God willing your doubts shall certainly vanish. But it is of course certain that none has up till now been able to answer every `why', nor is there any hope of it in the future. The light which you feel is the reflection of your own good thoughts, and of your deep feelings of love. Give up the idea that you have not so far progressed in meditation. Go on with it, maintaining constant remembrance as best as possible. It shall not be difficult for you since you are a man of devotion. You ask me to tell you about the natural state of mind, matter and spirit. What can I say when I do not feel even myself, nor am I a scientist to be able to build up on the basis of my knowledge. Herein the devotee, the prophet and the Lord do not come into cognition and the trinity vanishes altogether. What may I write then? I shall definitely see you in person soon. But so long as I am not there, you can keep me there as a guest in your heart. When I am actually there in person. I shall myself be the guest and the host as well. You can bring others on to the path by your prayer, devotion and pious thoughts.
The way to practice constant remembrance which you are following is quite all right. The method which I had myself applied for the purpose would probably be considered a bit dull, but it was most pleasant to me and I derived the greatest benefit from it. I always tried to see the whole physical form of the Master in my vision, and during meditation I always meditated upon his form, placing it within my heart. When this practice gets matured, the next phase comes in automatically. That means that a stage, of dissolution or mergence, has been crossed. You complain against me for having bound you with etiquette. I think it is your own merit by the effect of which you have stopped fluttering about, and have put yourself within the bondage of love. But the objective shall be arrived at when this bondage too assumes its absolute state and even love seems to be lost.
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God loves him who has seen Him but remains at a distance from Him. That means one must keep His remembrance alive in his heart, remaining ever within the sphere of devotion, in full cognizance of his own status of humanity.
If we try to retain the effect gained by meditation for the most part of the day, and abide in the same state for as long as we can, we are in a way in constant remembrance of God and our progress is easy and rapid. We must also cultivate habits which might be conducive to our efforts for shattering the network. For instance, the ears should attend to only noble talks; the eye should see only that which is pious and good; the heart should be inclined only towards that which is virtuous.
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REMEMBRANCE
I have stated elsewhere that Realisation is very easy if one only diverts one's attention towards it. That means that he must have a deep impression of it upon his heart. The deeper the impression, the quicker and easier shall be the success. Not much remains to be done when one has done so much. Taking in of this impression means imbibing of the very thing that one aspires for. In that case the Divine thought will continuously remain alive in his heart, and his attention will remain drawn towards it all the while. This is what constant remembrance exactly means. Now if this thought is associated with the idea of fellow being, who is merged in the Absolute, judge for yourself whether or nor it shall indirectly be related with the Absolute. As a matter of fact the idea of the personality in such cases is but nominal. The more you go deep into this thought, the more of the Coverings (of subtler nature) shall be torn off one by one, till finally the one — the original — alone remains to view. Now since the origin is in his view he shall be blessed with the direct Divine Grace.
Now, when that ultimate state of being is in view, it is but natural that by constantly looking at it one may finally close the vision altogether by the effect of the magnetic force radiating from it, and statelessness, the basic property of the Real, may begin to settle down. Mutual love between the two can exist only when the differentiation for this reason begins to give way, and a feeling of sameness begins to develop in its place. But you go on still and the sameness continues to develop. You get charged with the effect. The idea of His greatness is there in the background and nothing but remembrance alone remains now. A sense of sameness having been developed by the effect of remembrance, it begins to appear that He Himself is absorbed in our remembrance. This feeling having become permanent introduces the condition which Kabirdas has described as “Mera Ram Mujhe Bhaje, Tab payun bisram.”
“My mind can be at rest only when the Lord gets busy with the remembrance of me.”
This is a transcendent state of devotion. At this stage the lover himself becomes the beloved and this must necessarily be when the guru and the disciple are correlated in the real sense. As a matter of fact remembrance is almost akin to the vibration which had developed at the time of creation for the purpose of bringing existence into being. To get oneself merged in that primordial state of remembrance (the vibration) is not everybody's job. Only a rare personality may be capable of this. But that does not mean that others should not try for it.
One might be surprised to find that I interpret primordial vibrations as remembrance. It is because, as a rule, a very subtle idea comes first into the mind which later on develops into thought. Thus the latent Divine will to effect creation automatically developed into vibrations, in the form of thought. Thought and remembrance are closely similar in nature. Remembrance includes with it a kind of mild sensation which, in thought, exists in a latent state only. The sensation increases the force and stirs up vibrations throughout the body. Going beyond this sheath of sensation you arrive at the point of origin of remembrance, which may be taken as the base. Beyond that level it is inexplicable. One may perhaps feel something of it by way of extreme subtleness. I wish my associates to be gifted with capacity to acquire that state of subtleness. The same state of remembrance and vibrations exists at each succeeding stage but with difference in the degree of denseness which is very difficult to define.
The condition of Aham Brahmasmi, so loudly spoken of, has ever been a subject of constant reference and argumentative discussion among diversely coloured Bhaktas. The condition, as it comes to practical view, has three phases which are experienced in sequence. The first of these is the feeling, ‘I am Brahm'; the second, ‘All is Brahm'; and the third, ‘All is from Brahm'. The first is related with individuality while the third is related with universality. The second one is only an intermediary stage which finally leads one to universality. Most of the renowned saints of the world could not have gone beyond the very first, whereas of the Indian sages a great number amongst them had gone far beyond. All these conditions are present at every point varying only in the degree of subtleness. Every abhyasi undergoes all these states during the course of his march, though he may not be consciously aware of them.
God is quite plain and simple, devoid of everything, not to speak of any solidity. So, it is absolutely necessary for us to free ourselves from grossness and solidity in order to achieve Him. The solidity comes in by the effect of our own thoughts, actions and surroundings. Our thoughts must therefore be regulated, and the individual mind must be thoroughly disciplined so as to clear off the weight settled in. We should become as light as possible so that a single breath of the master may put us to the highest possible flight.
In our sanstha, the reality is infused in to the abhyasi at the first stroke. It serves as a seed for further growth which, under the watchful eye of the master, goes on developing, unaffected by the scorching heat of adverse circumstances. But it remains for you to keep on watering it by your constant remembrance which is the only instrument to ensure speedy progress in spirituality.
We must go on with speedy steps, not resting even for a moment till we have attained the Goal. When we have got the right path we must stick to it firmly and not be away from it at any cost. All sorts of grosser means and mechanical practices should be given up. When we find ourselves growing lighter and lighter day by day we must conclude that we are proceeding right towards that which is the lightest and the subtlest.
We must never be disappointed of the Divine Grace. God is the supreme Master and His will must be carried out in every respect. We should think ourselves to be bankrupt and remain ever busy with worship and devotion, not minding the interruptions and disturbances that happen to come in our way. We should never be disheartened thinking that our Pooja cannot be carried on regularly on account of inner disturbances which I put down as the ‘barking of dogs'. The dogs will never stop barking even though you give them a good thrashing. Let the dogs bark but the elephant goes on, paying no heed to them. If possible you may better train the dogs so that they may not bark to disturb you in your pooja. But for that you have to adopt proper means to mend their irregular habits. If you apply physical force to stop their barking, there is danger of their becoming violent and offensive. Therefore it is better to show them that their barking shall not be a disturbance to you. When it comes up to this, their barking will eventually subside. Further, if we had taken care of it earlier, their barking might never have come to effect at all. In short, we have only to train them so that they might, by themselves, come up to proper regulation and discipline. The only way for that would be to raise ourselves up to the level where they may also begin to take the effect of our inner state of mind. That means spiritual elevation up to the level at which even animals may begin to take in the effect. This is the actual purpose served in the long run by the practice of meditation.
Barking of dogs refers to the unregulated activities of the mind and the indriyas which can easily be set right by meditation and remembrance.
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DESIRELESSNESS
Socrates says, ‘Knowledge is virtue', and by virtue he means to refer to desirelessness. That is, according to him, the essence of education. If by acquiring high education one comes up to that level, I think the purpose of education is served, and that is a spiritual stage. How can it be attained? The simple process for that would be constant remembrance. If the phrase, ‘With unbroken chain of thought' is added to it, the process would then become complete.
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WAITING
Waiting is also a sort of intense remembrance which is greatly beneficial to spirituality. A poet too has written, “The delight which I found in waiting for the beloved I could not have in the meeting.”
Constant remembrance shall help you to cross all stages. All the different stages and the various types of super Consciousness are unfolded thereby and it connects you with reality. Waiting is a sort of intense remembrance which is greatly beneficial to spirituality.
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CRAWLING AND RESTLESSNESS
The beloved can make the lover crawl in any way she pleases. Even the crawling, too, the beloved teaches the lover. And the spirit of crawling also the lover receives from the beloved. Therefore the movement in which I set out, if it is correct, carries your own praise, and if it is wrong involves your own betrayal. If, now, you ponder over this with a comprehensive view, you shall comprehend that we have received this crawling from Him alone whose remembrance excites the devotee with extreme restlessness.
LAYA AVASTHA
You have written about some of your experiences, including the one about the person whom you saw in the vision. You have asked me to tell you who the person was. Well, I cannot say; but this much I can confirm that often the liberated souls do feel induced to bless an abhyasi in whom they find some light. It is so especially when the abhyasi is deeply intoxicated with the master's love. The vision of Shri Lalaji's form is true, and the subsequent changing of it into that of mine indicates that He has not left any difference between himself and myself. Most of the abhyasis do have such experiences at times.
Your love has made me so spell-bound that every letter of yours is highly heartening to me. I believe you must also be feeling the same condition on receiving my letter. In this sense both of us are much alike to each other. Therefore if I feel the intoxication of love, you too must be feeling the effects of drunkenness. You say that you do not feel anything. Now tell me whether I too do not come into your Consciousness. If so I shall not count it as too little. You entreat me to save you from this mire. Usually one stuck in the mire is aware of nothing but the mire. Can it ever be possible that the remembrance of one who is ‘dead and gone' may not bring in a similar condition some day? Do you not feel your heart merged in love instead of being stuck in the mire? The question of mire does not therefore arise at all.
**
I generally address the members of the Mission as brethren but I think that may not be quite to the point. I should have rather used for them the word ‘my heart' or ‘my soul' instead. But why I do not take enough care to use them is not quite understandable to me. If I say that it is so because they do not love me to that extent it shall then be a fallacy, because I see them evidently loving me deeply. What may then be the flaw? I believe their voices do not reach me to touch my heart. Now think over it yourself and draw your own conclusion.
It may not be out of place to say that I often used the words `heart and soul' for my master in some of my letters, and that was in quite a natural way. Allegorically I may say that he was the only object of my love. As a matter of fact I was not a lover of freedom or any such thing, but only of Him and Him alone. If I induce others to follow the same course shall it not be, on my part, an act of arrogance because that may seem to indicate the presence, in my heart, of a desire to be adored and worshipped? My master was no doubt worthy of it, being the fittest man to be meditated upon. He was altogether free from egoistic feelings, from desires and worldly entanglements, devoted wholly to his own self. The phrase ‘devoted to his own self' refers to a spiritual state of a high order not commonly bestowed upon man. That was the reason why I loved him as best as I could. I tried heart and soul to get myself merged in him in toto and that had been the life pursuit for me. It was because I got a master who was unparalleled and matchless. I have no words to express the results achieved therefrom. In a word He is the infinite ocean of Grace in which we have all to merge. But how that may be possible under the present circumstances can be made clear by the following example. Consider yourself to be C and myself as B. Now C gets himself merged in B, while B is already merged in A. Shall not then C secure thereby his merging in A, the final goal? It therefore follows that since the greatest personality like my master is not available and accessible, we must make full use of the second best within our reach.
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SATI
The case of Sati which occurred recently in the district of Sitapur has created in me some interest to ponder over it, in order to discover the state of her mind at the time. It is evident that she was inspired by the intense love which she bore for her husband, so much so that she could not bear the separation and preferred to burn herself on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. When I compare her love for her husband with mine for my Lord, the master, I feel something like diffidence. So far as I understand it, this action of hers was actuated by an eager desire to remain close to her husband ever after. If the only purpose of a sati is to maintain a perpetual connection with her husband, I think she may well be compared to a true disciple who also likes to maintain his link with the master after he has given up his material form. Will not such a devoted disciple be at par with a sati?
Now, let us for a while consider the theory of purusha and prakriti as the positive and negative forces of Nature. A woman as a female represents prakriti or the negative while man as a male represents purusha or the positive. A disciple is absorbed in the thought of the master who is presumably the positive. For that, he must necessarily make himself negative. Taking into account the two terms mathematically, the former refers to going above the base or Zero, while the latter refers to going below. Let the present state of man be the starting point or the base. Negation, therefore, means going below or giving up, or in other words, becoming poor and destitute of all which constituted his apparent being, i.e. materiality. Will that not count as an advance towards that which is presumed to be Reality? If so, that means one proceeding towards negation gets gradually transformed as positive. This may lead one to the conclusion that a female (or a sati) will thus be transformed into a male. In the strict spiritual sense, the positive refers to that which is devoid of the sense of masculinity. In that case it may then be parallel to feminity. But it is not that also, since feminity is linked with negation and we ourselves have become negative. Thus he is not female as well. What then? In its real sense it is neither positive nor negative but beyond both. I have tried to express it as follows:
When the drop merges with the Ocean
It becomes itself transformed as ocean.
That is the final extent of love so far as spirituality is concerned. When a man attaches himself firmly to one who is neither male nor female, he himself finally becomes like that. Now a sati's conception of her husband as a man and her intense love for him in that capacity keeps her rigidly confined to that conception, and her approach to liberation is barred. In the same way, if a disciple does not fix his thought upon the non-positive and non-negative conception of the Guru, he can never achieve the final goal.
I believe that a sati at her highest pitch secures control of the elements required for the composition of the human frame. This is because her thought ever remains focussed on the body and does not go beyond. But if her husband happens to be one who has secured a higher approach, she would automatically be pulled up beyond up to the level of his approach. This is my view. I do not know what the Shastras say about it. As for myself, I am fully convinced that if the guru is not himself up to the highest pitch of spiritual elevation, his disciple shall definitely remain short of the mark, unless he establishes his connection direct with the Supreme. That may perhaps be the reason why preference is given to direct love with the Supreme.
It may however be surprising to find that in spite of her meritorious love, devotion and sacrifice for her husband, a sati-lady has no access up to liberation. The only reason in my opinion is that she naturally takes him as husband and supporter, in the capacity of a human being. On the other hand if her husband had been away from the idea of his own being, which is most rarely the case, she would automatically have gone up above that baser conception. Thus, in a way, her husband may be held responsible for her non-attainment of liberation.
The reason why I have emphasized so much upon negation is that without it the unfoldment of the knots and one's expansion can never be possible. The grains of wheat, each of which has an integral entity of its own, when ground into flour lose their individuality by casting off their coverings. Negation is really nothing but nullifying the energy which had contributed to the formation of the solid form or the positive phase. Similarly, so long as a man retains his integral state of grossness, his individuality is accountable like that of a grain of wheat which loses its individuality and becomes finer or subtler only when it is ground up or negatived. In the process the grosser particles of its being are shattered and the bondages are torn off. In other words, the positiveness is lost,and a state of uniformity is introduced, which establishes a closer contact with the Real. One is then neither positive nor negative but beyond both. I never took my master in any but that sense, and I felt his light alone shining in every heart, whether that of a friend or foe. The result was that finally I began to feel my own self in every being. A dog seemed to be quite akin to me. Every distinction was lost. A lump of gold and that of clay were alike to me in worth. The sense of relativity got almost extinct and the link of relationship seemed to be cut off. I never looked upon any of my relations in the spirit of kinship. My father, mother, brother and children, all appeared to my view just as they really must. This, though not an ordinary attainment, can easily be achieved through the simple Sadhana of Sahaj Marg. The state comes in by itself in due course after sufficient advancement. It is, in fact, an advanced state of vairagya. Now, in respect of the associates who are under training with me, suppose I think of them as my disciples, shall I not thereby be doing discredit to myself by imposing again the link of relationship which had so kindly been cut off by the magic effect of my master's grace? The thought of their being disciples would create in me an idea of being myself a guru. So in that case the training imparted by me shall never be pure and free from egoistic feelings, and any thing disparaging or derogatory to my position will incite me to fury. May the Supreme Master keep off this worst evil from our sanstha for ever! Now, since I do not think of anyone as my disciple, there is no reason for me to mind any unbecoming behaviour from his side. If you examine this with the heart's eye, you will find that it goes to promote the feeling of non-beingness. Thus we take up from the very beginning the thing which we have to finally arrive at.
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GURU AND DISCIPLE
When the disciple completely merges himself in the guru, the latter becomes restless to take him further, especially when the disciple is unable to go further of his own accord. I will answer a question which possibly arises in every one's heart: “If guru happens to be a traveller of the region of baqua, how is it possible for the disciple to reach a higher region when needed?” If the guru is a liberated one the disciple will surely receive his help, provided the disciple has developed a condition due to which his voice reaches the guru. The voice of those people who are initiated by him reaches the guru quickly. Apart from this, there are representatives and teachers who fulfill the needs of the disciple.
If a man comes with repentance for his wrongs, and if he is inclined towards spirituality, he should be admitted, but he should not repeat the wrongs. If he turns his attention towards God with repentance for his sins, he will soon become pure. This includes a prayer to pardon him for his sins together with weeping etc. It is written in the Holy Quran (Hadis), “If a devotee (Banda) prays for pardon and weeps, I feel ashamed and I accept him again”.
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SERVICE
Your very thought of service will bring men within your field of spiritual training. The thought of a spiritual man creates the atmosphere in accordance with the nature of one's thought. But we are all human beings, so we must adopt the methods that human wisdom demands, and this is our duty too. When once the tide rises it cannot be settled down, and we must try to raise the tide. I want that there must not be any advertisement, although every activity becomes its own advertisement by itself if it is not turned into the idea of service. So please try to have that turn. And we are doing the same thing.
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Nature will certainly take work from you, and you have to get ready for the work soon. You shall have to work. The limitations are to be just loosened.
