“Why such an importance is attached here in the Orient to paying respect?”
“Without regard, nothing can be done; even if you go to a shop to buy something, you have to pay respect. If you are rude or quarrelsome, you will not be served. Now, look at yourself: You deduct a sum from your pension to help your father.” The wife came in at this moment and began to talk on household matters.
“The sum from your pension,” I helped out, when she had left, so that he shouldn’t lose the thread.
“Yes, and why do you do it? Because he is old,and only in this way you can show your respect. When for the first time you told me about it, I said to myself: she is right. First comes her father; it is her duty.”
“I wish I could do more,” I said.
“This is another matter,” he said emphatically. “If there is an impossibility, nothing can be done. If you try to carry this tachat, for instance, you cannot do it. It is impossible for you. Then even if people say: look here, she cannot do even such a little thing, then it does not matter. Let them say what they like. If you did your duty, if you have peace, then it does not matter what the world says. But you must have done your duty, you must have peace, otherwise it will be better to listen to what people say, if they criticize you.” In this moment the wind brought a specially large whiff of dust; he got up and told us to go inside. We all went.
Speaking of his Guru he said: “I gave myself to him in my lifetime.”
Later he said: “My uncle was the rising sun, my Father was the midday sun—he was shining just as radiant as the midday sun. Who will be the setting sun?—God only knows,” he added.
“Do you mean to say that then it will be the end of the System?” I asked, thinking that by the setting sun he meant himself.
“Oh, no?” He laughed, “How can that be? Never! If there is no sun, there is the moon!” I went all cold. Such a clear hint, I thought….
By the expression of my face he must have gathered that I understood the meaning. He gave me a quick glance and then looked out of the window for a few moments.
“Sun and moon eclipse; stars never eclipse.”
“How is this to be understood?”
“Saints undergo obscurations,” he amplified, “undergo great sufferings, lose the respect of people.” Then he went out.
I was half thunderstruck, thinking his words over. A hint?? Who knows?… In the meantime I made myself more comfortable in the kneeling asana. He came in, took the mala from the recess. Oh, I thought delightedly; I wasn’t sure I didn’t say it aloud. Now, I will have the pleasure to watch him pray. All in white he was today, seated in his usual posture; he prayed. Bluish light played on his forehead and his cheeks, flashes of lovely green around him. Today it was not the usual mala of his Rev. Guru, but the delicate Muslim mala of pale greenish jade with a red tassel.
“This mala is a beauty,” I said when he interrupted his prayers for a moment to talk to Sharma’s son who just came in.
“It shines in the dark.” He asked one of his disciples to close all the shutters. In the now dark room his mala was shining with bluish light, like the phosphorescent numbers on a wrist watch. Now, I don’t know if there is such a thing as a phosphorescent jade; and I don’t think that it can be made phosphorescent artificially. I prefer to think that it became so by the use of the slender fingers of a Saint….
And then it began… actually it had already begun softly when we were sitting outside. And it was increasing all the time as soon as he began his prayers, and I knew that he will give me a sitting… or was it one? Or something else to which no definition can be given?… and waves followed upon waves, stronger and stronger.
At one moment the physical body was as though under great suffering, the tension hardly bearable. I had to press both hands to my chest as hard as I could, so much was the pain. He flicked a sideways glance, noticing my gesture, and continued to pray closing his eyes. The mind was not working. Wave after wave followed. It was such unbearable pain, such longing…. I began to do La-il-llillah, following the movement of his fingers. When after a while he put away his mala and began to pray lifting both hands in the Muslim fashion, I too prayed ardently, asking for illumination of my mind, for Wisdom, for Truth…. He took up the mala once more. The dim light in the room. His posture in Teaching Asana. I saw it sideways; this gave his body a graceful twist. His face, serene in prayer, eyes half-closed in deep concentration, the bluish light on this face which I seemed to know always, from somewhere….
Children were shouting and crying outside. Strange, at other times I would have been annoyed at the noise. It did not seem to disturb today. He prayed like that till quarter past twelve, then he talked to Sharma’s son. The waves began to subside. He sent us home at 12:30.
He said: “I try to use the words ‘Absolute Truth’ whenever possible. One should not even say the Almighty God. Many people object to that. But to Absolute Truth, nobody can object; it is everywhere… everybody accepts that, from whatever religion.
Zarathustra was the first to coin the word ‘God.’ Since then it is in use. ‘God’ is a good word. But ‘Absolute Truth’ is better.”
A disciple of his asked me how long I will remain here. I answered that it depended on the Teacher. Going back into the room I said to him: “I have been asked how long will I stay here; I just arrived, why should one think of departure?”
“It is because people think that Europeans cannot stay here in the hot season—that’s why they ask.”
“But I can; I did!” He nodded.
“Great sacrifices are demanded from one who wants the Truth.
Sacrifices can take many forms. Physical, mental, all sorts of great sufferings are necessary and are required!”
7th March
BECAUSE OF THE LINK which binds you and me like an arc of a glorious Rainbow thrown from one Eternity to another; in the Name of this Old Relationship which always was and always will be and which gave you the right to do to me what no one can do to a free human being without paying a high price for doing it; because of this Love which you have lit like a Sacred Torch in my heart; because of all that, I am controlling my mind….
You know it is not easy. I live in an atmosphere of doubts and suspicions, and to keep my mind fixed firmly on the Point of Light, still so far away, is so much more difficult, is a gigantic task and a fulltime job, from morning till evening…. But I am not alone; you are helping me, by saying the right word from time to time….
God is helping me through you, by giving me this endless longing…. Last week I told you about the new vibration which feels like powerful waves of love and great Longing from me to you.
In the past, always, the vibrations seemed to come from outside myself; from you to me for instance.
Now it seems the other way round: it is FROM ME TO YOU. And so strong it is that something keeps trembling inside me, and the physical body can hardly bear it…. Because it is He in me who wants Himself. . But all this I did not tell him; what for? I only wrote it down….
TODAY IS HOLY FESTIVAL and I don’t go to him in the morning. I suffer from great Longing…. Yesterday morning he sang a couplet which was translated to me; it is of Bahadur Shah: “After having given him the Diksha (consecration) his Master asked him the usual question: What do you want? and he replied: ‘I want to be one of those candles which are lit on the graves; they are lit in the night, and are extinguished in the morning. Like one of those I want to be before you!”
“It means complete surrender,” he laughed his young laughter.
Then he told us a story: “The chief police inspector sent his son to my Rev. Guru Maharaj for study. But my Rev. Guru wrote to the father: take your son back; he is not very intelligent; I cannot teach him anything. One day the police officer and his son were sitting there and I was also there. Somebody asked a question: ‘How long does it take to learn Urdu and Persian?’ ‘About one year,’ he replied.
‘Oh, so long?’ asked the questioner. Then he said:
‘Oh, about nine months.’ And as the discussion went on, it became six, three months—it was less and less until it reached the stage that to know Urdu and Persian will take half an hour. Then the police officer got up and said: ‘Here is your slave and here is the son of a slave!’ ‘Ah?’ asked Guru Maharaj, ‘don’t you see that this talk was going on for your sake? Come here!’ he said to the boy. And he covered his head so that the ears were covered with the square of cloth men wear in the district of Ferruchabad. It is done like this, if the Guru wants to give something, and for ten minutes he explained the meaning of Alif—why Alif is Alif and the First and not ‘B’ and so on. And for the first time we all heard this explained and we were very interested. After that the boy fell unconscious. He was unconscious for three days and then it took him another three days to recover.
And after that whatever difficult works in Urdu or Persian were put before him, he could read and explain them. It was the most perfect example of a powerful Tawadje.
“One day the relative of my Rev. Guru was lying here in the room upstairs. His temperature was not at all high, hardly any fever at all.
So my Rev. Guru asked me: ‘He has hardly any fever and you are worried, why?’ So I told him that the man has to live only for ten days. ‘How do you know?’ asked the Guru and laughed. I told him that I knew it by counting the pulse; he told my Father how to do it and me too, but he forgot it. Later my Father told me that I lacked regard to my Guru by answering like this. I felt very badly about that. So next day my Guru told me to go upstairs and tell him how long he will live. I did not like it. I went and this time I only told him: ‘Do you want him to remain here or be transported to Ferruchabad?’ And Guru Maharaj said that he should be transported to Ferruchabad—that was all. And how is it known by the pulse? One counts the pulse; it is and is not.”
“Do you mean irregular?”
“No, somebody else who counts will say that it is quite regular.
There is a way to know if a person will die in ten days. I did it to my Mother and my Father and then forgot it. So their death took me by surprise.”
Later in the evening he said speaking to the drunkard: “Forgetfulness is one of the greatest qualifications. What we know, we have to forget.”
I waited till the verbal diarrhea of the drunkard subsided and asked him what he meant by this sentence which I repeated: “All our knowledge, all we have learned, we have to forget it, it is a barrier.”
“The memory is a barrier—how much can the brain hold? We don’t need the memory at all. It is all here when we need it; you experienced it in London; experience is better than any explanation.”
“Does it mean that, if our cup is full, nothing can be put into it?”
“This is another matter. On our line we have to be emptied completely in order to get something. If your cup is full of water, how can I pour anything into it? We have to be empty. We must be able to close our doors, all our openings, and remain alone with somebody. Even if we are not alone, even if we have no room for ourselves, we can still close our doors and remain alone. Only, there can be non-cooperation from within, but this is another matter.”
“But if there is cooperation?”
“Then,” he said, “then one is blessed. In this case half of the work is done already!” He abruptly interrupted himself. Many men came in and the room became full, and general Hindi conversation began.
At half past seven I got up.
“I must go,” I said saluting him.
“You must go?”
“It is half past seven; we have dinner at Sharma’s place at eight.”
“If you must go, then you must!” He laughed, and when I was already at the door he added: “Keep in mind where you are going and who has to go!” I looked at his slender figure seated in the usual teaching Asana under the lamp; the room was full of people. I muttered something to the extent that I understood, nodded, and lifting the chik quickly went out. I had suddenly an acute feeling of special meaning, and my heart was beating fast.
8th March
HAD A RESTLESS NIGHT. Keep in mind where you are going and who has to go…. If on the back of my mirror of the heart is written “Alif” and the face of my mirror faces my Sheikh, where am I?
When I came this morning, he soon came out.
“People were sitting till late, till ten. Good talk was going on. I put to them three questions. I often do that, then I leave them to discuss it between themselves. They all said something and nobody was satisfied with his own answer. The questions were: King Janaka has sent his son to a Rishi to be trained in Spiritual Life. The question is—a man sends his son to be trained by one greater than himself.
Janaka was said to be the greatest of his time. So why did he not train his son himself?
“Second question: this Rishi did not exist in his physical body, not in his mental body. He had many wives and even prostitutes. How is that?” I leaned forward; the questions seemed to me easy to answer.
“And what did you say?” I asked guardedly.
“I said nothing!” he laughed. Then he looked at me. Does he want me to answer? I thought. I leaned more forward balancing my chair on its forelegs:
“It seems to me if I am right,” I began hesitantly (I wasn’t sure that I did well to answer), “it is only natural that Janaka did not train his son himself, however great he might have been. How can a father, who is after all a human being, how can he subject his child to the sufferings and hardships the Teacher has to subject a disciple, if needed? Could you put your child through the trials you had to put me? Impossible! You would do it if the order was given. Anything is done and can be done if the order is given, but it will break your heart…. ” I looked at him, his face assumed a tender expression.
Narrowing his eyes to a slit he seemed to look into an empty space before him; around his lips played a mysterious smile.
“A doctor does not treat his family members. He will ask another doctor to treat them. With the Guru it is the same.”
“Quite correct,” he nodded, “it is so.”
“And to say that the Rishi had wives and prostitutes has no meaning in this case; if he didn’t live either in his physical or in his mental body, he probably was not even aware of them!”
“And the boy did not have faith; he did not want to go to the Rishi. ‘Why should I go to such a man?—he is not great,’ he was saying: he was disgusted. He saw him sitting, and one prostitute was massaging his feet and he had his head on her shoulder. So the third question is: was he justified to be disgusted?”
“Not at all. He was not even conscious of his body because the mind wasn’t there; he was probably talking, or rather being in perfect oneness with the Prostitute on the Atmic level, that was all. People judge by appearances, how can they know?!”
“Quite, quite correct,” he said, and I saw that he was pleased with my answer, so I continued: “When I showed Mrs. Sharma the photos H. had taken, I told her that I never saw you in Samadhi on any photo. Those were the first.”
“Yes, H. was the first to do it,” he said thoughtfully.
“But Mrs. Sharma wanted to know how do I know that it was Samadhi? It could be concentration. I told her, she needed only to look at your face—it shows so clearly; this is the face when you are in Samadhi… there can be no mistake. Only it seems to me that I see more than many other people—I should not say it, it might sound like pride…. ” He shook his head.
“No, no,” he said softly, “it is not, but one has to reach a certain understanding in order to see many things.”
“To put it in plain English: in order to see the beauty of Leila one has to have the eyes of Majnun! A certain understanding is needed to see correctly.”
“Quite, quite correct!” And then with a strange smile: “Nobody knew when my Rev. Guru Maharaj was in Samadhi, but I always knew it.” Then he asked about a postcard I had to answer for him, dictated a few final words to it, and went inside. Came out shortly with a mala. A different o
ne this time, a long one of blond Tulsi wood. And for one-and-a-half hours he prayed. I did la-il-llillah practice for a while following the rhythm of his slender fingers. And thought. Reflected. Felt no waves of power. All was still in me.
In the afternoon wrote my diary and finished the letter to G. Then, when resting on my bed, I noticed great heart activity… a vibration in the heart. Before it used to make me always very apprehensive—a change of state is always announced like this and that could mean trouble. Only this time there was no apprehension. Come what may.
I am controlling my mind. Now I am more the master of my mind than before. And was full of peace and serenity. But soon adverse ideas came creeping persistently in. The body became tense with the flow of fiery light. But it was not too bad. Could control it without difficulty. And sure enough, when I was sitting and writing these lines, he came out with his mala. And the flow of tremendous Power began as before… I could hardly breathe…. The physical pain of terrible longing: I never thought such a thing to be possible, that longing could cause such acute physical pain….
67 The Divine Thread
11th March, 1966
GO ON CONTROLLING MY MIND. But only just. Two major difficulties confront me—one is memory. Sitting in his garden, many situations occur which remind me of the past sufferings. Resentment creeps up.
The other difficulty is that I live in an atmosphere of suspicion.
Thoughts of doubt and suspicion surround me; I cannot help picking them up. They reflect in me. So I have to fight not only my own mind but protect myself from other people’s thoughts. And which are my own, and which are other people’s, is difficult to distinguish….
It is a two-fold process, as far as I can see, the controlling, I mean to keep the eyes fixed firmly on the goal—and secondly to relate everything to it. For example: my mind gives me trouble only in connection with him. So whatever he does or does not, I must think it is done for the good, to help me reach the Goal quicker. Or I must say that for the moment I don’t understand it. But one day I will. So, I accept it for the moment as it is, without understanding. In other words: it is a question of ATTENTION and of RELATIONSHIP.
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