No imposition, no compulsion, but oneness-expansion¹

The Master was all alone in his meditation room when a young disciple who had been serving him for about ten years came in. He bowed to the Master and said, “Master, today I am in a most soulful consciousness. Today I am all love for you. I am all devotion and surrender to you. Today, if you give me some advice, my whole being will be fully illumined. Even in my outer life I shall have no difficulty placing my very existence at your ever-compassionate feet."

The Master said, “Ramesh, my son, I am so pleased with you. Please tell me what kind of advice you actually need from me. I am more than willing, more than eager to illumine you and fulfil you, divinely and supremely.”

“Master, you know more than I do what kind of advice I really need in order to realise you as my very own."

The Master asked his disciple to come closer to him. Then he placed his arms around the disciple’s neck and said, “Ramesh, now tell me, what kind of relationship am I now cherishing and treasuring?”

Ramesh, with a tearful and soulful heart, said, “The relationship of a friend.”

The Master immediately added, “An eternal and unconditional friend.”

Ramesh was so deeply moved that for fifteen minutes he was swimming in the sea of Light and Delight. Finally the Master said, “Ramesh, I shall tell you what your spiritual disease is.”

“Master, I am so grateful that you are going to tell me about my disease. And I don’t have to worry at all about the remedy, for you are my only doctor and my only medicine. You can cure the disease that has been making me suffer from time immemorial.”

“Son, your disease is not as serious as you think. Your disease is your teeming ignorance within and without. Your disease is your misconception of reality’s oneness. This disease is very common, and it can easily be cured. Now you know that you are a real human being, and that I am also a real human being."

“No, Master, you are not a human being, but a divine being. That is why I find it so difficult to understand you.”

“My son, today I will teach you how to understand me. Anyway, you cannot deny that I am a real being, just as you are a real being.”

“Of course you are real, Master, and I am also real." Then the Master began to make his philosophy clear.

He said, “You and I are both real, but I know something that you do not know and you are unfortunately not learning from me.”

“What is that, Master? Today I really want to learn everything from you most devotedly and most soulfully. And I assure you, Master, your advice, from now on, will never be doubted or rejected by me.”

The Master said, “The message of reality you have already learned from me. The message of reality’s oneness I am offering to you today. When I ask you to do something for me, never feel that an outsider is speaking to you, or that a stranger is illumining you, or that a foreign element is entering into you. You know well that, according to common belief, the highest part of a human being is the searching and evolving mind. But if you enter into the spiritual life, you realise that a higher and better member of the soul’s family — the body, vital, mind and heart — is the heart. When your mind asks your body and your vital to do something, they do it immediately, because they feel that their elder brother has more light and wisdom than they have. They do not take your mind’s request as an imposition, but as an offering of light from a superior member of their own family. Naturally there can be no revolt. By obeying their elder brother, they get tremendous satisfaction. But since you are a most sincere seeker, you have seen countless occasions on which your mind has disappointed you, failed you, deserted you at the time of your dire inner need. I can never fail you, yet when I ask you to do something you feel that somebody else is offering you light.

“When somebody else says something to you or does something for you, naturally you will revolt. Or at least you will not get the same joy that you would have gotten if you had received the message from within, or accomplished the action under your own initiative. Just because you have entered into the spiritual life, just because you are making good progress, just because I am all love and concern for you, I tell you this: your heart and I are inseparably one. I am not a dictator, or even an advisor. I am only an extension of your heart’s aspiring consciousness. Your heart and my offering of wisdom-light are eternally and inseparably one. As you have established oneness with your mind, so also can you establish inseparable oneness with your heart, and take me as an extension of your heart. If you can do this, then on the physical plane I will be able to convince your body, vital and mind that what I say and do is not only for your good, but for God’s good.

“The Master’s dictionary does not house the words ‘imposition’ and ‘compulsion.’ His dictionary houses the words ‘reality’ and ‘reality’s oneness.’ When you reach the height of reality’s oneness, there is no Master and no disciple, no imposition or compulsion. There is only execution and fulfilment of the greater Light’s Reality and of the lesser Light’s reality. The lower reality can find its real satisfaction only in the heart of the higher Reality. Needless to say, the higher Reality not only accepts the lower reality as its very own, but also knows perfectly well that without the liberation and transformation of the lower reality it can never be complete, perfect and fulfilled.”

“Master, today you have illumined my heart totally. I know in the near future you will manifest and fulfil yourself in and through my life of aspiration and dedication. And for that, if I have any gratitude in this incarnation of mine, it is all yours.”