Babuji's Gift to the World
by Daaji, April 19, 2019, Kanha, Hyderabad
Namaste everyone.
This day happens to be our Pujya Babuji’s punya thithi [sacred ceremony]. It is the day he decided to enter the higher worlds. I am not using The Brighter World name deliberately, because there is something higher than The Brighter World, and those are the realms he belongs to.
What makes his life so special, at least for us? What do we learn from his life? Can we reflect on his life? When we read some of his literature, his autobiography, it reflects total dedication, single-pointed dedication to his Master. He did not crave for liberation; he did not crave for anything else. He had a single focus. His life also exemplifies absolute surrender, resulting in merger and perfect identicality with his Guru. Often it is misunderstood that merger is everything. But his life shows there is something beyond merger – attaining perfect identicality and still going further. No words can describe the states coming after total identicality.
The methods he gave us – meditation and cleaning – are unique ones. Though the world talks about meditation, almost all methods fall short of creating a state of meditation. The meditative state is missed out. You may have the satisfaction of meditating for hours together, days together, months together, and you pride yourself on how long you can sit, how long you can fast, how long you can remain in seclusion. But here, with just a few minutes of meditation, in Sahaj Marg we are able to go into special meditative states which are indescribable. And this is his gift to the world.
How does meditation differ from cleaning? What state is created by cleaning which is different from meditation? We should reflect on this and try to see the difference between the state created by the cleaning process and the state created by meditation. How do you distinguish them mentally and have a hold over these states?
Cleaning creates a state of vacuity, it creates null-ness, it creates void within us. Meditation creates a different state. It makes us so meditative and so withdrawn, so absorbed within ourselves. We are so centred, focused within ourselves, and this centredness, this absorbency gets reflected in our day-to-day activities if we remain careful while maintaining this centredness.
Another name for this permanent centredness is constant remembrance. It is constant remembrance of the one who has gifted such a state of absorbency, and we remain grateful during these moments. It is this gratefulness that melts us away into something greater. It starts creating the resonance between ourselves and the great Master.
Coming back to cleaning, what is cleaning for? We generally say, “Oh, it removes the impressions.” It is correct, but what is the result of the removal of these impressions? It creates a void; it creates that state of nothingness. Nothingness can be understood well when you split the word into ‘no thingness’. There is no desire left in you. It is not that you become devoid of any worthwhile worldly approaches. No. It has nothing to do with all that. Nothingness culminates into the absence of ‘I’, where you don’t even exist for yourself, in that state of total saranagati [surrender].
Saranagati is not a defeatist attitude. It is not something that you have lost. No, actually you have won someone’s heart so much that both the Master as well as the disciple remain in remembrance of each other. Arriving at that saranagati towards each other, the Guru has also taken saranagati at the feet of the disciple. The same time disciple has taken saranagati at the feet of his Guru. It is a mutual thing. You may adopt this attitude of saranagati with the Master, but what if the Master runs away from you, because your saranagati has motivations? Motivations of attaining this or that; so many attractions to be fulfilled. Then this sort of saranagati, this sort of bhakti, will not help.
Emphasising the importance of cleaning, there is a beautiful story on Lord Krishna and Radha. Radha is very jealous of Lord Krishna keeping his flute always around his lips, playing music. She feels jealous. She tries to break the flute.
But then Lord Krishna says, “Why don’t you have a look in this? You can see it for yourself.”
Radha says, when she looks into it, “There is nothing in this flute that one can be jealous of. It is total emptiness.”
And it is because of this total emptiness that he is able to create beautiful music. Had there been something, even a hair, it would twist the music; it will not be beautiful music.
The same thing is with ourselves. In the heart, if there is some desire left, even for liberation, even for entering the Central Region, even for identicality or merger, then such a desire will deviate us.
So, how to move on in life? On one side Babuji Maharaj says, “Fix your goal.” Which goal is he talking about? He says the highest. What do you mean by the highest goal in your life? So you have to decide. He is playing a lot of tricks with us with this literature. But keeping the goal as the highest, keeping the Centre in mind, that “I will enter the Centre,” or “I will at a minimum have liberation,” then we are losing the battle actually. This sort of guidance will misguide us. Trying to achieve that state of liberation, where one can say “Oh, I attained liberation,” then that will not become liberation. Your ‘I’ is still attached with it.
True liberation, as grace, people say is when you are freed from your ‘self.’ Even ‘I’ is missing. It is not just crossing the Pind Pradesh, crossing the pancha bhutas. It is not just crossing these five chakras. But as these five chakras are more and more refined through cleaning and a proper lifestyle, the ego-lessness must prevail even while we are on the second chakra, even when we are on the first chakra. That defines what it really means by a good condition. A good condition means where you don’t impose yourself, where you become more receptive, where there is greater vacuity.
A vacuum attracts grace automatically, when I have nothing in mind in my heart to ask for. Then He comes down. He descends and takes us further. There is a beautiful aspect of Sahaj Marg when we reach, with His grace, the tenth chakra, the eleventh chakra etc., where the Prabhutva [the Godly condition] prevails, after having total saranagati. Having arrived at this state of total saranagati, one desires nothing any more. Yet there are many stages to be covered. How will you attain them? When you have no more desire left and there are many stages to be covered, in that absolute state of humility, where you have totally adopted the saranagati state, it becomes the Guru’s responsibility. He would say, “Oh, this fellow is totally merged now, he has no more desire to move forward.” So he carries us further.
Our job is to create this vacuity. After that, whether he carries us further or not is his business. So drop all the goals. The highest goal to me is when the Master is happy with us. That is the end of everything. I hope we take this to heart, and pay our respect, homage, to our great Master that we will try to cultivate a lifestyle. Even one percent of his lifestyle will be good enough.
Thank you.