“If the heart is praying, it is all right! If your heart has heard your prayer, God has heard it!” says a Persian song.
“Mohammedans pray five times a day. But many repeat it only mechanically. What’s the use of it? Try to understand me, what I really mean, do not stick to words, then we will overcome the language barrier.”
”It may come later, Bhai Sahib; for the moment it seems to me you are asking the impossible. But since the mind does not work at its full speed, prayer goes wonderfully well, as never before.” Again this smile, so very still. He closed his eyes.
Looking at him, I kept wondering why his eyes were full of tears when he was telling me the story of the Saint and the disciple who did not see the morning. Perhaps it was his own experience, in connection with his beloved Guru Maharaj, as he reverently calls him.
I sleep well, but my sleep is full of colorful dreams which I forget immediately. The only thing I know is that he is present in all my dreams. Told him last week about it. He said nothing, only smiled as he does so often. Never have I dreamt of anybody to such an obsessing extent. Even if I forget or don’t remember, I know nevertheless that he is always in my dreams, in ALL my dreams, so naturally as he would belong there, as if he were always part of my dream-life, in the very depth of myself.
9th December, 1961
BENARES WAS LOVELY. Full of shimmering light, bustle and sunshine.
Had the same room ‘as last year, in Shanti Kunj, and my meals at the girls’ hostel. The Guru didn’t come with me; when my rikshaw stopped at his gate on the way to the station, to pick him up, he was in bed with an attack of pain in his back.
The reason for my going to Benares was to get my zink trunk which some members of the T.S. had stored for me. Did not go anywhere, not even to the Ganga. Did not do anything either, but walked in the compound and stayed only two days. Have found a marked difference in myself. I seem to have lost all interest in everything.
When taking part in conversation, I have to make an effort to follow because it interests me so little. And the mind is not flexible, not very sharp. Have neither the desire to go back nor to remain, but have much peace. When walking in the grounds, looking at the trees, the flowers, the lovely transparent sky, had moments as if all of a sudden the thought was completely suspended in nothingness; just looking, just feeling; the same dream-quality which I had so often when a child alone with nature, and which I had lost completely after my school days, was here again, sharp and clear. Only this time it was deeper, clearer, almost frightening to the mind. It comes without warning in fleeting moments, and every time it happens, for a second or more—who knows?—I am lost in it, but then it is immediately drowned in a kind of fear; the mind panics in this state of blissful non-being, and I caught myself making desperate efforts to remember where I was, and to link this state to the memory which disappeared somewhere for the time being. Naturally, I succeeded to remember quickly, but the blissful state was gone. Since my childhood I know, and have always known that, in my dreams, in the night, this state in its pure quality, without fear, is there so naturally and belongs to me, in what I called “my other life,” my dreams. It is a strange experience to get glimpses of it in my waking state.
11th December
BACK IN KANPUR saw Bhai Sahib only twice for a short time, stayed only two days before leaving for Madras. This morning, quite out of the blue, got a flat. It was really offered to L., but it is too small for her; she expects a friend from France. Two tiny rooms, whitewashed, clean. It is in a house belonging to some Indian Christians. Seem to be nice people, but several families live in the courtyard, and there are many children. My door also leads into the courtyard, so I expect that there will not be much privacy. But I took it in a flash, had no choice, and from the 1st of January I can move in. When I told the Guru about it, he approved. He had seen it; he went to see it with L. last evening. Now, when I come back, there will be no worry about accommodation. One obstacle for my stay here has been removed.
“No, no,” he said quickly, “no obstacles whatsoever!” Once more he told me not to make any engagements after coming back. “The flat is good for the moment. We will do a lot of work there,” he said, and that was enough for me.
13th December
AND SO IT CAME… it tiptoed itself into my heart, silently, imperceptibly, and I looked at it with wonder. It was still small, a light-blue flame, trembling softly. It had the infinite sweetness of a first love, like an offering of fragrant flowers with gentle hands, the heart full of stillness and wonder and peace.
I was looking out of the window on the landscape sliding by; groups of mango trees, sugar-cane plantations, rocky, low hills, then flats again, endlessly. The train was taking me South, and it was eleven hours late. Was lazily reflecting on what some fellowpassengers had just told me, that Kerala was so lovely, and it was just the right time of the year to visit Cochin. My original intention was to see the South this winter, and it seemed rather a pity that I won’t be able to do it. For I well knew that I will stay in Kanpur, for God knows how long a time. Money can be transferred from London to anywhere in India. I should really go, I thought. It would be so agreeable, exciting in fact, to see new places, the colorful tropical South. Rich in vegetation and wild life, but people are so poor, worse off than in the North, if such a thing could be possible.
But I knew that I was cheating myself, knew that I will never go.
COULD NOT GO. This “something,” the powerful drive which for years made me do things which I just had to accept, to obey, because I could not help doing so, this “something” made me sell my house in order to be free, made me go to India, and finally brought me step by step to Kanpur, to undertake the longest journey, the greatest adventure of my life; and it will not let me go anywhere but back to Kanpur, back to a future full of dark, half-admitted fears.
It was then, that I noticed the little blue flame, burning softly inside my heart.
“Love will be produced,” you had said. And since then, I kept wondering how it will come to me. Will it be like the Voice from the Burning Bush, the Voice of God as Moses heard it in the days of old?
Will it be like a flash of lightning and thunder out of a blue sky, making the world around me a blaze of glory? Or will it be, as L. suggested, that you will produce Love in general, Love for everything, and the Teacher will be included in it? But I told her that it could not be so—not for me, to be able to surrender completely, to sweep away all the resistance; it must be big, tremendous, complete, without reserve, without limit—the conditionless, absolute forgetting oneself.
But what I felt now was not so… it was just a tender longing, so gentle, so full of infinite sweetness. Like all laws governing this universe, Love will follow the way of least resistance. In all my life I never knew the feeling of love flashing suddenly into my heart. It always came softly, growing timidly, like a small blue flower at the side of the road, so easily crushed by the boots of those who may pass by. And if there was love in my life in the past, it always grew slowly, steadily, increased until it became big, large, sweeping like a tidal wave, sweeping everything that stood in its way and at last filled all my life. So it was in the past, and this time too, it is coming to me in the same way… I suppose, because our hearts are made in a certain way, and we cannot help being what we are.
Slept the whole afternoon, and when in the evening I looked again into my heart, it seemed to me that there was nothing there, only a subtle feeling of peace. So I thought that I was mistaken after all; it was not love, just imagination, an error of judgment. It must have been a mistake.
16th December
BUT IT WAS NOT. On the contrary, I noticed that it silently grew when I wandered in the lovely compound here in Adyar. My first impression of Adyar was that it is so small. When I came here for the first time, more than two years ago, I arrived from the crammed—in England. Then Adyar seemed so vast to me. But now, after hundreds of miles of rolling hills and endless landscapes, seemingly r
eaching beyond the horizons, Adyar was tiny, a really small place. The people who live in it are still the same, as everything else was still the same. I always found it so strange, to find people and places just the same as you had left them, even after many years. Strange and incredible it seems, especially when for you so many things have changed, and the world is not the same again. It always fills me with astonishment how it could be that there is so little change in people and mentality.
Here too, all seemed to be the same just as I had left it. But even if it seemed small to me, Adyar was as lovely as ever, and so fragrant, with many flowering shrubs and trees. Looking up to the deep blue sky, the white clouds, as it was my habit, I sent a quick thought of greeting to the Infinite Life, to all this wonderful blue. But every time I did it, I saw your face clearly outlined against the azure of the skyperhaps not exactly your face, but the expression of it—as I have seen it when you smile, first with your eyes, and then it deepens to vanish into the beard; or the faraway look and the blank expression, when still and composed, you slide the beads of your mala through your fingers; or the face, as if cut out of stone, hard, severe, as old as the hills, as ancient as humanity. The unseeing eyes, wide open, flashing a dark light, the face which made me nearly jump out of my skin with fright when I first happened to see it, and which looks so Eastern, Chinese, or Tibetan, and which, since then, I saw often and learned that you look like this when in deep Samadhi, out of your body.
To my surprise, it was always your face with its various expressions between me and my thoughts of the Infinite Life, no, rather as if they were part of the Infinite Life itself, never to be separated again in my mind. Then, only then, I knew for sure that I have lost myself in you and that never, never will I get my heart back again. “For my heart was lost in Heaven and remained there with the stars.” I remembered the line of poetry, but did not remember who wrote it. And when I took some books and articles on Sufism from the Adyar Library, this flame grew so big that it set my heart aflame, flooding it with joy!
When I came to you, a little more than two months ago, I did not know anything about Sufism. Nothing of its glory, its tradition, its boundless freedom, its never ending love! It was like a revelation, and I realized how much I had missed by not knowing it before. Even the little I have learned about it—for we have not many books on Sufism at present in our Library—filled me with enthusiasm. And once more I thanked my good star (or my destiny?) for guiding me to you.
18th December
“LIGHT WILL COME TO THEE from Longing,” says Darya Khan. I don’t know anything about the Light, but I certainly have Longing. It is strong, even, constantly going on like a call from far away.
Went to the Garden of Meditation this afternoon to hear good Western music which I missed so much all those last years in India. I nearly cried and was much moved. The quality of listening seems to be different. And the sky was full of feathery-pink clouds.
Adyar is full of delegates for Convention. To avoid the inconvenience of sharing a room with other delegates, Norma offered me their outhouse on the edge of the casuarina wood on the beach. A charpoy (a rope-bed) was put in, I found some long sticks lying about, put up my mosquito net and was comfortable. Norma was sending me a cup of coffee and a chappathi every morning with her servant. The place was lovely, isolated. There was an oldfashioned sink and water, for in the olden days it was used as a washhouse.
The sound of the pines (casuarina is a poverty-stricken pine growing on the sandy beaches), and the sound of the surf all day and night. Actually, in Adyar one is everywhere within the sound of the sea. Especially in the night, one can hear the ceaseless coming and going of the waves.
The sandy beach is very shallow; one can walk far out, and the water is still only to the knees. The long, tall waves roll on majestically from afar in steady succession. Just before they curve over when breaking down, crested with white foam on the top edge, right inside the curve, it is green, translucent, the light of the rising sun behind them. And right there in the curve, in the liquid green, there was your face….
Your face looked at me from every lotus flower; it was inside the hibiscus flowers, in every one of them; in the dark water of the pond itself, it was quietly looking at me… then I knew that there was no escape, that I have reached the end of my road. And where I will be going from now on, there can be no return for me.
No, I knew nothing about the teaching of Sufism. I am like a blank sheet of paper for you to write the creed of your glorious System with letters of Love. Will you forgive me for fighting you for over two months? If you knew the hearts of men, as I am sure you do, you must have known how much distrust, how much doubt there was in it. (Perhaps it still is? and still will be?) But I know that you have forgiven me already, because you understood. “To make a Saint takes no time,” you had said, “but who is prepared to sacrifice everything?—that this world should be nothing, non-existent for you anymore. Who is prepared to accept it?”
I think I do. For the process had already slowly begun before I met you. Gradually I seem to lose interest in everything. Nothing pleases me. Not the beautiful surroundings, nor interesting people, lectures, friends. Lectures are only words, and so many of them meaningless anyhow. People have so little love, are incased in themselves. Even the loveliness of the landscape is nothing if I have to be separated from you.
“For a bearded man came with his song and made me blind to the beauties of the world.” You translated to us this Persian couplet.
“When one is a maker of Saints and knows how to write on the back of the hearts”—I remember you saying this to us one day. You know how to do it, Bhai Sahib. I throw my heart at your feet, and when you tread on it, never mind! Write on the back of my heart one letter: one letter only: that of Alif. Write it with living fire, to be consumed at your feet with eternal longing. I will leave it there; will never ask it back again. It does not belong to me anyhow. It always was yours. Only this time owing to my conditioning, to my Western education, I forgot it. I did not recognize you, Bhai Sahib. I was blind and did not see that the Feet of the Great Lover, the Creator of all Love and your feet were one and the same….
You said to us that complete surrender is necessary. But now I read that more than that is required. The condition of selfannihilation is demanded from the disciple in your System. Self annihilation in the Master.
“The latter ascertains by his own powers whether the ‘Union’ is perfected. If this is so, the disciple is passed to his Teacher’s Master, the Spiritual Influence of the original Founder of the ‘Path,’ or System, to which they belong. This Founder, of course, is long since deceased, and for a time the disciple can only come into conscious relation with him by the aid of his first Teacher. In time the consciousness of the disciple becomes so absorbed in this great Master, as to possess all his Spiritual Powers. He is then passed still higher up his chain until he reaches ‘self-annihilation in the Prophet.’ By the Prophet is here understood, not Mohammed, as man, but as the ‘Primal Element,’ the First Intelligence, the Word. Beyond lies only the last, the final stage—‘Union,’ ‘God,’ ‘Truth,’ what you will, words are meaningless; it is beyond all telling, and the Sufi says: ‘From him who has made the journey, no news returns’.”
-from the text of J.M. Watkins, on Sufism.
So, this is the Goal of Sufism. Then how could you say, as you told us again and again, that it is an effortless Path? Why do you choose to deceive your disciples? But you will not deceive me. I never believed in such a thing, and I told you so. Maybe it could be effortless for those who are content to sit with you for years, get a bit of Dhyana, because they are not prepared to pay the whole price, are afraid to go further. But if one goes out for the Whole Thing, and is prepared to give up everything for it, to put everything on one card, without reserve, how can that be effortless???
Like birth, Creation is a painful process. To be able to create, one has to destroy first. Destruction is synonymous with pain. I saw people w
ho have been for the last forty years with you, and they are still petty, full of the small self. I do not want that. Sings the Persian poet:
“He is my own little self, my Lord, he knows no shame;
But I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company!”
If you want a great thing, the Greatest Thing, you must pay a great price. What greater price can you pay than your life, your innermost being?
To reach the Goal, you have to be turned inside out, burned with the fire of Love, so that nothing should remain but ashes, and from the ashes will resurrect the new being, very dissimilar from the previous one. Only then can there be real Creation. For this process is destruction, creation AND Love. Another name for Love is Pain and Effort.
“Life means Longing. Progress is only possible through Longing. And as the Path of Progress is infinite, there should be infinite Longing. Thus Longing becomes itself a form of the Infinite, to be desired for its own sake. This is why the Mystics idealize Longing. The other name for Longing is Love.
“Longing is to the Soul what water is to the soil. Even as the earth needs water to soften its particles, so that seed may sprout, the human Soul needs sorrow to make it fertile.
Without longing, without sorrow, softening your Soul, there can be no progress, no germination of the seed. That is the law of the spiritual life as of the physical. And, therefore, while yet a Soul strives, while yet he is imperfect and subject to temptation, as everyone of us is in this life, he must have longing and sorrow, which arise from the memory of the Beloved, to guard him from the danger of self-complacency and lead him safely to the Goal. Longing not only supplies an incentive to life, but it makes you mild and humble. And humility is a very necessary factor of spiritual life. It is but a child of Longing. Both live together. Humility and Longing imply imperfection. And the uncertainty of perfection in human life is what makes Longing and Humility necessary for a spiritual aspirant. And so Madan, a Sindi singer says:
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