Then he began to tell me how men and women are trained—the differences in the practices; the approach to the psychological makeup of the trainee; how the forces from the depth of the unconscious are gathered and channelled. This is the work of the Teacher, and each individual is treated differently. I listened fascinated, hoping fervently to remember it all.
“From what you have told me just now I have to conclude that you wish me to guide people,” I asked. I felt disturbed… did not like the responsibility… it frightened me….
“Without being a guide, nothing can be done; there is no Power.”
I remained silent. This was something… the responsibility…
I confess I was shaken. Did not expect it to be quite like that…. “It is a great responsibility! Do you realize to what kind of life you are sending me out?”
He did not answer, but gently looked down at his feet as if examining his sandals.
“I hope, I hope that I will not go wrong… to have power is a terrible thing,” I said, fear creeping from the very depth of my being into my heart.
“I know,” he said, half audible with a still and serious expression.
“Is it not too heavy a burden for the shoulders of an elderly woman? I will be accused of contradictions. If I have to live like you, I will have no habits; I am bound to do and say things which people cannot or will not understand. My words will be twisted, misinterpreted.
There might be lawyers in the audience who will twist my words, accuse me of contradictions!”
He suddenly laughed. “Lawyers know of one thing: the transfer of property! The property, the power, the knowledge will be transferred; there is no question of being a woman or not. It makes no difference.”
I was disturbed. You are sending me to Calvary, Master, that’s what you are doing, I thought….
22nd July
“BHAISAHIB, THIS VIBRATION which I had in January-February, do you remember?” He nodded. “I have had it very strong for the last few days, as soon as I open my eyes in the morning. It usually goes away after I have a cup of tea or coffee, but.every day it returns stronger and stronger. It leaves me uncomfortable during the day.”
“Does it?” I saw an amused smile, half-hidden in his beard.
“Could it be transmuted somehow in some way? This body is much tried by the heat and vomiting condition. Wherever this vibration goes, it creates a disturbance; if it is in the throat, there is a choking condition; if in the heart, the heart goes wild; or there is vomiting when in the solar plexus. It kept playing like that during the whole of winter, but it seems to be increasing.”
He was writing something into his housekeeping account book and continued to smile. All of a sudden my heart made a violent jerk as if trying to jump out of my chest, then became positively mad, beating and stopping and racing again. Well, I thought… this is really amazing….
“Shaitan, Guru Maharaj,” I said. “Not one Shaitan (devil), but ten Shaitans in one!”
His smile became a broad grin inside his beard. He left the room and went into the inner courtyard. I sat there listening to the acrobatics of the heart, and wondering….
“Like a monkey in the hands of a monkey-trainer, am I in your hands,” I said, when he came back to fetch his towel. He kept grinning all the time, went out again, still smiling. I was alone for quite a while. Then he came in and said that I can go home. Left dazed… like drunk.
It has been very hot for the last two nights. Too much perspiration makes one feel quite weak in the morning. The rain does not come; it should rain heavily to change the atmosphere and make it bearable.
23rd July
PLENTY OF PEOPLE WERE SITTING this morning, talking, and he too talked a lot. For hours I just sat looking at him. He seemed to be a Being of Light. It surrounded him. He was beautiful.
“Thank you for being you,” I said when everybody had left. “If you remain like this for me, the most difficult thing in the world will become easy.” His smile was lovely and tender when he slipped his feet into the sandals and went out, the towel over his shoulder.
24th July
IT IS RAINING… a soft drizzle, and it is hot. I asked if I should remain vegetarian. I know some of his disciples are, and some are not. He said he leaves it to me. Vegetarianism can become a creed, an obstacle, a religion.
“You cannot eat yourself into Heaven; do what is the best for you.”
29th July
“WHY DID GOD CREATE FLIES?” I asked, disgusted with so many of them.
“Who are you to ask such questions?” he turned to me. “Do you know why YOU have been created? And supposing you do know; do you fulfill the purpose for which you have been created? You commented on the fact that I am so free, that one day I do one thing, the other day something else; I am outside or inside, I speak or I do not, am in or out.Now, if even I, in my limited way, am so free, what about Him who is the Lord of Freedom? He knows what He is doing.”
This did sound very much like Christian terminology, but I said nothing, or course….
Later: “He is no father; He has no son or any relations; He is definitely and most emphatically alone.” That didn’t sound Christian at all….
Still later, he was telling me that I don’t follow him as I should, because I still love to go to Pushpa’s Kirtan. I told him that lately, more and more I feel like that too, that it is a waste of time, but have not the courage to stop going, for fear of hurting her feelings.
“Tabla, harmonium, the singing, it pleases you—you like it—you do not realize that it is useless from my point of view.”
So, I had better tell her sincerely why I have to stay away and just hope that she will understand….
“Human beings are full of errors, and if it wouldn’t be for errors, how could they progress? We are the result of our failings and errors—they are a great lesson. I never act myself: I do as I am directed.” And he made a graceful gesture with both hands to illustrate the channelling from above.
“Saints are like rivers; they flow as they are directed. Those criticisms they will go; never complain, never. If you don’t complain, they gradually will go completely. Pray for it. Pray to the Higher Ones or to God, or to whom you will. Pray that such feelings could stay away, and if they remain, the love should be greater. In your case they are not so many as with some other people. You are only six months in training. Look where you are—are you not much further… is there not a great difference in you?” I had to admit that there was.
“Nearly everybody has these doubts and criticisms. I had not.
Never. But I have seen how my father and my Rev. Guru Maharaj were training people. This is the way of training, to make you speak as you did: I make you angry, and then you speak, and I know what is in your mind.”
29 The Turning of the Heart
3rd August, 1962
IT WAS STIFLING, unbearably hot. The rain downpours are few and scarce, the heat humid and sticky. Only Bandhari Sahib was there in the morning at first, and because of the heat we soon went into the room to sit under the fan. Then came the smelly madman who belches so much. He never came into the room before. He seated himself next to me… and here he sat belching, speaking loudly, making silly remarks and grunting noises. The smell from his mouth was abominable and sickening. He is about seventy, and his black and yellow teeth must be full of pyorrhea. Some weeks ago he said to the brother of Bhai Sahib that washing is not necessary for him because he does not perspire. One can imagine what that means in the tropics! I was thinking, not without bitterness, why all the most disagreeable people are attracted here, and why on earth will they always sit near me, or be shown to sit next to me; why must I suffer such additional difficulties, when the physical conditions are already difficult enough and hard to bear… and suddenly the Cognition came: it came like a flash of light into the mind—he is training me to be able to detach my mind at will from all that I do not wish to notice… to conquer the small irritations. Immediately the full significance
of it became clear: here is partly the answer to the fact that he can live with his family without ever being disturbed; he does not need to go into Samadhi to escape the physical conditions, and he is teaching me to do the same.
“Help me to build the bridge, to reconcile,” I said to him some months ago, when I was practically in despair because of the smelly crowd of dirty men. “You can escape to a different level; you need not listen to them, or even see them, but I cannot—I have to endure it here and now, the lot!”
He only smiled then; he did not tell me: I am showing you the way; I am showing you how to do it, if only you are able to see it. He did not say so, because at that time I would not have understood, nor accepted it. He was training me all the time; this is the answer: to understand how it must be done. It meant, in practice, that whatever happened around me, if I wanted it, I need not notice it. I could remain at his feet in stillness, always in peace, somewhere….
“I don’t look at many things; I don’t want to burden my mind; and if I do look, I don’t keep or hold it in my mind. I don’t want to burden my brain, so, I simply don’t see it, and don’t remember it either,” he said one day when I laughingly told him that he does not look at the ladies.
Once he was telling me in L. ‘s presence how he made her suffer by not speaking to her for weeks.
“You know,” said L., and she laughed, “he thinks that he made me suffer so much… let him think so; he will give me better and more bliss for that, if he thinks so. But I didn’t suffer even 10% of what I would have suffered if I were completely conscious. I was in Dhyana all the time, lying under the fan all day long, with the currents of love inside me. What did I care if he did not speak to me? Often I did not notice it at all!”
Clearly my case was different. I had to learn how to exclude it all in full consciousness. Obviously this will be the basis of my training for my life in the future. True, my mind does not work at the moment to its full capacity; still, there is enough of it left to feel suffering and the discomfort.
All this was going through my mind, and then I noticed that he was looking intently at me. Then I knew that he was aware of what I was thinking. Bandhari Sahib was writing down some Persian couplets:
“I am immersed in the mud of the world (Maya), And my boat is in the whirling river;
Even if I suffer death, I don’t care,
Provided I hear always your Voice!”
The other one went like this:
“Those who are surrendered,
live in the Will of the Beloved,
They bear everything without complaint;
Because they get new life every moment
from the Real Bandhara. ”
Bandhara is the Reservoir of all Grace.
He was feverish in the evening, and everybody left soon. But before I left, I had the opportunity to tell him that I understood the lesson: it would mean that, later in life, nothing can harass me if I don’t allow it. It would mean acceptance, and the ability to remain in contentment at His Feet always. I got up and knelt down, touching his foot with the crown of my head. “Thank you, and God bless you, and get well soon,” I said. His head lowered. I could not see his expression, but I knew his heart was too full to show it.
At Pushpa’s place I thought about it all the time, and the more I did, the more important it seemed to me….
4th August
IT BEGAN TO RAIN in the night, not much, just enough to drive me inside the room… then it stopped.
When I was sitting in his garden about eight in the morning, it began to rain in earnest. All the chairs were taken into the doorway, and everybody went home. I sat alone. Bandhari Sahib came shortly afterwards, and he began a discussion whether it is more difficult to do as I am doing—to be with the Teacher without any worldly responsibilities and worries, in a word, renouncing the world—or to do it while remaining with the family and accepting all the responsibilities it implies. I was of the opinion that my case was the easier one; those who remain in the world have it much harder, subjected as they are to all the pressures of life.
Guruji joined us about eleven, looking frail and tired. He was obviously still not well.
“What talk was going on?” He wanted to know. I told him. “Only when the Manas is dead, the real Sannyasi-life begins. Sannyasis do not necessarily renounce the world and are without desire because they happen to wear the orange robe. The middle way is the best.
On our line, we remain in the world and reach Reality in spite of that, or if you like, because of that.”
8th August
HE ASKED ME last night why I didn’t go the Kirtan. Told him that I never will go again, and I have talked it over with Pushpa. In this moment we were interrupted—several people came. So, I knew that he is bound to ask me this morning about the details, which of course he did. Told him that I felt that sincerity is the best policy; I simply told her the truth, that it was his wish that I should not go.
“Please tell her,” he said after I had finished, “that I will never ask you not to see her. Friendship is something very different from religious services or Kirtans or the like.”
I told her this afternoon, and she seemed pleased about it.
Told him about the strange irritation I feel against everything and everybody, and he is included in it.
“It is good and bad,” he smiled.
“Good?” I wondered.
“Yes, not bad. But the best would be if you never doubt. This is the ideal condition, but it is very rare. I personally don’t understand it because I never doubted or criticized my superiors. Never. But I have seen how my Rev. Guru Maharaj and my father did train people, and I do it too. This is the way. Little by little the mind will give in. Then there will be no trouble.”
Told him that Bandhari Sahib was telling me how his brother could turn the heart of anybody in a moment. He began to tell me about his brother and his uncle… how handsome they were, and how generous. And I was thinking, while listening, that never could anybody be more beautiful than himself. Like a golden God, sparkling eyes, this special dynamism of a non-human quality, and he is not even well, feverish, and looks tired this morning…
There must be a way that can help when the mind plays up… there must be a way to reason with it.
“By reason, you will achieve nothing. It then remains on the level of the mind, and the mind is very clever. The Mind is the Shadow of Shaitan, as the Persian proverb goes. If the Shaitan has yielded, the whole barrier is gone. But for the complete surrender one needs more than that; I said, there is not only the Mind, but the Will and the Character to be surrendered too. But already a great step is done if the Mind has yielded… a very great one. It is the Victory. Little by little it will be done. It takes time.”
How wonderful he looked today, and I said so. It is not so much the features—it is the expression. “But this special expression you do not always have. Last winter when I had those big troubles, very often I was so bitter because I was convinced that you had created those conditions with your power. And I used to come to you full of resentment, and you just sat there and looked like Buddha himself.
And the whole resentment used to vanish, was gone—I just took it; what could I do, thinking that you could not have known how much I suffered, otherwise how could you have such a wonderful expression, this gentleness, and compassion?”
He smiled… then he went into Samadhi… and see! He looked once more like those famous statues of Buddha of the Khmer period—so tender, so still, so remote, just a suspicion of a smile on his lips, the bliss of another world… and the tenderness. I looked and looked, entranced….
People came. Acharya was talking a lot. I sat there absorbed, trying hard to be with him alone, undisturbed, and it worked; but will it work in the period of dryness? I wonder….
The people went. Silence fell. Deep hum of the fan. A large fly kept buzzing around in the room… a sound of summer. It awakened memories. The buzzing of a large insect caught in the room
, the noise of a lawn mower, curtains agitated by the wind in constant movement in front of the open windows, the breath of summer composed of the smell of cut grass, the fragrance of flowers, and hot earth. Since I was a child, this represented summer to me—with the freedom of cotton dresses, and open air, and other things so precious to a child’s mind.
He was lying on his tachat, on his back, the legs crossed one knee over the other. Suddenly, I had a sensation similar to an electric shock in my breast, and for a few seconds the whole room was spinning….
Bhai Sahib, oh, what are you doing? I tried to speak, to formulate the words, was breathless—the room was spinning more and more, the mind stopped working in a second, and there was a flood of love, like a wave submerging everything.
“You did it rather sudden,” I laughed… it seemed funny.
He got up and closed the door leading to the garden.
“I will be corning back,” he said, taking the towel.
“I also will go,” I said, getting up. Well, well… what you do to human beings, I thought. Like a monkey in the hands of a monkey trainer are we in your hands….
In the evening he did not speak to me at all. Went home early.
9th August
“THIS IS HOW it is done in our System,” he said. “For the one to whom it happens, it is very wonderful because one cannot do it by himself alone. But for the Guru it is a very ordinary thing to do. And this is what Bandhari Sahib meant when he was telling you that his brother used to turn the heart of people.”
“Oh this is it!” I exclaimed, very much interested. “And it is done through the Heart Chakra?”
“Yes, and there is the place which is called the Heart of Hearts, but to the public we just say: it is the Heart; it is good enough.”
I was interested and very impressed.
Daughter of Fire Page 30