Daughter of Fire

by Irina Tweedie

  He went inside soon afterwards, leaving the young disciple sitting there. His brother came and began to talk and talk; so I knew that he wouldn’t come out anymore.

  When I came in the afternoon, the servant boys were sweeping the garden with such a display of dust that I had to shift my chair several times to escape the worst clouds of dust. I saw him sweeping his own room—he does it for the sake of exercise. He came out looking absolutely godlike, and was directing and organizing the boys, standing at a distance at the other end of the garden. What a splendid human being, so tall, emaciated, looking so thin, the beard flying… sparkling eyes. Magnificent. He came nearer.

  “They need supervision,” he said bending down and picking up a dry leaf.

  “They certainly do,” I said, “they are children after all.”

  He walked further away and sat on the tachat. The boys with their brooms moved too near, so I went to sit near the tachat as well. He was sitting with his back towards me; he turned and said: “I cannot write; my hand shakes; I had to write a few letters but had to stop.”

  “I will write any letters you wish.”

  “They are in Urdu; many people don’t speak English.” He kicked a small stone with the tip of his sandal.

  “Bhai Sahib, may I say something if you allow me?”

  “Do,” he said looking at his feet.

  “Since you have been ill, I am acutely aware of the fact that you are not here, if I may put it so.”

  “I am never here,” he smiled faintly.

  “No, it is not quite what I mean. What I mean to say is that what is here, what we see, is a sort of Mayavirupa (a body of illusion), only one part of you is functioning here on this plane.”

  “You are right,” he nodded emphatically, giving me one of his strange looks and a radiant smile; “you are quite, quite right!” he repeated.

  “You see,” I continued, encouraged by his friendly attitude, “it is as if you would need to keep this body for a certain time, to serve as a necessary link, but you, yourself, you are no more here.”

  “You are absolutely right,” he repeated, and how young he looked, how golden was his skin in the fading light of the sunset.

  “And the main work is done in the night, mind you; I have no memories anymore—you took them all away—but I know, for sure, that it is so. Something comes through sometimes.” He had a pleased expression and a tender smile, but he looked away from me at something very far in the distance….

  Sida Prasad came and began a non-ending talk. This feeling of non-existence… IT MUST BE the bliss they talk about. .

  4th November

  THIS MORNING HEW AS TALKING to Tulsi Ram, the man with the large family in the kaprail shed (a shed for goats). It was so unpleasant to listen to this croaking, excited voice jarring on my nerves. He is fat; his mind is unbalanced; he cannot keep a job and has a child every year. Oh, Bhai Sahib, I am by far not surrendered as yet! I should not suffer so much because of such futile things. Am full of terrible longing and restlessness and pain in the heart. Heaven knows why I am doing the most difficult thing in the world. And it is heavy and painful, and sometimes I feel that I go along with dragging feet. And there is a worry deep down somewhere, a worry, and I don’t know why….

  5th November

  HAD A RATHER BAD DAY YESTERDAY. When he got up to go inside and I was just about to leave, I realized suddenly that he had created a complete separation. When I joined my palms in greeting, “Yes, yes,” he said with a smile and… I was alone! Completely alone…

  in utter misery I went home. Was miserable all day long fearing that the mind will give me much trouble; in fact it began a little, but I could reduce it to reason in a few minutes. I knew all the time this nearness was too good to be true; a separation was bound to follow.

  When in bed could not pray properly; the mind and the worries interfered. At last must have fallen asleep while praying, for I don’t remember anything else.

  DREAM: a beautiful one, because of the rich feeling of love. With many people we were going by train to a beautiful town. The train was running through a lovely landscape, hills, meadows, high mountains. Look at those mountains, somebody was saying. I looked outside the window and at first could not see the mountains.

  Then the train went into a wide bend and suddenly a magnificent range came into view. Peak after peak, white with snow, and quite near. How very lovely, I thought, and how near! In the town we have been given a theater for the great performance tonight. I was busily cleaning the floor, carefully, with utmost concentration. The floor was shining; it was a highly polished, waxed floor as we used to have in Europe and also in England. I was cleaning the stage, carefully and gladly, because Guru Maharaj, who was the main actor, was expected tonight for a great performance. He was the principal actor of the play. Then I saw myself cleaning the theater outside, creeping on ladders and stairs and washing it. The building was white, perhaps white marble, with balustrades and small columns. Dimly, I saw the street below. It was near the stage door, when I was leaning so much forward that somebody cried out: she is falling down! But I knew I wouldn’t fall down, so I leaned even more outwards, supporting myself with the right hand on the stairs leading to the small stage door, and with the left pulled myself up with great difficulty. Only then, I noticed that I was naked, but everyone else was dressed. But there was no time to bother about such matters—was too busy cleaning. The people, some ladies as well, came out, and the door was closed and locked for it was all clean and ready for tonight. But Bhai Sahib’s brother took a bunch of keys, opened the door again and went inside; I was thinking that something has been forgotten, but I heard him say that he will make some hot water—Bhai Sahib would want a hot bath tonight… he will be tired. This brother was not the one I knew: he was slender and much more handsome; he looked more like Bhai Sahib, but not quite so, and his skin was darker. I woke up and was thinking of the dream, that I should not forget it and write it down in the morning as it seemed to be important. Then I must have fallen asleep for a short while, because I suddenly saw him seated opposite me at a large highly polished table, dressed all in white, as usual in my dreams. He looked so young and wonderfully fit. He stretched his hand affectionately across the table and said to me: “You must also perform tonight!” But I had no ambition, no desire, to show myself on the stage; so I said: “How can I show myself? I have nothing to wear, but I will perform hiddenly—I will be behind the scenes!” All I wanted was to be near him, and that was all.

  I think this dream has a deep meaning and it is clever; if I would have invented it I could not have done better. The first Actor, the Principal Character in every play, is the Great Lover. I was cleaning the stage and the building for his appearance, and was invited to participate in the play, but refused for: “I had nothing to wear,” i.e., was naked… very significant….

  37 “You Have to Go”

  6th November, 1962

  HIS CHAIR WAS NOT OUTSIDE this morning, so I imagined he would probably not come out. He came out only for a moment and stood in the door of his room. He was tuning into my mind to see how it was going; I knew that. I stood there waiting.

  “You can sit down,” he said walking away. He saw everything was O.K. I was full of such deep love this morning. So naturally, he did not come out. Ramji was with him in the room; I was sitting outside, alone; nobody else came.

  7th November

  “YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN A HINT IN YOUR DREAM. Soon you will come to know.”

  I did not press for further explanation. Its loveliness, the warmth, the feeling of love are still with me. I don’t think it needs an interpretation… not really.

  Bits of conversation remembered: “It does not matter if you are against me; it is not bad really. Only nobody should know about it.

  People are bound to misinterpret it and think badly of you.”

  “Karmas are for those who are with them.” I looked at him trying to understand what he meant. “Only those who are alread
y beyond Karma have the right to investigate the laws of Karma. Only when you reach a certain stage, have you the right to inquire into the Laws of Nature.”

  “While we are inside the Karmic Laws, we had better leave them alone, because otherwise we may do things in order to produce good Karmic results, and it would mean that the self would reappear on the higher level. We may plant a huge weed, and to eradicate it would be practically impossible for us. We should do good for the sake of doing it and not to produce good Karmas.”

  “Since I have been with you, I don’t seem to be normal. You don’t know me as I used to be in the West. I was never as I am now. It seems that you brought out the worst in me; I am constantly doubting, or attacking you; I am discourteous, even rude. Cannot even speak to you, and never could in the normal way. As soon as I begin to speak to you, something happens to the mind—I become over-emotional, breathing heavily; the mind stops working; there are interruptions, frustrations; I get quite worked up… it is very difficult.”

  “It will change some day,” he smiled quietly with a distant expression.

  8th November

  HAD MUCH SHOPPING TO DO in the bazaar. When returning with a heavy shopping bag, just before putting the key into the lock, I suddenly had a memory, but it was too subtle, too fleeting to be even called a memory… of a happiness experienced last night: such a tremendous, wonderful happiness, that no words could possibly describe it. Endless horizons full of transparent light, of bliss nonending.

  But above all, a feeling of freedom, the absoluteness of which is unknown to the mind…. The whole day I was under the impression of it, like an echo lingering somewhere in the hidden recesses of memory.

  Last night saw him from afar standing in the courtyard talking to Virendra. Today he did not appear. Satendra was sitting with me, telling me how his father knows everything, the thoughts of all the people around him. Told him we all know that; we all experienced it to various degrees. Went home at seven. Still have a bad cold.

  Cannot get rid of it this time.

  9th November

  BITS OF CONVERSATION (all I remember): “There is a fact which worries me a lot: I seem to hate everything and everybody-hating them thoroughly and completely. Everyone seems to be disagreeable, ugly, even horrible. A constant irritation about practically everything surrounding me. I seem to have become barren and arid.

  Surely this is not an improvement?” He smiled.

  “It is a stage one is passing. There was a time when I too hated everybody, when I was with my Rev. Guru Maharaj.”

  “But L. told me that she feels universal love,” I said.

  “This is something else; once you love God, you love His Creation, and then you do not hate anybody anymore.”

  “But for the moment when the heart is occupied with the One, how can it love anything else? Everything is felt as an intrusion; everything is rejected.”

  “Yes, it is so at the beginning. It is a passing stage, as I just told you.”

  A jolly uncomfortable stage, I thought….

  10th November

  I SEEM TO SLEEP WELL NOWADAYS. He began to switch off my mind at quarter to seven, instead of seven as usual. I suddenly felt a great dizziness which I know so well; the heart began to beat wildly, missing the beats. He is doing something out of the usual, I thought.

  Sat in the sun in his garden thinking very little. He came out for a moment and went out with the pandit next door. Came back and sat near the trees far from me. My mind was paralyzed. Shreds of thoughts were drifting lazily, fragmented and incomplete. He got up and came to sit in his usual chair. Got up mechanically at his approach and sat down again.

  “I want to quicken you after this dream; it was a beautiful dream and a good dream,” he began. I sat quite still. I suddenly felt something… something is going to happen. A quick feeling of panic seized me for a second and vanished… the heart gave a thump of joy… to quicken… a hot feeling, a crazy feeling of hope… to quicken… it passed…. I stared at him blankly. A dull fear, like a thick fog, rose from somewhere… tried to collect my thoughts. Tried… it was too late. He spoke again: “I am trying to speed you up very much in order that you should go for two or three years and work while I am alive. Then you will come back.”

  “But how?” I stammered, frightened at the perspective of leaving him just like that. “How will I come back? I am a beggar now. The journey to India is expensive!”

  “Oh, I will arrange for you there,” he smiled. “It will be done. But I have been hinted that you should go and work for a while.

  Otherwise how will I know if you are successful or not? I also have been sent away by my Rev. Guru Maharaj, and I have met many people, Mahatmas, Sages, all sorts of people; but I never wanted to be with anybody but him. People will come to you,” he looked straight at me with a smile; “some will try to get you on the wrong Path; when one is on the Path, reaching a certain stage, temptations will come his way, and one has difficulties which have to be overcome.”

  I was so thunderstruck that I could hardly speak. Cartwheels were spinning in my brain. I swallowed hard.

  “But if I have to go, I never will see you again; you know that your health is not too good, and you recover most painfully and with difficulty.”

  “You will,” he said smiling with his eyes, “you surely will. But now you must go. Here you cannot work; and you must work.

  Remember, we are not given for ourselves, never; we are given for others. And the more you will give, the more you will receive; this is how the Essence works.”

  “What work do you want me to do?” I asked blankly, terrified at the prospect that I will have to find a job, and at my age it will be practically impossible.

  “What work?” he lifted his eyebrows, “You have been working for the Theosophical Society. You will do it again.” I just stared.

  “Anything,” he said, as if answering my non-formulated question.

  “Any work which is offered to you, you will do-lecturing, other work, whatever comes your way.”

  “But it will be difficult; I will be helpless without you; I could go ‘wrong,”’ I stammered. My head was spinning; the chair seemed to rock under me.

  “Yes, it would happen, if you forget me,” he said slowly, his eyes veiled as if in Samadhi. “It can only happen when you forget me; only then you can go wrong. Keep writing to me always and you will be with me. How far are you in your diary?”

  “Well, I write down everything you tell me, and my experiences as well as I can; some are difficult to express.” He nodded. Went home crying. Cried in bed for a long time.

  11th November

  HAD A RESTLESS NIGHT. In the morning the mind was working very little. I began to realize that what he said to me yesterday did not sink in. Somehow, I did not get the full significance and all the implications it will bring. To go away… but the mind was half paralyzed… could not think… was like drunk.

  He came out soon. First he talked to a man seated there, one of his old disciples, then turned to me: “You wanted to tell me something, so you said, before you went home.”

  I made a helpless gesture as if to say: what’s the use? He went in Samadhi last night when I tried to speak….

  “Get me a revenue stamp of 10 n.p. if you are going to the Post Office. Otherwise I will send Satendra.”

  I said that I would do it. “But what is the use of telling you anything if you don’t care to listen?” He shook his head in utter disapproval.

  “You still have the same attitude: I take so much trouble, and you are still the same; you don’t change your attitude! I am at liberty to listen or not to listen, as I like! Do you mean to order me about? You don’t control your mind—this is your trouble!”

  I bowed my head thinking that he was right; here I was criticizing again…. “I apologize,” I murmured.

  “You always say so, but you don’t improve! Sometimes you are very good, but if you are good for one year and a for a few times you don’t control yo
ur mind, you upset everything! You come twice daily; you sit here alone; this is the training, this is done so, this is the System? Obedience, faithfulness, respect to the Master! If you don’t do it according to the line, and THIS IS THE LINE, how will you progress? And I take so much trouble with you… and you don’t obey. I told you many times before: this is the Line; if you obey implicitly, respect absolutely, are faithful, you are bound to succeed. That’s why you will have to go. Who remains with me all the time does not progress. Not those who are put on the Path you have to take. When you are away, you are alone; you will have to control yourself. Later you will come back and progress again.

  When I am inside, you think that I am doing nothing? I do something to you who are sitting outside, to those who are here, to those who are far away. It is so done… this is my work.”

  “When do you want me to go?” I asked like in a dream.

  “In the spring; perhaps March or April, we will see.”

  “It seems so cruel; March is so near, only four and a half months away… we are nearly there. I will not be able to see you…. “

  “What do you want to see me for?” he asked. “We are not on the worldly platform; bodies don’t matter.”

  ”But is it not a pity to interrupt the training, just now, when I seem to get some new experiences,” I said, not knowing what else to say, for I was lost completely.

  “Do you really think that time and space matter to me?” he asked looking me straight in the eyes. I lowered mine. Blinding light is difficult to bear….

  “Hundreds of thousands of people do every year the pilgrimage to the Kaaba. Says the poet: None of them cares to win even one heart .

  … Because to win somebody’s heart is more than all the Hajas (pilgrimages) in the world!”

  By announcing that I will have to go away soon, he took away the ground from under my feet… all is so insecure now….

  13th November

  SAT IN THE DARK GARDEN weeping bitterly. I made up my mind to stay here for many years, and now…. Dangerous living it is indeed no money, alone, no security: that’s how my life will be from now on-just trusting in God; my goodness, it makes me feel giddy!!