I was speaking about prayer last week. I also
mentioned about the form which we have to
worship. The most important aspect in all
worship is, I suggested, surrender which
develops into "devotion" when we surrender to
the Master and place ourselves entirely at his
training. We will have to surrender all our
being, the physical, the vital, the mental and
the spiritual. It is, of course, difficult to do
all of them at the same time, but we feel that
it is more easy to prostrate with the body than
with our vitality or with our mind, though we
are loquacious about the matter. We almost utter
continuously "I surrender, I surrender" but the
real surrender does not normally take place.
Therefore, it is necessary to feel that the
surrender will be accomplished and completed by
the Master Himself. That is why, I think, the
Upanishad rightly puts it in this form.
"Om Krato smara Krutham smara;
Krato smara Krutham smara".
"O lord of Sacrifice or Surrender! Remember what
I have done and the second statement "Remember
what I have done" means God will have to
complete the act of surrender Himself. Now this
is a very difficult point to explain and many
people want to be lazy enough to say "let Master
surrender. Why should I surrender, let Master do
everything and I shall be the recipient". I do
not think that is the meaning. If we go a little
way, God takes us a long way. If we make total
surrender, He will complete the surrender by
taking us up. That is, we are enabled to
surrender more and more willingly to His
treatment and training without any protest,
without resistance and without egoistic self
assertions that we have done the surrender and
that he has not done it. The whole point
therefore is that our devotion will develop when
we observe that not only our physical body is
prostrated before the Master every day or every
hour, but our vital bodies which are full of
desires, cravings and other tendencies, get
controlled. "Sama" and "Dama" equally follow it.
Then, the mind also ceases to wander and we find
constant remembrance and our spiritual faculties
begin to develop. In other words, we find that
we are more and more absorbed even without our
being conscious that we are in God or the
master. This is devotion. Once this occurs we
recognize at once that God's Grace is flowing
through us. And I hold the view that God's grace
has begun to flow through us the moment we
surrender either mentally or physically or
vitally. Now all these things show that God is
constantly with us and ready to take us up at
the slightest sign on our part of accepting Him.
The most important thing in this matter is, we
are willing to seek God or Master. That is an
act of "will" not of "inclination" alone. If we
have decided that we want the Master's help for
our own higher evolution, or to reach the
Ultimate, we will find that God is very near.
Now devotion is something which is like the fire
of aspiration. Now whilst the old view was that
devotion is a continuous, uninterrupted flow of
aspiration upwards, and is described as a kind
of liquid flow, (they call it "Thaila Dhara
aviccinna Vat"). It is really a fire. It is a
flame of aspiration which moves upwards and
expands itself. But what is the function of this
flame of devotion? Every flame as you know has
its nature to burn whatever it touches.
Now the most important thing which has to be
burnt in us is the "poorva samskaras" or habits
of mind. The tendencies of our mind are always
moving outwards to objects. Now those things
produce certain complications in our affections.
We get attached to those things. Those
attachments have to be burnt up. And there are
attachments of lifetime within us. All those
things will have to be burnt up.
That is why Master says that the first
experience that happens to us in this training
is that we feel the Pranahuti which is a kind of
air that makes the flame inside us burn brighter
and look brighter and we experience a smoke,
dark thick smoke, coming out of us. Some people
are frightened about the matter. That is nothing
to be frightened about except, I think the
smoke. The same then slowly evaporates or goes
out and we are left cleaner and lighter. There
is also a light or heat produced in our bodies
during that stage and that is why some people
said it is Tapas. Tapas is that which heats. A
heated condition is called Tapas. And when this
increases, we find the old samskaras breaking
from us and we get "Uparathi" as I may call it
i.e., we do not worry about any enjoyment or we
reverse ourselves from enjoyment. Now this is
very important because, after the smoke goes
away, the second stage is when we see a kind of
light in our heart. Some people experience, it
as a dawn light as Master says. But the
beginning of the dawn is not the end. The dawn
is the first stage of experience, and is not the
final one. Some people say that when they reach
the higher and higher levels, they will see more
and more of the dawn. I think we should see more
and more of the Sun. But actually we go far
beyond the sun. The fact remains that Sun and
all these things are on this side of the
spiritual experience and not on that side of the
spiritual experience. We go beyond the Sun and
the Dawn and what we experience is a
farther-dawn, not the dawn of this side. That is
why, the veda has beautifully put it "There is
many a dawn which has not yet shed its light".
We go far ahead. Those who had some experience
know that those two points are somewhere at this
particular region - No.3 or 4 as we number it,
i.e., on the left side just above the original
point, is a point called `devotion'. It
generates sufficient heat and when it comes to
this point 4 which is said to be the point of
fire or "invisible black fire" we would be
having almost every one of our previous
samskaras connected with this body taken away
from us. Now that is a very big step. But that
is achieved almost within the shortest time in
this system. Many people say it is at the state
of Jeevanmukti that we get rid of these. But
actually it will take place long before
Jeevanmukti, because even if we destroy all the
samskaras of the past, we yet generate certain
samskaras of the present which will bring us
back.
Now, the final step, of course, is when we
transcend and go beyond the fifth or the sixth
point. Whatever it is, Master says that we can,
by the grace of the Master, cross over the two
points which produce the smoke and these
ordinary frictional heated lights. That is the
power, electrical power, which is introduced by
the Master. So much so we have the experience of
a smokeless light. Now, that is something which
we will have by experience, but mostly through
these two states - first when the burning of the
samskaras take place, there is heavy smoke
passing out of us mostly in the back and not in
the front, and secondly we find ourselves light
or lighted. We might find ourselves lighted all
through. And if our previous training has been
alright, we might be able to see ourselves at
the Atma point. When the devotion becomes
firmer, we find that the heat is so much that
smoke is not found and light becomes something
of a very pleasant experience. Now, it is not
heat, We are afraid of fire, I know. But here is
a fire which 'cools' rather than 'heats'.
Obviously, our very nature is purified in our
upward march. Now upto that point Master gives
what happens through the preliminaries of
training - meditation on the heart, prayer,
surrender and also the way we have developed
perfect devotion for the Master. By this time we
must have sufficient trust and faith in the
Master that he can take us far beyond what most
people teach. For, many people stop at what the
call 'Jeevan Mukti'. A place of no return or
salvation. May be, they are a little freed from
the old samskaras, which will not breed new
lives and births. But that is not the goal. The
God in a sense is far short of the Real Goal
which we have held to be the Supreme, the
Ultimate condition of the Master Himself. So,
upto this point the preliminaries of the day to
day should be adopted in a simple way.
The next step, of course, is what the Master has
to do. As we have already said, in this system
of Sri Ramchandra's Rajayoga our main pivot is
the Master. If the Master is not capable, all
these things which I have mentioned can not even
take place. I am afraid we would not start our
journey at all, though we might have appeared to
have a lot of devotion, but such devotion is not
reciprocated firstly by the Divine and secondly
by our own nature. Our interior nature refuses
to confirm to devote to any other being,
however, well known for all purposes of the
world. They might even perform great miracles;
they might do so many things which I think are
good. Master might not be able to do, for
whatever reason I cannot say. One of the most
important things in Yoga is, how so ever eminent
a Master becomes, he shall not exercise
miracles. Now that is a renunciation which is
very difficult to get for the Master. That is
the reason why I believe great Patanjali says
interference of the Abhyasi may be a miracle or
Siddhi, but the greater danger is to the Master
himself, because he cannot get out of the rings
of egoism which he does not seem to be aware of
because for him God is the greatest egoist and
the greatest miracle monger. For us, God is not
that. God is a perfectly law abiding law giver.
So He cannot do things which will break the law.
He is not an arbitrary power, but the most
righteous divinity. That being so, the whole
purpose of yoga is to unite us with Him and get
us the same condition as God Himself -
impersonal, unattached, stainless, bodiless and
so on as the Upanishad puts it:
"Chukram Akayam Avranam; Asnaviram Asuddham,
Apapa Viddham Kavithi Manishee Paribhuh
Swayambhuh ...."
These are the names and He is also said to be
incapable of any low attachment and His only
purpose is to see that we are lifted up to that
condition where we abide by nature out of Yoga,
and make us the most lawful citizens in the
freedom and to feel free in a lawful world. That
is the aim. So, both the world which he has made
and Heaven would be meaningless if they lie as
the gift at the whims and fancies of a God. I do
not believe God wants any Freedom for Himself.
Whatever it is we are asking for a condition in
which we shall feel free, and that condition is
where we can trust the Law of God and which is
uniform for all. Therefore, those who entertain
the view that God is just a miracle monger and
is going about performing miracles, would not be
right. That goal is wrong, in which case a Yogi
who follows them must certainly get the
miracles. I wish they all get the power to
perform them because one man does miracles,
others just follow him. You see the sheep, that
is all.
Here, we are asking for freedom. So Master's
responsibility is very big.
Now Master mentions in a way that most of us do
not like a Master. That is, we do not follow the
'Guru Mata', but 'follow the Manmata. That is
our own, just because we have come across many
Masters who would like to make us their slaves.
I believe they have got to make us free but not
slaves. And a doctrine which teaches us that God
wants us to be slaves of Himself is a very bad
type of philosophy or religion. It may be that
slaves live more freely than God Himself. But
that is a different matter. Now why did we get
into difficulties with the Masters. As I told
Masters tend to make us slaves. They do not
liberate us really. If they liberate us from one
set of bonds, they impose another set of bonds
which are not intelligible even and are
inexplicable. So we try to be our own Masters.
That is Manmata. So I myself directly will get
into God. Very good. There are rare souls who
get into Him. I do not know how they do it. But
there are such cases. But exceptions should not
be the rule. Most of us are not capable of
taking up the direct inspiration of God. Now
does God take us directly? I can only say the
Great Master Sri Krishna Himself stated: "I
choose the person whom I want to reveal myself".
That is a very strange thing. But it is not
arbitrary in my opinion. There are certain
specific occasions in which a choice should be
given. Our own great Grand Master seems to have
been one such, because I do not hear he had a
Master. The description is that when he was some
8 or 10 years, he suddenly felt that he had come
for some other purpose. Immediately he began his
voyage. That is extraordinary. Do not think that
everyone of us is like Him. That is why Sri
Ramkrishna Paramahamsa seems to have said that
there are two types of souls the Iswarakoti and
the Jeevakoti. Some people are born with the
Power to do the will of God. That is the meaning
of Iswarakoti, not one who goes about like a
dictator chopping off the other people's heads
and putting everybody in chains. They serve the
will of God in the very cosmic and trans-cosmic
structure. Our Master also speaks of the Supreme
Personality which comes to this world once. I do
not know in a millennia or more. Once in 10
thousand years perhaps, I do not know, the
timing has not been given to me, but in a way
such people are very rare. Suppose such a
personality is present with us today normally we
should avail ourselves of Him and follow the
Guru Matha instead of struggling with out own
little efforts which are crowned with defects in
many cases. In every case we find people
struggling because they could not accept
authorities which had failed. We have met with
Gurus who have been not in the true sense Gurus
at all either by their precept or by practice or
both but who are trying to make the falsehood
appear truth and truth appear as falsehood and
who have got such perversities and
monstrosities. Now, in order to set right that
condition, a Great Personality is born.
Naturally He becomes the Guru. But then, it is
not easy to recognize Him by the looks. I do not
know how we can recognize the person when we
come across Him. Even the Master says: 'please
meditate and hope for seeing Him'. So all that I
can say is, when we meditate and seriously pray
for such a Personality, He comes to us.
Obviously he may not be seen by anybody. But if
we pray in earnest, if we really want a guide to
help us to reach the Ultimate Reality, he comes.
He may not come when we ask for any penultimate
things of the world because it is not His duty
to come for those things. He has come for the
Highest knowledge, to give us the Highest Truth
in the simplest possible way without
complicating our body. That is why we hold that
the Master's role in our practice of training is
very important. We cannot train ourselves even
with the help of the text books. That is why, it
is very difficult to get a Great Master; and if
we can get such a Master, our ability to pass
these things would be increased and we would
attain the Ultimate State in shortest possible
time.
|
