what our Master says, don’t believe it. If your daughter does not want to bless our Master, let her not bless our Master. But you are a fool! The entire world is eager to be blessed by our Master. He is a Yogi of the highest magnitude. Just because your daughter happened to be his physical mother in her last incarnation, he wants to be blessed by her. The physical son, no matter how great and high he is, no matter how divine he is, offers his loving devotion to his mother. Do not ascribe undivine motives to a Master of his calibre.” Sushila’s father said to the disciples, “For God’s sake, let me take my daughter home. Enough of this Kudal, this spiritual rogue! I always knew that spirituality was a bosom friend of stupidity.”

But, meanwhile, something was happening in Sushila’s heart. During the disciple’s angry outburst, she had been looking at Kudal most affectionately and soulfully. When her father and mother led her away, she began to weep. She said to her father, “Father, you have insulted a great spiritual Master. To insult a spiritual Master is a terrible sin. And I strongly feel that I was his mother in my previous life.”

Immediately Sushila’s mother cried, “Stop! Stop! He is a rogue and you are a fool! I don’t want you to be fooled by a fake Master.”

The father added, “He is not only a rogue and a fake, but an immoral character as well. The way he came up to you, my daughter, and talked to you in the street was utterly distasteful. His manners were nothing but callous.”

Sushila said to her parents, “If you go on speaking ill of this great spiritual Master, I shall not talk to you anymore.”

Suddenly the mother said, “A brilliant idea has struck my mind. Let us go to our own Master and ask him if what this one has told us is all true.”

The father immediately agreed, saying, “Indeed, that is an excellent idea. Undoubtedly our Master is infinitely greater and higher than this Kudal, whom Sushila now seems to be on the verge of accepting as her own.”

Sushila said to her parents, “If you go on speaking ill of this great spiritual Master, I shall not talk to you any more.”

Her mother became furious and scolded, “Shame, shame on you! How dare you compare our Master with that silly man!”

“Mother, don’t call him silly, for I inwardly feel that he is really good and great.”

Her father, in an ironic voice, uttered, “Divine, too, no doubt.”

Sushila said to her parents, “Why are you torturing me? Let us go to our Master and solve our problems.”

The mother replied, “Forgive us. Let us go.”

On their arrival at their Master’s home, the father blurted out, “Master, today has been the most inauspicious and trying day of my life. That Kudal, who styles himself as a great Master, has created a terrible problem in our family! Thousands of people are enjoying the religious festival, and we wanted to do the same. Alas, all of a sudden a hostile force had to attack us. This hostile force was none other than Kudal, the great fake. Master, do you know what he told us? He told us that our dearest Sushila was his mother in her last incarnation! And what is most painful is that Sushila believes it. Please, Master, tell us once and for all that it was all false. Once she hears this from you, Sushila will not be so attached to him and fascinated by him.”

The Master went deep within. Fifteen minutes later he came out of his trance and said, “Kudal was right, perfectly right.” The mother burst into tears, the father flew into a rage, and Sushila fell at the Master’s feet with overwhelming gratitude.

Sobbing, the mother said to the Master, “Master, already it is almost impossible for us to keep our daughter at home. Now I am sure she will go and join Kudal. He will ruin our dearest daughter. She is our only daughter. She is the only child in our family.”

The father said, “Impossible! As long as I am on earth, I shall not allow my Sushila to go near him.”

Sushila smilingly said, “Let us see.”

Then the father said to the Master, “Master, we came to you to be saved. Instead of saving us, you have totally destroyed our family. I tell you, you and Kudal are two unthinkable and unbearable fakes. I had great faith in you, in myself and in God. I am giving up the spiritual life for good. Tonight I shall set fire to your house and burn the whole thing to ashes!”

The Master replied, “My son, you can do anything you want with my house and with my life, but I shall always speak the truth. I shall never waver an inch from the truth.”

“But don’t you see that your truth has destroyed my whole family?” cried the father. “What kind of truth is it that destroys a sweet, loving and affectionate family? I hate your sense of truth, and I literally hate you!”

That night, Sushila’s father kept his inhuman promise to set fire to his Master’s house. In the middle of the night, the unfortunate Master had to take shelter in his garden. Before his very eyes, his house burned to the ground. Yet his compassion and forgiveness prevailed.

Early in the morning, this Master’s own spiritual Master came to him occultly during his meditation and said, “My dearest son, compassion is good, forgiveness is good, but you have to know that wisdom is equally good. Truth is unparalleled and incomparable. But on the physical plane, if you all the time use the truth in its pristine form, the ignorance of the world finds it extremely hard to bear. The world stands against the one who offers truth. So, at times, silence is the best truth, and not the revelation of one’s realisation.

“Look how Kudal’s sincerity was misunderstood. And your sincerity was met with ingratitude and destruction. I tell you, although sincerity is of utmost importance, at times silence is the only medicine that can cure this world of ignorance. Speak the truth when it is inspiring, encouraging, illumining and fruitful. But in cases where the truth will create measureless misunderstanding and untold suffering, silence is by far the best truth, the only truth.”

Money, too, can serve God: give the money a chance⁴

There was once a spiritual Master with a few hundred disciples who, fortunately or unfortunately, had peculiar ideas about material wealth. He was of the opinion that money-power and God-love could never go together. He felt that money was the worst possible evil on earth. Therefore, he made it a point not to accept any money from anyone.

This Master’s disciples were extremely fond of him and extremely proud of his inner Peace, Light, Bliss and Power. They respected his ideas about money and supplied all his material needs, which were very few, without making him have to deal with money. In addition, most of them soulfully embraced their Master’s opinions and had as little to do with money as they possibly could.

Luva, a very close disciple of the Master, always liked to be exceptional, and he exploited the Master’s loving compassion quite often. The Master had repeatedly said that he would not accept money for the interviews he gave to disciples, seekers and admirers. He would accept no money for his spiritual discourses, either. But at the end of each interview with the Master, Luva used to plead with him to accept some money as a love-offering. The Master regarded Luva as a spoiled child, and quite reluctantly he would accept money from him.

Because of his special treatment of Luva, the Master became a victim to merciless criticism from some of his disciples, and this was quite painful for him. But the Master thought that since Luva had many good qualities which others badly lacked, he could condone his dear disciple’s unfounded and persistent demand. Fortunately, there were also some disciples who were extremely devoted to the Master and who felt that there was a special reason why the Master dealt with Luva in this way. For them, the Master’s way of dealing with any disciple or anybody on earth was simply perfect.

Luva’s exploitation of the Master in the matter of money lasted for three long years. Then, finally one day he said to Luva, “Luva, I shall no longer accept money from you after I give you an interview. Every week, as usual, I shall grant you an interview, but the fulfilment of my advice in your life of aspiration is the only fee or love-offering that I wish.” Luva was astounded. But he felt that this time the Master was using his adamantine will. He felt that it would be useless to argue or plead with the Master, because this time the Master would not surrender to his emotional demands. Nevertheless, Luva was reluctant to give up all at once the idea of offering money to his Master.

A few days later the Master said to Luva, “Come tomorrow morning for an interview. But remember, don’t bring any money with you.” The next morning the Master gave Luva a most significant interview. At the end of the interview he asked, “Well, Luva, have you brought any money with you?” Luva hesitated for a moment and then handed the Master a hundred dollar bill.

Sadly the Master took the money. Then he became furious. He said to Luva, “Now my hands are itching, my palms are burning! I have told you people many times that I cannot touch money. Money is a hostile force. Now I have to wash my hands thoroughly with soap and water.” Luva was sad and happy. He was sad because he had created such discomfort for the Master, but happy because the Master had accepted his money once again. Still he could claim to be exceptional.

The following week the Master granted Luva another interview. At the end of the interview the Master asked him whether he had brought any money with him. In a trembling voice Luva replied, “Yes, I have.”

“Where is it?” the Master asked.

“It is inside my pocket.”

The Master said, “It deeply pains me to tell you that you are polluting the spiritual atmosphere of my house by carrying money into my meditation room. Therefore, I shall not grant you any more interviews in my house. You are welcome to come inside to meditate, but each week, when I give you an interview, it will be outside my house, in the garden.”

Then the Master cut off all the pockets of Luva’s shirt and said, “From now on, when I give you interviews you will wear only this shirt which has no pockets. Then you will not be able to bring any money with you. I am totally disgusted with you. You are constantly violating my law.”

The following week, the Master and Luva were having a most soulful discussion under a mango tree in the garden. During this interview Luva had a solid and concrete experience of Light and Delight in his heart. He was overwhelmed with joy, and again and again he offered his soulful gratitude to the Master.

When the interview was over, the Master, as usual, asked Luva whether he had brought any money with him. But before Luva could answer, a huge branch suddenly broke off from the mango tree and fell right on the Master. The Master, being an old man, had not been able to move away in time, but Luva had been able to escape. Immediately the disciple went back to help his Master. Seeing that the Master was severely injured and unconscious, Luva became extremely frightened and upset. He ran to call the best possible doctor for his beloved Master.

When the doctor arrived he soon discovered that the Master’s case was extremely serious. His head was badly wounded. The doctor was very famous and also very expensive because of his unsurpassed capacity in medicine. In two months, he was able to cure the Master completely. Luva paid all the doctor’s fees.

After his recovery, the Master said to Luva, “Son, your money-power has saved my life this time, not my inner light and my spiritual power. I wish to tell you that mere money-power cannot elevate human consciousness even an inch, and if human consciousness is not elevated and transformed into divine consciousness, man will always remain undivine and half-animal. But at last the realisation has dawned on me that when money-power is needed to serve spiritual power, money-power should be accepted with loving and blessingful gratitude. Only then can spiritual power, which is love-power and oneness-power, do its work and transform today’s man into tomorrow’s God.”

The Italian teacher⁵

This incident took place one hundred fifty years ago in a spiritual community. Two teenage boys, who were deeply interested in literature, made an arrangement for a literary meeting. They requested their Italian teacher to preside over the meeting, and he gladly accepted. About two hundred literature-loving souls attended the programme, which consisted of songs, short plays and recitations. It lasted for about two hours and was a grand success.

At the end of the meeting the Italian teacher, whose name was Mihir, said, “God wanted this spiritual community of ours to be divine, but unfortunately our spiritual leader is making the young generation into a monkey-generation instead of a God-generation.” Immediately the audience began protesting vehemently. They insulted him mercilessly, and Mihir had to leave the hall in utmost humiliation.

That night around midnight, a young man broke open the door of Mihir’s home and pointed a revolver right at his chest. “How dare you speak ill of our spiritual Master!” he said. “You ungrateful creature, you shameless beast! You live here in our spiritual community, yet you have the audacity to speak ill of our Master. It is not our Master’s fault that we are not yet totally divine. He has been working so hard to make us divine, but we cherish ignorance. It is not the Master who is making monkeys out of us, but our own ignorance-loving life. Needless to say, you are in the same boat. If we are all going to be monkeys, you are certainly no exception. But I totally contradict your statement that we are becoming monkeys. No, we have made considerable progress and we shall go on making progress slowly, steadily, and effectively. Anyway, I have not come here at this hour of the night to offer you a long sermon. I have come here to take your life.”

Mihir was terrified. “Please, I beg of you to spare my life,” he stammered. “I shall never criticise our Master again.”

The young man hesitated. Then he said, “Forgiveness is granted this time, but I warn you that it will not be offered again.”

Alas, a few days later Mihir announced to the students in one of his classes, “I could have written far better spiritual poems than the Master has written. It is just because I do not care much for spiritual poems and lack the inclination, and because I have no time that I have not written any. If I had written poems, I could have far surpassed our Master’s poetic genius.”

The students could not believe their ears. Two students ran up onto the platform, and one of them brutally boxed the nose of the teacher while the other vehemently pulled him by the ear. The sufferings of the teacher can better be felt than described. Several students immediately went to the president of the spiritual community and narrated the whole story.

The president said, “I don’t have to speak to the Master about this. It is I who have to take action. You go and tell your Italian teacher that in fifteen minutes my attendants will be at his house to take him to the railway station so that he can go back to his native town.”

With or without his consent, Mihir was put onto the next train, and the ashram authorities considered themselves well rid of him. He did not go back to his home town, however, but travelled to a big city, where he applied for a job with the city’s largest newspaper. He got the job and after a while became the newspaper’s most prolific writer. He wrote considerably, both in English and in Italian. Within six years, the newspaper authorities made him the chief editor.

Now, Mihir did not forget about his humiliation in the spiritual community. Quite often he would fabricate undivine stories about his former spiritual Master and his ashram. Of course, at times there was some truth behind his merciless attacks, for he had lived in the ashram from the age of ten to the age of thirty-five, and he knew the place well. Finally, he wrote a biography of his ex-Master, of course without asking permission. In most sections of the book his imagination ran riot, and when the book came out, the authorities of the ashram sued him.

While the case was in court, Mihir bribed seven of his former brother disciples to supply him with the most sensational, but private stories about the spiritual community. These stories he published in his newspaper, in spite of the fact that he was already being sued by the spiritual community. The owners of the newspaper were highly pleased with him. Because of his sensational journalism, the paper gained several thousand new subscribers.

One day an article about the ashram lawsuit appeared in the paper. It contained accusations from a disciple of the Master against Mihir, accusing the editor of slander and deception. The newspaper authorities all took the side of their editor, and defended him untiringly. Fortunately or unfortunately, the editor won the case. Alas, during this time the Master himself began to suffer from most serious ailments, so the mood of the ashram was very low. The authorities of the spiritual community wanted to take the matter to a higher court. But the Master said, “I do not think it will do any good. If you have any other suggestions, however, please tell them to me.”

One of them said, “Master, we know you have tremendous occult power. You have used it many, many times. Please use it once again. This time use your occult power to make the right hand of that rogue paralysed so that he can never write again.”

The Master said, “He does not need a hand to write. Even if he does not write, whatever he wants to say against me he can dictate to his secretary. They will still be able to publish it in the newspaper.”

The disciples then said, “Master, then do something to his brain. With your occult power, damage his brain so that he cannot think properly. Make him senile so that he won’t be able to criticise you anymore.”

The Master said, “Well, that can be done.” So he used his vast occult power and damaged the editor’s brain. “Also,” he told his disciples, “I have done something else which will please you still more. I have made him blind in one eye.”

Since he had become partially blind and totally senile, the editor could no longer work at the newspaper. He had to resign, but the newspaper authorities were extremely kind and sympathetic. They continued to give him his regular salary, and told him that they would do so as long as he remained on earth.

Now Mihir’s secretary was a young girl most devoted to her boss. She simply could not account for his sudden brain defect and blindness. Finally, she decided to go to see a famous occultist who lived in the same city as Mihir’s ex-Master, and to him she narrated the whole sad story, as much as she knew, from beginning to end.

The occultist, whose name was Khudhu, saw quite clearly that it was the ex-Master who was responsible for the editor’s blindness and brain damage, and he felt extremely sorry for the poor man. Inwardly he approached the spiritual Master and said to him, “What kind of spiritual Master are you? If people speak ill of you, you punish them mercilessly! Is forgiveness not the first requisite in the spiritual life? Anyway, since you have not forgiven this old man, I shall not forgive you either.” Then Khudhu used all his occult power and gave the spiritual Master a most serious stroke.

Within a few minutes the Master died, but just before he departed from the earth-scene, three times he said: “Khudhu, Khudhu, Khudhu.”

At first his disciples, in their extreme sorrow, were simply puzzled by their Master’s final utterance, but finally it occurred to them that the Master was referring to the great occultist, Khudhu. A few of them rushed to Khudhu’s tiny house and entered into his room. When they saw Khudhu’s face they were simply paralysed with fear. They did not see him as a real human being, but as a voracious tiger. Yet in spite of their fear they fell at Khudhu’s feet and said, “We are sure that it is you who have killed our Master. Since you have the power to kill, you also have the power to revive. Please bring our Master back to life.”

Khudhu said, “Yes, I have the power, but I am not going to use my power to revive your Master. I have killed him because he has been extremely unjust to poor Mihir. With his occult power he made him blind and destroyed his brain. So now, with my own occult power, I have killed him. But it is no loss to you. Now that you have come to know that my occult power is far superior to that of your Master, you can all become my disciples. I shall teach you how to acquire occult power. You too, like me, will be able to perform miracles, and to place the whole world at your feet.”

The Master’s disciples cried, “O great Khudhu, what shall we do? You have made us fatherless!”

“But I have just told you that you can now find your father in me. From now on, I can be your spiritual father,” said Khudhu.

The disciples felt extremely sad and miserable. They said, “No matter how great you are, even if you are the greatest living occultist on earth, we can’t become your disciples. Our Master is our Master. We shall remain loyal and faithful to him until we breathe our last.”

“What kind of Master did you have?” asked Khudhu. “He did not have even a drop of the milk of human kindness. I can forgive you all because I know you are ignorant people. True, you instigated your Master to punish Mihir. But why did he listen to your request? And worse, why did he harm the poor man even more than you wanted him to? Here is what I will do. I will revive your Master provided you can give me full assurance that when I help him regain his consciousness, the first thing he will do is kiss the dust of Mihir’s feet.”

Immediately the disciples exclaimed, “Oh no! Impossible! It is beneath the dignity of our Master to touch the feet of that scoundrel!”

Khudhu said, “You call him a scoundrel, but in what way is your Master superior to him? Can you justify the punishment your Master gave him? He spoke ill of you and of your Master, but that did not mean that your Master could go to the length of destroying him. Since you do not wish to accept my proposal, leave my house immediately. I will have nothing to do with you people.”

But one of the disciples said to Khudhu, “O occultist of the highest magnitude, what would happen if you revived our Master and he touched the feet of our former spiritual brother?”

Khudhu replied, “I am glad that you are calling him your brother, but you must know that your Master must not merely touch this man’s feet, but literally kiss the dust of his feet.” At this, all the disciples buried their heads in their hands in utter shame and disgust. But Khudhu continued, “The moment your Master touches the dust of Mihir’s feet, his former disciple will regain his eyesight and his brain will become normal again.”

One of the disciples said, “O Khudhu, why does our Master have to go through this kind of humiliation? Is our pleading with you not enough? Is our prayer at your feet not enough for you to forgive our Master? If you are a greater spiritual Master than he, should you not show more compassion than he did?”

Khudhu said, “You are right. Revenge does not ever solve any problem. Only Light can solve all human problems. I forgive your Master. I shall revive him and I shall cure Mihir myself. The highest spiritual Power of the Supreme will punish the inferior and subordinate powers in its own way. They, in turn, will punish the still more inferior ones. From the highest point of view, I did not do the right thing, when I punished your Master. I should have allowed the Supreme to deal with him in His own way, or I should at least have waited for the inner message from the Supreme before taking action myself. Divine Compassion and Wisdom-Light are the highest forms of action. Divine Compassion and Wisdom-Light alone can grow and blossom into fruition.”

False unconditional surrender⁶

There once lived a spiritual Master who had only twenty disciples. The Master had tremendous occult and spiritual power, which he had used many times to help and please his disciples and their friends and relatives. One evening the spiritual Master and his disciples all were in deep meditation when suddenly a disciple entered the meditation room weeping and sobbing. She disturbed everybody’s meditation. The Master most compassionately asked her what was wrong.

The disciple replied, “Master, Master, this morning my daughter and three friends went out for an excursion in a car and they met with a serious accident. All four girls are now unconscious in the hospital. The doctor says there is very little hope. I have come to ask you to save my daughter and her three friends.”

The Master said, “Snigdha, you are my disciple, my very dear disciple, and therefore I may try to save the life of your daughter. But I don’t want to be responsible for the lives of the other three girls.”

“Master, what will people think of me when they see that my daughter alone is saved by your spiritual power? And what will people think of you? Will they not think that both of us are very mean? Will not people think that we care only for our own dear ones? No, Master, you have to save the lives of the other three girls also. I don’t want you to save my daughter alone. I am a mother and I know what a mother’s heart is. I know that if these three girls die, their mothers and fathers will all be heartbroken. For the rest of their lives they will be utterly miserable. Therefore, Master, out of your infinite love and compassion, please use your power to save all the girls. And if you do not want to do that, then I don’t want my daughter to be saved either. Let all of them go to Heaven. I am sure God will look after them there.”

The Master remained silent, and Snigdha joined the meditation. A few minutes later another disciple came in weeping and sobbing. The Master inquired about his suffering.

The disciple replied, “Master, my son, my only son has been attacked by cholera. It is a matter of only an hour or two before he will leave us for Heaven. The doctors have already told me that his case is simply hopeless. His mother’s heart is breaking with grief. I have come here for your compassionate help. Many times you have saved the members of my family from imminent calamities. This time also, please save us. Please save my son. I shall be grateful to you all my life.”

The Master said, “I am sorry, Dinesh. You are my disciple, and I would have been more than ready to cure you if you yourself had been attacked by cholera. But your son has not accepted our path. He does not even care for the spiritual life. Therefore, I cannot be of any help to him .”

“Master, Master, he is my only son. I do have three daughters, but he is my only son. Do you mean that I must lose him now? Please don’t be so cruel to me. Master, I am fully aware of your occult powers. Please do me a favour, and this will be absolutely the last thing you will ever have to do for me. Please save my son and let me take his cholera. I have lived a long life already. For an old man like me to depart from this world means nothing. But my son, who is now in the prime of his youth, must enjoy the world and offer his mite to the world. Master, I beg of you, please grant me this last boon. Let me die of cholera immediately, and cure my son of this fatal attack.”

The Master remained silent. Moments later a young disciple came in and bowed to the Master.

He was calm and quiet. The Master said to him, “Mahesh, you are the third person to come late today. The first two had serious problems in their families. What prevented you from coming on time?”

“Master, I too have a serious problem. Last night my father suffered a severe stroke. His case is quite serious, but I leave his fate entirely to God’s Will and your Will. I am sure you and God will do what is best for him, for his soul.”

The Master said, “Mahesh, I am extremely proud of your unconditional surrender. How I wish to have more disciples of your type!”

“Master, since I have left my father’s fate at your feet, since I have made this unconditional surrender, will you not tell me what is going to happen? Will my father survive or not?”

“Mahesh, my son, why such curiosity? On the one hand you want God’s Will and my will to prevail, but on the other hand you are consumed with the desire to know your father’s fate. Is this not a deplorable contradiction?”

“Master, you just said that I have made unconditional surrender, and that I am the only one who has made that kind of surrender. Undoubtedly I have pleased you. Master, it has taken me seven long years to please you in your own way. Just because I have pleased you in a situation as grave as this, will you not condescend to please me by telling me what is going to happen to him?”

“All right, Mahesh, let me feed your curiosity. Tomorrow your father is going to die.”

Mahesh immediately burst into tears and cried, “Impossible! My father cannot die! You have to cure him. If you don’t cure him I shall leave you. Not only that, but I shall speak ill of you. I shall tell people that you have blackmailed me. I shall tell them you have taken thousands of dollars from me with the promise that you would give me salvation and realisation, and now that I don’t have any money left you have thrown me out of your ashram.”

The disciples were simply shocked at this. One young man stood up, grabbed Mahesh, and attempted to throw him out of the meditation room. But the Master interrupted him.

“Stop, stop! ” he cried. “My forgiveness is infinitely more powerful than my sense of justice. Let Mahesh stay.”

Then he turned to Snigdha, whose daughter had been in the car accident, and said, “Snigdha, your magnanimous heart deserves special consideration from me. I shall save your daughter and her friends with my occult and spiritual power. But I tell you, if you had left their fate to God’s Will, I would have been extremely happy and proud of you.”

Then the Master said to Dinesh, “You want to sacrifice your own life to save your son. This kind of sacrifice is quite unusual. For one to give his life for another is very, very rare. For your sacrifice I am truly proud of you, and therefore I am going to save your son with my occult power. But one thing I wish to tell you: I would have been infinitely more proud of you if you had offered the fate of your son to God’s Will.”

Finally the Master spoke to Mahesh. “It is infinitely better to desire sincerely than to make false unconditional surrender. You know that your act of deception will be ridiculed by all and sundry. But I forgive you, my son. To be unconditionally surrendered has always been the most difficult thing on earth. Again, I wish to illumine you with my compassion. Do not give up the spiritual life just because you have deceived me today, just because people will mock you for a time. Be sincere. No sincere effort goes in vain. In the distant future you are bound to make true unconditional surrender, for without that, no human being has ever reached or will ever reach the transcendental Height.”

Then the Master asked all the disciples to come up to him one by one for his blessing.

Gokul will not leave his Master⁷

One day a great spiritual Master said to his dearest disciple Gokul, “My son, you have now equalled me in spirituality. You have inner Peace, Light and Bliss in boundless measure. I want you to leave my ashram and open one of your own.”

Gokul burst into tears and said, “Master, Master, this can never be. I can never leave you, and I shall never leave you. You are my life. You are my soul. You are my goal. You are my all.”

The Master said, “Son, two lions cannot live together in one den. One has to move into another den. You are not getting the opportunity to flourish here.”

“Master, who wants to flourish? Not I! Not in the least! I came into the world only to serve you, not to equal you. It was your mistake that enabled me to equal you. I beg to be excused one hundred percent, but to tell the truth, what you say about my spiritual status equalling yours, I take with a grain of salt.”

“You don’t believe me? Don’t you know it is a great insult when you don’t believe your Master?”

“Master, you are my heart’s love. I believe you in everything else. Only when you say that I have equalled you in the spiritual life do I have some reservations.”

“Son, I wish to tell you that if you do not believe in everything I say and do, then it is as meaningless and useless as not believing in anything I say or do.”

“Master, Master, please don’t scold me. I believe you and I shall believe you implicitly in everything you say and do.”

The Master gave Gokul a broad and blessingful smile.

“Master, may I ask you for a favour?”

“Certainly, my son. If it is within my capacity I shall, without fail, fulfil your desire.”

“Master, in your ashram there are many who are literally dying to go out and open ashrams for you.”

“Gokul, I cannot allow just anyone to open an ashram for me. I know what their standards are.”

“Master, they are crying to open centres for you and you don’t allow them to do so, whereas I wish only to be at your feet all the time but you want to send me out to open an ashram. What an irony of fate, Master.”

“Son, there is a great difference between the Master’s asking a particular disciple to open an ashram for him and the disciple’s wanting to open an ashram for the Master without his permission. Those who open ashrams for the Master without his express permission, most of the time are carried away by their blind egos. In the name of the Master they secretly aggrandise their own egos and fulfil their secret motives most effectively. In this case, I am asking you to open an ashram of your own, in your own name and not in mine.”

“Master, in that case it is infinitely worse.”

“Not at all, my son. I know that you have realised the highest Truth, just as I did many years ago. Since you have realised the Truth, you are more than qualified to run an ashram of your own and kindle the flame of aspiration in thousands of sincere seekers, as I have been doing for the last two decades.”

“Master, for me to open an ashram of my own and not an ashram of yours, under your guidance, is simply impossible.”

“You give me the feeling that you are ready to open an ashram in my name.”

“Not exactly, Master. But if you want me to make a choice between opening an ashram in my own name or one in your name, needless to say I shall immediately agree to open an ashram for you. But if you want me to make a choice between staying at your feet like a most faithful dog and leaving the ashram to open an ashram for you, I shall without fail try to stay at your feet all my life.”

“Son, don’t you understand that if the qualified people do not offer their service to those in need of it, then this world of ours will never be flooded with Peace and Light?”

“Master, I fully understand it. But the human in me is as attached to you as the divine in me is devoted to you. It is simply impossible for me to go and live elsewhere.”

“Son, since you are so reluctant to listen to my request, I shall let you go this time. But I shall send you back into this world three times to work for God; whereas if you listen to me this time, it will be a matter of only a few years that you will have to work for God. For I will make this incarnation absolutely your last.”

“Master, is it so? Then I am ready to go out and work for God and for you for the last few years of my life. But you have to keep your promise that I shall not have to come back into the world, since you have told us that you will not take any more incarnations. I wish to be always at your feet. But Master, I tell you, just as it is difficult for me to leave you, so also will it be difficult for you to get rid of me, for I am your eternal dog.”

“Son, you are not my dog but my God, who can never leave me no matter how many ways I try to make you leave me. Son, it is not the disciple in you that does not want to leave me but the ever-affectionate God in you who does not want to leave me and can never leave me. Son, to lose to you is to win on an infinitely higher plane of consciousness, and to claim you as my Eternity’s Pride, Infinity’s Heart and Immortality’s Smile.”

Be sincere⁸

“Master, Master, what is wrong with you? Why are you so upset?”

“You rascal! What have you done?”

“What have I done, Master? I have just sat on your bed, just for a fleeting second, and for that you have to be so upset?”

“You rascal! What kind of audacity do you have?”

The Master removes the sheet and starts tearing it to pieces.

“Master, Master, don’t tear it. Right now I shall go to the store and buy you a new sheet. Just leave it, please.”

The disciple goes to the shop and buys a new sheet. Then he offers it to the Master.

“Thank you, but don’t do it again.”

“Master, you have told us many times that you are the garbage collector and we can always throw our impurities into you. How is it that this time, when I just sat on your bed for a second, you became so furious? That means you don’t really take our impurities, you just say you do.”

“You fool! I always tell the truth. But listen: every night I speak to God on my bed. We sit there together and talk, and the cosmic gods sit on my bed, too. My bed is like a holy shrine. You have defiled it with your impurity.”

“O Master, I didn’t know that God and the cosmic gods sit on your bed. I am sorry that I have done it. But I am also proud that it is I who have sat on your bed where God and the cosmic gods sit every night! Master, you can punish me; no matter what kind of punishment you want to give, I will be happy to accept it.”

The Master becomes furious. “I will not give you any punishment, but you must not enter into my bedroom any more.”

“Master, Master, tell me one thing. I sat on your bed, true. So why do you want to discard only the sheet? What about the blankets and the pillow and mattress?”

“Yes, you are right. But what can I do? I don’t have the money to replace them.”

“Then, Master, I am going to the shop to bring you new blankets, a new pillowcase, a new pillow and everything new.”

The Master says to the disciple, who is a young man of thirty-eight, “Only you can do this kind of nonsense!”

“Yes, Master, I am very sorry that I have created such a problem for you.”

The disciple goes out and buys a new pillow, new blankets, a new mattress, everything new for the Master, and presents them to him.

“Thank you.”

“You are more than welcome, Master. But Master, what about the bed itself, the frame? There also my impurity has entered, has it not?”

“Yes, it has entered, but I don’t have the money to buy a new frame.”

“Oh Master, don’t worry. I am going to offer you a new one.”

The disciple goes out and buys a new bed and offers it to the Master.

The Master is extremely happy. He says, “I thank you most deeply.”

“Master, there is one thing I don’t understand.”

“You will never understand anything.”

“Master, it is my hand that has touched your new sheet, your pillow, your pillowcase, your blankets and your mattress. Everything that belongs to this new bed, my hand has already touched once. So, Master, are they not impure? The things that you are going to use now are all impure, are they not? How is it that you are going to use them? Is it just because they are new?”

“No, it is not because they are new. You people are impurity incarnate, especially you. But I have the power to purify everything that you touch.”

“But, Master, a few hours ago when I sat on your bed you got so furious. You could have purified it then instead of taking all these new things. I don’t mind spending money on you. On the contrary, it is a great honour for me to give you material things. But you could easily have purified your bed then and you would not have had to take all these things from me.”

“Look here, in this world when I use something regularly, that very thing embodies my consciousness, my light, my purity, my power. Everything that is divine is embodied by that particular thing. Now, I have been using this old bed for the last four years. The moment you sat on my bed, your impure, undivine consciousness entered into the pure, divine consciousness of the bed. Why should I have to go through the trouble of purifying the bed? If you had had a little respect and devotion for me, you would never have dreamed of sitting on my bed.

“True, I take your impurities, I take impurities from every disciple. But that does not mean that the disciple will consciously and deliberately desecrate the place or thing that already embodies my solid purity and divinity. One thing is for the Master consciously and deliberately to take impurities from a disciple; another thing is for the disciple deliberately, out of sheer malice, to destroy the purity of the Master’s belongings.”

“Master, I shall tell you my supreme secret. I had a most sincere desire. I wanted to offer you a new bed, a new sheet, a new pillow and mattress and new blankets — everything new, because I thought that if you accepted my offering everybody would come to know of it and everybody would appreciate and admire me, and I would be extolled to the skies. I would be able to say, ‘My Master is using the bed I offered to him. He is so kind to me.’ I thought this would be an easy way to get appreciation and admiration from my brother and sister disciples. For me to spend a few dollars is nothing. As you know, Master, you have blessed me with material wealth. So Master, that was the reason why I sat on your bed.”

“You fool! You deliberately deceived me. When you try to deceive someone you may at times succeed and you may at times fail. You succeeded this time with me. But if you had been sincere right from the beginning, if you had prayed to me to accept a new bed from you, do you think that I would have refused you? No. When you are sincere you get not only the thing you want, but also something more, something beyond your imagination.”

“Master, what would you have given me had I been sincere?”

“My son, if you had been sincere from the beginning, I would have said, ‘That is a splendid idea. And I shall give you my bed for your own use. Many cosmic gods, as well as God Himself, have sat and talked with me on this bed. Now I offer it to you with our deepest blessings.’ So, if you are sincere, not only do you get what you want, but you are likely to get something infinitely more, something far beyond your imagination. Be sincere. ”

Marriage problems never end part I⁹

Sixty years ago in a small town in California there was a spiritual Master who had one hundred disciples. One day a young man, a disciple, went to the Master and said, “Master, Master, I want to kill her!”

“Who do you want to kill?” asked the Master.

“That Nepali!”

“What has she done to you?”

“Unthinkable and unbearable! She is associating with other men. Master, you know that we separated a few years ago because we were not getting along well. But even though we are no longer married, I still care about her.”

“Now that you are separated from her, what right do you have to concern yourself with her personal life?”

“Legally, I don’t have any right. But morally and spiritually, I feel I do have the right.”

“You don’t have any right whatsoever. You are legally divorced from her. You have your own life and she has hers.”

“But Master, it pains me so deeply that she is mixing with other men.”

“My son, a new chapter has opened both in your life and in her life. Can’t you bury the sad past in oblivion? You say you have moral and spiritual obligations to her. It is absurd of you to cherish such an idea at this point. She belongs to God, and you too belong to God.”

“Master, it is true that I belong to God only. But she belongs to God and also to some men. I never knew that she could be so undivine. Master, why don’t you throw her out of your ashram?”

“If I throw her out, then sooner or later I will have to throw out most of my disciples, if not all of them. Throwing her out will not serve any purpose. Throwing out her boyfriends will serve no purpose either. Throwing out all my disciples, all my unaspiring disciples who are in the emotional world, will serve no purpose. You and she are equally guilty: she for her emotional life, and you for your undue, unfounded and unrealistic attachment to her. You should only be devoted to God. You should not be attached to anybody.”

“But Master, every morning she ruins my consciousness. Every morning when I start to meditate she enters into my mind. She captures my whole being and ruins all my aspiration.”

“Does she enter into your mind, or do you enter into her consciousness?”

“I assure you, Master, it is she who enters into me.”

The Master burst into laughter and said, “The pot is calling the kettle black.”

“I don’t think of her, Master. It is she who thinks of me, and I can’t get rid of her. It is she who knocks at my mental door. Out of sheer courtesy I open the door, and when I let her in I am totally lost.”

“You fool! Is it your courtesy or is it your weakness that makes you open the door and let her in?”

“Master, if it is my weakness, then how is it that you have not given me the strength to overcome this weakness? I have been your disciple for such a long time. I suffer much from my emotional life, my life of attachment.”

“You suffer because you don’t want to give up that kind of life.”

“Master, it is very easy for you to tell me to give up my emotional and vital life.”

“I don’t say that it is an easy task, but if you try, you can give it up.”

“Master, I have been trying for such a long time. I see now that there is no hope, there is no escape for me.”

“My son, there is all hope. And you don’t have to escape. You are not a thief. Just strengthen your life of aspiration, and lo! all your weaknesses will disappear.”

“Master, aspiration is one thing and temptation is something else. By your grace I have learned this. And it is you who have taught us that the power of aspiration is infinitely stronger than the power of temptation. But how is it that temptation so often wins? Master, it seems to me that you are wrong in your assessment of aspiration and temptation.”

“My son, I am not wrong in the least. With your aspiration-power you realise God the Omnipotent. With your temptation-power you realise weak and mortal human beings. So you can see which power is infinitely greater.”

“Master, now I see why you say that aspiration-power is infinitely greater than temptation-power. But how is it that you have not given me aspiration-power in measureless measure so that I can realise God the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent?”

“Son, I have given you aspiration-power. That power is growing inside you. Gradually its capacity is increasing. It is simply a matter of time, and then your aspiration will work most powerfully at full capacity.

“Son, your problem is not your ex-wife Nepali. Your problem is your attachment to the ignorant pleasure-life. Once you give up your pleasure-life, which is a life of destruction, the life of satisfaction will knock at your heart’s door. You are not the body; you are the soul. You are not the soul; you are the Goal. Forget about the body-consciousness, and you will become the soul-delight. Remember always the soul-delight, and you will grow into the God-height.”

“Then I shall immediately throw my Nepali-bundle into your compassion-sea, Master.”

“Son, I am so glad that you are doing this. In return, I shall take you to the Illumination-sea to swim with me.”

“Master, I am so glad that I will realise God before Nepali.”

“Son, since your Nepali-realisation will never come to an end, how do you expect me to grant you God-realisation?”

“Master, Master, forgive me. I am now entirely yours. I don’t want anybody to stand between us.”

The Master blessed him with all his heart’s joy and pride and said, “Nepali also has the right to claim God as her very own. So you must not stand between God and Nepali.”

“No, I won’t, Master. I give you my word of honour.”

“Son, then I give you my soul’s assurance that

God-Love will be yours,
God-Light will be yours,
God-Pride will be yours,
God-Perfection will be yours,
All yours.”

Marriage problems never end part II¹⁰

Seventy years ago in an Indian village there lived a spiritual Master who had only thirty disciples. He divided them into six categories according to their spiritual standard. In each group there were both men and women.

One day a disciple belonging to the first group came to the Master crying and sobbing. The Master asked her, “Kaushiki, what is wrong with you? Why are you sobbing and weeping so pitifully?”

Kaushiki said, “Master, today my heart is all sincerity. Today my mind is all confession.”

“But you know that I am not a Christian priest,” said the Master. “I do not accept confessions. I do not believe in that kind of confession.”

“But Master, do you not believe in illumination?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Then, Master, please illumine me today.”

“By all means I shall illumine you. Tell me what you are suffering from.”

“Master, ten years ago I left my husband in order to run much faster in the spiritual life. My husband and I had tried to run together, but we could not run towards our Goal at the same speed. I do not blame him in any way; it simply did not work out well, although we tried in every possible way to run the fastest together. Very often you tell us, Master, that the life of marriage is a life of double strength and double capacity. Once two people get married they have four eyes, four hands, four legs — everything in double quantity. Together they can run faster towards the Goal. But unfortunately it sometimes happens that two of the four legs become weak or injured for no apparent reason. The two good legs may fully sympathise with the defective legs. But there comes a time when the good legs lose all their sympathy, concern and patience. They become disgusted at their deplorable situation and find it extremely difficult to stay with the defective legs. They feel that this experience of the union of two souls may delay their spiritual progress towards the ultimate realisation. So they decide that separation is by far the best, indeed the only solution, if they want to run towards their Goal rather than lead a life of stagnation.”

The Master said, “I am so proud of your wisdom, Kaushiki, but how is it that even now you are suffering? The wisdom that you have shared with me right now has fascinated my entire being. I am so pleased with you and so proud of you. But tell me, what is making you weep so bitterly? Tell me and let me see if I can be of any help to you.”

“Master, ten long years ago I left my husband, but even now I cannot forget him. Master, as you know I am in no way blaming my husband. When sad experiences of our joint life enter into my mind, my entire being shudders at the very idea of union. But what is actually bothering me now is a sense of guilt because my mind roams — consciously and unconsciously, in season and out of season — on other men. Now, when I am in a deep contemplative mood, I clearly see that my husband was in no way inferior to these men that I am now interested in. But when I am in an ordinary consciousness, when I am tempted by the world of desires and lose the sense of discrimination, I feel that the new will be far better than the old. No matter how good or superb the old may be, I cry for the new. But I know that the new need not always offer real fulfilment in life.”

“How is it, Master, that I cannot conquer my emotional heart and doubting mind, my destructive vital and lethargic body? At times I feel I can go on alone and run the fastest like a deer, and at times the whole world’s insecurity captures my heart, and I surrender helplessly to the world of emotion-flood.”

The Master blessed his close disciple and said, “I deeply appreciate and admire your sincerity. Now I wish to tell you one thing, my Kaushiki. It is true that you left your husband because you came to realise that you could go faster if you were left alone. That was your realisation, and I don’t deny it. It is also true that at times you don’t need anybody except your Inner Pilot, the Supreme. Am I correct?”

“Yes, Master, you are one hundred percent correct. There have been many times in my life during these last ten years when I have felt that I need only one person, who is my security, who is my all, and that is the Supreme Pilot inside my heart.”

The Master said, “Now I shall tell you why your suffering has not come to an end. Your suffering has not come to an end because your proud mind at times makes you feel that although you don’t need anybody, the world needs you. You don’t want to admire others because you feel you have more good qualities than they do. But secretly you want others to look at you and admire your beauty, your capacity, your love, your devotion, your surrender to God. On the one hand, it is beneath your dignity to be one with them and appreciate and love them. On the other hand, secretly, like a beggar, you are crying for their appreciation and admiration.

“I tell you, my daughter, in this world either you give and take or you don’t give and you don’t take. If you want appreciation and admiration from the world, if you feel that is the only way you can remain happy and make your life meaningful and fruitful, then you also have to give appreciation and admiration to the world. If, however, you do not want to give the world any of your appreciation, and, at the same time, you do not cry to have any appreciation from others, then you come to feel that God is all for you and you are all for God. You do not need any human being to give you joy or to receive joy from you. God only is your joy, and you are God’s joy. Then, I tell you, you will never suffer from temptation and frustration.

“There are two ways to reach the Goal: either through all-acceptance or through conscious, purified and illumined self-withdrawal, withdrawal from the sense world. Withdrawal does not mean self-destruction. It is only from emotional turmoil that we shall withdraw. Not out of fear, not out of disgust, not out of a sense of loss shall we withdraw, but out of a conscious, purified and illumined choice. This is one way to reach the Goal, and all-acceptance is the other. So, my daughter, make your choice.”