It All Depends on You

by Chariji, July 22, 2013, Chennai, India.

Dear brothers and sisters,

I did not know anything about Guru Purnima – I mean most of us don't know anything about it. I once happened to be in Shahjahanpur with Babuji Maharaj, and somebody said, "Oh, it is good you are here today. Today is Guru Purnima." So, later I asked Babuji Maharaj, "They say today is Guru Purnima. What is it all about?" He said, "Parthasarathi, it is a very auspicious day on which, if you are with your guru, special things can happen and your progress can be speeded up to any extent." I said, "Babuji, does it apply to all?" He said, "Yes, it can, but it depends on each abhyasi. What they bring here with them we try to clean out, but many don't want to change. I can change the inner condition, the spiritual condition, but the external, the behaviour part, the character," he said, "that is the abhyasi's duty: to convert and change. Otherwise the inside and outside will not match, and," he said, "progress will not continue, may even stop."

So I want to emphasise that. Let us take a small instance – you go to a swimming pool, public pool. In most places you are required to take a shower before you enter the swimming pool so that you do not carry your dirt with you into the pool and make the water dirty. Isn't it? So, in Sahaj Marg also, when you come for satsangh you are expected to give a few minutes, devote a few minutes to cleaning by yourself, so that your receptivity is improved. But I don't know how many do it. You are supposed to do it every time you sit for meditation, whether here or at home.

So, it all depends on you what you take. As Babuji said, "This house has no doors. Come and take whatever you have the power to take." So Sahaj Marg has infinite blessings to give us, but how much are we able to take with us? I remember once I told jokingly – I was talking to Babuji, it was midnight in his bedroom, and Babuji was saying how sorry he was that people don't appreciate Sahaj Marg, they don't know what they are missing. They come and go, they come and go, like a bucket without a bottom going into the well, coming back empty every time. I said, "Babuji, I know from my own little experience of Sahaj Marg that finally I think you will be the only person to go to the brighter world" – from the four or five thousand at that time who were abhyasis. He said, "Yes, it looks like it. Maybe two or three more." You see, what he said? – himself plus maybe two or three more!

Now if I am asked to say, I mean, I would not say because… I mean the thing is so bleak. The value-spectrum has not changed; people don't want to change. They still hold on to their prejudices. They still hold on to so many things they should have given up long ago. When you enter into a pond and come out, even if you don't scrub yourself and all that, you must have some cleanliness. It is very sad to say this, especially today on Guru Purnima Day, but more and more it depends only on you; don't blame Sahaj Marg, don't blame the Master, don't blame the system. Here is an ocean of bliss, infinite bliss, and if you still look in the mirror and see what you are and you don't see any change in yourself, you look into your heart. How many of you are free of prejudices? How many of you still go by your caste, by your community, by your provincial (whatever it is) attributes? And opinions you formed about people fifty years ago, you still carry. You don't even say, "Even if I have not changed, he may have changed," or "she may have changed." So how are such people going to progress?

For me, I have stopped thinking about this because it is quite a situation which causes despair. It is like a mother who has twenty children. What would you think of her if she says, "I hope at least one of them will come up." Isn't it? A mere mother, a mere woman in a mere earthly situation, saying, "At least one of them, I hope, will come up." What must Gandhari have felt when she saw her hundred children being killed progressively until Duryodhana was left. And he too went away and only she and her husband went into vaanaprastha [jungle]. What must she have felt?

Just try to imagine what your guru must be feeling when he sees the same problems, same prejudices, same quarrels, same lies. It is very saddening. And Lalaji Maharaj, Babuji Maharaj – they have given so much to our development, our progress. I hope in the brighter world their hearts cannot feel despair, otherwise even there they will think, "What is happening? What is happening in this country, to our abhyasis? Same people, same prejudices, same problems. Transmission going on and on, day after day, day after day; are they even conscious of what they are receiving?" Are they conscious of the efforts, the sacrifices that are made for them, and are continuing to make day after day? If a mother is making sacrifices for her children, can you evaluate the sacrifices that are made by your spiritual guides and teachers? Can you evaluate?

This morning lying in bed, I was calculating – since I was born on the twenty-fourth of July in 1927, I could not have seen a Guru Purnima [that year]. So today is my eighty-sixth Guru Purnima. Even if you progress one step, another step, another year… but here you don't even have to walk; you are carried! Those of you who may have read the books, the example of the kangaroo that Babuji gives, where the kangaroo carries its baby in its pouch. Here we are literally in every sense, carried. And yet we rebel and fall, rebel and fall, rebel and fall, and then justify by saying, "After all it is a very difficult way." [Inaudible] It is difficult only if you have to walk. You are not made to walk. If you say, "I am too weak," he carries you. But our prejudices say, "No, no, no, I don't want any help, because I prefer to do it myself." And then nothing is happening. So gurus may come and go; India remains what it has remained – more and more corrupt year after year. You can just see today's Indian scene, what it is – it stinks.

So what do we do about it? Do we at least see Sahaj Marg, a small society which is at least a little encouraging, heartening, and say, "Well, there is this small nucleus of human beings who are earnestly trying to get out of this mess, this stinking pool of humanity, and to evolve out of it"? Again, as Babuji said, one or two or three.

So I want you all to digest this message. Don't exempt yourself – any one of you. Don't exempt yourself from the need to examine yourself sincerely, and to evaluate yourself, and at least now to start throwing off all those dirty things that you know you have. It is not as if you don't; you know. And let us hope by Master's grace that we will see a better group emerging out of this, and more and more qualifying. And in years to come we can say, not one and two or three, but, by His Grace, most of them, if not all of them.

I pray for you all. Thank you.