21st April
l WAS HAPPY THIS MORNING. My heart was full of such peace. Sat in his room under the fan. He did not speak but continued to write.
Later, a few men came and sat there too in silence. After a while he began to talk to me and asked if I liked the discussion with Prof. Batnagar. I said, yes, but most of all I liked the Persian couplet.
Which part of it? he wanted to know. About being pawned in the market place, I said.
“My Revered Guru Maharaj used to tell us this one,” he said softly, dreamily, turning the pencil in his fingers. Then he sat up: “According to the System, the Shishya is constantly kept between the opposites, ups and downs; it creates the friction necessary to cause suffering which will defeat the Mind. The greatest obstacle on the Spiritual Path is to make people understand that they have to give up everything. If I give an order, and they obey the order, there is no merit. They must understand it by themselves. Sometimes the Master will say: Bring your wife to me, or bring your child to me.
Out of a thousand, out of a hundred thousand, only one will obey such an order. For he will think: why does he want my wife, or my child? The mind will give trouble; there will be doubt; they will lose faith.
“There is a secret behind it; if it is not obeyed, they will not survive. This is one of the supreme tests. Only a Sat Guru knows when to give such a test. That’s why the Teacher will hesitate to give such an order. The Shishya is attached to them; he is after them; he has to give them up. And attachment is the greatest obstacle. WHAT IS DEAREST TO US MUST GO. This is the Law. One cannot serve two Masters. Either the world or the Guru. Everything has to be given up, absolutely; nothing should remain, nothing at all. Even the self-respect has to go. Only then, and then only, can I take them into my heart.”
He was full of light, so full of dynamism, that even those few simple men who were sitting there were staring at him as if not believing their eyes.
Later, he said: “Mental sufferings are Dwellers on the Threshold; bear them.” He spoke very quietly. I suddenly was flooded with nameless sorrow and began to cry. “Go home, may God help you.”
I went out crying bitterly. Not so soon will I forget the expression on his face when he said: “May God help you”… he looked Christ-like, so deep seemed his compassion….
25th April
PERSIAN COUPLET: “The love is from both sides: from the side of the Beloved all currents are absorbed and love is not shown. From the side of the lover, his love cannot be hidden. To be loved is an easy thing; but to love requires a supreme self-sacrifice.”
Last night Pushpa had visitors, her friends who came from the United States. How elegant is the Indian dress, the sari. They all looked so graceful and colorful, even those who could not even be called good- looking. There was pleasant conversation as we sat on the lawn, sipping ice lemonade, then went for a drive. The whole afternoon after lunch, I stayed near the cooler which is installed near the bedroom. What a bliss it is for my body to feel cool air! Now the heat is such that even the fan does not help; it only moves boiling air about. Sitting on the lawn after sunset, cool drinks before us, and later when the car was speeding along on the near empty roads after dark, I felt so acutely, so sharply, the change taking place in my life.
Pushpa’s life was my life until now, the life to which I was used to.
The security of a bank account was at my disposal, to be able to do what I wanted, to go where I wanted. Not riches, no, but comfort… essentially, an easy life.
From now on I will remain with nothing at all. I am a beggar. My pension is £150 per annum. It will be swallowed up by the monthly installments of my life insurance policy and the help which I am giving to my sister for my father. Not a penny in the bank or anywhere else will be left, and no income at all. Nothing for old age.
All my own savings and those of my husband which he left me will soon be non-existent, when the money from my investments from Australia will arrive into his account. And it will rapidly flow through his slender fingers, as it already happened with a large sum recently.
“Bring me twenty, or thirty (or whatever it may be) money orders.”
I don’t know what the post office clerk must have thought seeing me buying money orders daily… but I go and post them mostly at the main post office, where nobody knows me. Those and similar thoughts were crossing my mind while there was much chatter about charming nothingnesses, like the flower exhibition to be held soon, or the latest issue of a controversial novel.
Dark streets. Lovely car. Security. Never, never more will life like this be for me. There was a regret, a finality about it… a finality similar to death? No, not quite so dramatic; rather, a finality of bridges being burned behind me. From now on my destiny will be to sit amongst smelly, shouting men, for hours on end, listening to stupid conversation which is no conversation at all to speak of, and at any rate it is mostly either in Hindi or in Urdu. Very often he won’t be listening to me, when my heart will be heavy with some trouble, and my head full of problems. He will be doing his mala, or be in deep Samadhi, and I eternally sitting, occupied with important internal happenings, bothered by flies, by bad smells, and hoping in vain for a little, just a little peace.
A life without any security whatsoever. And it looks to me that it will be like that until the end of my days….
26th April
ESPECIALLY THIS MORNING, there was such a crowd of horrid, smelly men, I was really in despair. Dust, heat, smells, yelling children… how am I going to stand it for years and years to come? Sitting here for hours and no hope, no change… being ground down to powder, every day the same, every day hotter, every day more disagreeable.
And so in a pause, I went after him when he went into the room and told him how difficult it is to sit for hours amongst a smelly, shouting crowd.
“I know, I know, my dear, I understand,” he said quickly, “I know. But the Satsang must be; it is essential; and what can I do if it is my life? These conditions are part of my life too.”
“But you can escape by going into deep Samadhi. L. could too; she did not suffer much from it—she told me herself. One simply goes away, but I cannot do it! I sit here fully conscious of the surroundings—it is an acute discomfort! I will go mad!” I added, and began to cry.
“No,” he said softly, “never will you go mad. There are things from heart to heart; this is the only real language… all else is nonsense.”
Began to tell him how my mind was giving me much trouble. Last night, thinking and thinking, because Pushpa’s life was my life until now, and it is still so fresh and has much powerful appeal. I lost it forever, never will it be mine again. He nodded kindly… and looking at me with deep compassion, he said in a very low voice: “Your mind is not likely to trouble you much more; ever. All this is in the past. The mind will not bother you for very much longer.
Could not help wondering how long the “not very much longer” could be?
27th April
SLEPT SOUNDLY till 6 a.m. Woke up crying, could not stop… such was the terrible longing. I can never make out, what am I longing for so much? It is just longing, just darkness, just despair… something so deep, so far down, that the mind does not know what it is longing for so much….
Once I asked him about it; he only smiled. “One day you will know”—the usual answer.
28th April
WOKE UP SEVERAL TIMES covered with perspiration. It is getting difficult to bear the heat, especially in the night. One cannot sleep.
The sheet under me is so wet it’s as if I were lying in a pool of water.
Only three nights more—then it will be better (I hope!) in the new flat where I will be able to sleep in the courtyard with a table fan beside, and not in a small, hot room, where I am now, with no ventilation at all.
Mrs. Ghose’s flat became free. I will get it the 1st of May. Two small rooms, veranda, kitchen, shower closet, and a toilet, all around a small, brick-paved courtyard. A high stone wall around will mak
e it private.
A feeling of non-existence… and it is perfect, absolute, bliss.
Difficult to imagine, how non-being can be such a blissful state. I don’t know how such a thing is possible, but it is so.
Not to exist at all, not to be able to think, to be merged into something which defies description is the greatest, the deepest, the most unbelievable bliss. Others perhaps would call it suffering. Still, it is a blissful state, and the more one sinks into nothingness, the deeper, the more intimate the feeling of bliss becomes.
His expression was so kind when, with slightly bent head, he was listening to what I was telling him, while others in the meantime were shouting at each other in banal conversation.
“I seem to cry now all the time,” I was saying, “either because I feel so alone and full of longing, or because my heart is full of sorrow, or because… I just don’t know why… a great loneliness, an emptiness, fills me with despair. It is not my mind giving me trouble this time; the mind is still, as still as a candle on a windless day. I will need much help; to sit here amongst evil smelling men is such an ordeal, and it will be my destiny for years to come. Please, help me to cross the bridge, to be able to reconcile it all within myself.”
He nodded softly. “This love should grow; try. Try to do it yourself. If you cannot, then the ladder will be there for you.”
“But do you mean to say that I am failing?” He shook his head.
And just smiled.
But he is right. It is the lack of love for other people. I really cannot stand them. If I could have more compassion, I would not object so much to the smell and dirt and noise and ignorance….
I had an auspicious dream, at least so it seems to me: I saw a magnificent rainbow from one end of the horizon to the other, and the colors so glorious, so vivid and alive, that I just stood there breathless with admiration. But the right side of the rainbow was hidden by a tall building, so the whole of it could not be seen. It seemed significant: a tall building to the right (Consciousness) hides the completeness, the whole, which is visible only from the left (Unconscious).
“Dreams are dreams,” he said and gave no explanation… except the usual remark: “You will know one day …. “
30th April
WHEN I CAME, the doctor was just leaving; he was called because of a severe pain in the back.
1st May
THIS MORNING I LEARNED that he had left for Allahabad. It means that he will be away for at least three days, or perhaps even more. I am expected to be there as usual… his brother laughing and talking in Hindi all the time. Just now there seems to be an especially mad crowd, shouting all together, and laughing; such a din… Elaci Baba rubbing his shaved head with a loki (a variety of marrow) to refresh his brain, so he was saying. But the sticky juice dried on his head, giving out a sour smell. And I have to sit… and to sit… trying to bear it as well as I can. Yes… will need a lot more love, the kind of love which is called compassion….
23 Mindless, yet One-pointed
9th May, 1962
HAVE BEEN IN THE NEW FLAT since the 1st of May. It is comfortable.
Only—oh, so hot! The small courtyard paved with red bricks gets as hot as a baker’s oven. Two communicating rooms nine by ten feet, both doors leading to a covered veranda. A shower closet, a lavatory, separated from it by a low wall, and on the other side a small kitchen, with the walls made of perforated bricks, no door, all open to the elements. All around a high brick wall making the whole unit very private, a heavy oak door opening into Mrs. Ghose’s large compound, with open spaces and trees, and her own brick-red sprawling bungalow stands surrounded by flower beds. Chicken sheds are behind it, and the overall impression is of space and freedom.
It is a nice accommodation, but, oh, the heat! All day the sun is beating on it, but at least I can sleep in the open, covered by a mosquito net, the table fan beside me. But it is so hot that even the mosquitoes are dead, so it seems, for I don’t see any.
On Tuesday I took the rikshaw and went at seven in the morning to the Pool Bagh, the large park near the railway station. I wanted to see the trees just now in flower, called the Flame of the Forest. A magnificent sight they are rows and rows of them, feathery foliage of deep green and covered with large clusters of blossoms ranging from the deep orange-gold to flame and even crimson. Have spent three serene hours wandering and thinking many things over. The longing is such that I have absolutely no words to describe it. And it seemed that the glory of the scarlet, crimson and orange flowers, as though painted on the deep blue of the sky, and the strange terrible longing, for some inexplicable reason, are one and the same thing.
I remembered that once in Kashmir (how long ago it seems!), we were talking with L. about the training. She was telling me that the disciple is subjected to such states of loneliness and longing that it could be almost suicidal. A great Master is needed to get the disciple through this state of separation. St. John of the Cross has a good description of those states of darkness; he calls it: The Dark Night of the Soul.
Guruji came back on Thursday looking very tired. Told him about the complete separation and darkness. He only nodded. For the last few days he just answers in monosyllables or nods without answering. I have the feeling that he does not even listen. With others he will talk for hours on various topics, has an infinite patience to listen to everything they say. To me he hardly listens and I am interrupted constantly, as soon as I open my mouth, either by him or by others.
For the last few days the mind is not working at all.
“Love is a gift,” he was saying to a man who came for the first time.
“Love is a gift and it remains forever, once it is given; only sometimes like embers, it is covered by ashes and it is not evident.”
I wondered what those ashes were… our little self, the “I”? Or is it the world closing tightly around us?
Have no money at all. A few rupees are my only possession. It is surprising how little it matters. No money at all… a strange feeling.
Whatever will arrive from my investments from now on is not mine anymore; it is already his. It will go into his account, to be distributed to all those who are in need. To be a mindless creature… how strange! It is quite painless, just strange. I can still do my daily chores, things necessary for life, like washing, cleaning the flat, having a bath, keeping my personal things more or less in order. But for anything else beside these elementary things my brain is not good anymore.
“I am nowhere; I cannot think,” I said to him, and he nodded gravely. To be nowhere is also a strange feeling; I sit here; so clearly, I must be somewhere in space, but I am certainly not in this world… everything seems to be just a funny, crazy, dream, a Maya of some kind. The heat and the glare, and the vomiting condition, and people, and feelings of fear and loneliness and the simple necessities of life… just crazy… difficult to reconcile all this… impossible to understand.
The silly talk of the noisy crowd did not seem to matter at all today. It simply did not exist. I was in a kind of half-state… cannot think. The mind is of such stillness; it seems permanently fixed on him, in fear and apprehension; what will he do next? Only this concentration on him is effortless, easy and natural; all else is an effort. It appears that the only effortless state is thinking about him, for it is quite automatic. It appears to be an automatic function of the mind at this stage, to think of nothing else.
I suppose this is the reason why in this System of Yoga a Teacher is essential and is considered absolutely necessary: he becomes the focus of attention for the mind. I could see how, by this method, one-pointed concentration is achieved, a thing so difficult to achieve in all other schools of Yoga. Here with this system it becomes effortless. The effort lies somewhere else-in the power of endurance, the capacity for sacrifice, the will to go on, to hold out at any cost. And also the eagerness, the perseverance—this is the Shishya’s part to play. And it is here where the greatest effort is needed. A very great effort indeed….<
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I discovered something else. If by an effort of will, I somehow manage to concentrate on something else beside him, then the thought is so sharp, so clear… the power of concentration is greater than usual. Is it because one has made an effort that it happens like that?
The stillness of the mind during the day is wonderful, a complete or partial suspension of the thinking process is taking place.
11th May
THERE IS INSIDE ME such a sorrowful stillness, I don’t seem to have even the strength to breathe. The heart is broken and sore; it is like a deep wound, bleeding slowly. Such a loneliness. Such darkness.
There is nothing left, nothing at all…. Had a vision of myself being suspended naked on a thin thread, over a bottomless, completely black chasm… ready at any moment to crash into it… very disturbing… am afraid….
The money arrived from London, at last. It is already not mine; it is all in his name in the bank. Have never been so poor in all my life.
An extraordinary feeling: have to depend on what he will give me… am a beggar in the very sense of the word… I have to learn how to be a beggar… how hard it is going to be. I have to trust Him and Him only. This is the purpose of it all.
A VOICE IN MY DREAM: “Only the one who is loved is tortured.”
When I woke up, was lying for a long time awake, thinking: it must be difficult for him—for he is a naturally kind man, to be so hard with me. He is always so kind to others. There must be a reason why he is like this towards me. Though I know that the training according to the Ancient Tradition must be hard, and he is in his right to be like that, still, I am hurt; I still complain and rebel. Am foolish. I know I am.
Could not speak to him at all. Too many people, all wanting his attention. A Frenchman came, sent by L.; he is one of her friends. He is a nice, quiet, youngish man, and we had a long talk in French.
While the Guru was occupied with others, he asked a few questions about him and his Yoga system. Could not tell him much about that, but told him how he exorcised a spirit. When I remarked about the silliness of the crowd which assembles here, he said, yes, such people like the Guru have no center of the “I,” for them all human beings are alike; he himself had such moments, and he knows how it feels. I liked his way of putting it, told the Guru about it and reflected upon it for a long time. No center of the “I”…. That’s why he never seems to be disturbed and tolerates all this crowd around him….
Daughter of Fire Page 23