The Need for Unification of Humanity

 by Chariji, July 10, 2003, Paris, France

I wish to continue with yesterday's thoughts about humanity coming together as one entity, as I said. You see, the human life must exist as a whole-loving each other, trusting each other, helping each other. That is how we are supposed to live.

You know, the Masters of Spirituality in all ages have tried to bring this behaviour, this ideal of human brotherhood, but unfortunately even in Spirituality we have these groups-we have Gurus, we have their disciples, and again we become compartmentalized, like we have Christians who are disciples of Sai Baba, of I don't know, so many others. So every time we try to bring about a unification of humanity, it seems the normal human tendency is to segregate themselves into groups, isolate themselves into groups, and we suffer the same consequences. It does not matter whether we are segregated because of religion or colour or race. Even Spirituality, if it segregates us into small clusters here and there all over the world, it is not the unification that, I think, the spiritual powers which are governing us, want.

As Babuji Maharaj has said, you all know, "Where religion ends, spirituality begins." But we often forget the next phrase, "Where spirituality ends, Reality begins." We don't appreciate commonly that spirituality too has to come to an end. Like, you know, a baby is born, it becomes a child, it becomes a youth, it becomes an adult, it becomes old, and then what? It begins the next life, la vie éternelle, the brighter world etc., you see. There is no end to life, and if we start with segregation, the segregation becomes like the branch of a tree you know-this going this way, that going that way, losing contact.

So it is very important to remember that spirituality too ends-not the ideal of spirituality, of love, brotherhood, mutual aid, compassion, mercy-they never end, because those are the qualities of human life, but the segregation, whether it is racial, political system, religious and spiritual. So we have to work towards this ideal of creating a spiritual brotherhood where we are not divided by gurus. And that can happen only when all these practices, you know, which are taught by different systems, different gurus, at one point coalesce, and then like the seed which is planted in the ground, which has to die in a sense, the shell surrounding it has to go, become rotten, and then out comes the sprout.

So we have to work with this ideal in mind too, that my guru is my guru, but He is not the real guru in the sense that He is a Sahaj Marg guru, He is a spiritual guru. And we can realize this only when, from the external Master to the interiorization, in that process we succeed-not to lose the attachment or give up the attachment, but to transcend the material attachment to the material form of the Master, and create an internal association, a permanent association, that now He and I are one.

You have read in Babuji's books when His spiritual journey was complete, what Lalaji Maharaj told Him. He said, "Today you and I are one, and none can say that there is any difference between you and me". Then there is no more Sahaj Marg, there is no more Lalaji and Babuji. They are there separately; they are there also as one. It is a mystery how two can be separate and yet one. We try this, you know, in our mutual human relationships; however close we become, we are still two. There is a couplet in one of the famous poems in India, Kabir I think, where he says, "Even though You are inside my heart," he speaks to the Beloved, Divine, he says, "Even though You are inside my heart, yet the distance between You and me is so big, I cannot bear it, I cannot tolerate it."

So this idea of separateness has to go, that I am here, the Master is there, or the Master is in the Brighter World. You see, everything is a mental construct. We construct these mental differences. Babuji used to say, there were certain abhyasis who came to Shahjahanpur, who were not attentive, who were always thinking of something else, their home, their family. He used to tell me, "Look here. They are at home, only their body is here." And He said, "It's no use." Bodies are of no use. What use is the body? Because it is born, it's going to die, it will be buried or burnt or thrown into the sea, whatever, you see. So there is no use if the body of the abhyasi is here but the soul is somewhere else. Per contra, there were abhyasis, He said, "Even when they are in Madras or Punjab or, I don't know, Timbuktu, they are always with me. Their bodies are somewhere but they are always with me." Such people feel the presence of the Master; they are always with the Master, wherever they may be.

You see, whenever an abhyasi in deep meditation experiences the presence of the Master, we must understand that the Master is always present. His presence is eternal; His presence is always with us, because He is not a separate presence for each one of us. The air I breathe is the same air as you breathe. You cannot say "My air" and "Your air." If there is not air here, none of us have air. So if the Master is not everywhere, none of us have the Master. Then what happens when we experience the presence of the Master? At that moment we have forgotten ourselves, and we are really there where He is, always. So, that is why this is such a profound experience in deep meditation, that suddenly you smell the hookah sometimes, you feel Him.

And then, you see, what happens when the meditation ends? "That's all," you say, and we plunge back into ourselves. That is the mistake we make. Instantly we recover ourselves, you know, in a sense, and we become this mundane human creature. The contact is lost, not because He has broken it, but because I have broken it, we have broken it. So, Babuji said, "Constant remembrance in a sense, is to keep that presence alive, even when I open my eyes, even when the sitting is over, I still feel His presence because I have not cut it." And the big spiritual truth is that once the Master establishes a connection with a disciple, He cannot cut it. His connections are not made to be cut. We cut it. We cut it by becoming human again after the sitting. We cut it by diverting our attention from spiritual to material too much. We cut it sometimes because we lose faith and we say, "Enough. No more Sahaj Marg."

So you see, to keep this eternal connection which, from His side, is always eternal He has no option, He has no choice because, not existing in time, how can He limit His connection to a time context or a time frame? He cannot do it! But we are the creatures who are temporal, who are time bound, habit bound, culture bound, bound by so many things, and we say, "Now it is enough. I have experienced the Master today." Out come the famous journals; we make our note in the journal, and then may be six years later, ten years later, we again have a profound experience. Then tears come to our eyes, "I once experienced long ago." So our spiritual experiences become like dreams, to remind us of what had been established, of what remains established, but what in our foolish, limited, human consciousness we have cut.

So brothers and sisters, you see, this presence is also such a presence, that the more of us experience at the same time, the more permanent it can be. You know, it is like sharing. When you are sitting alone in a restaurant, all by yourself, however good the food, you feel lonely. If there are three friends sharing it with you, there is jollity, there is happiness, there is mutuality. If you are always together, there is always joy. So the more of us who can participate in this adventure of keeping this presence of the Divine Master alive with us, the more solid it becomes, the more concrete it becomes, the more permanent it becomes.

So that is the reason why we have to become one block of human beings. You know, if two of you are in the darkness here, and two of you are in the sunshine outside, you cannot share the same experience. All of you, if you want to be in the sun, all of you must be outside-outside these protective walls, outside these doors and windows, free. Freedom means no protection-what I said yesterday you see. I cannot have ten bodyguards around me and claim I am free. It's a jail. It's another prison-a prison in which I think I am safe. To be totally free is to be totally exposed, totally in the presence of the Divine; therefore, totally divinely protected. But you cannot at that time demand human protection, under human circumstances of protection, under human methods of protection.

So I hope you will all realize the need for building a human brotherhood, where even spirituality must not segregate us into groups. Like we say, "Today the Spanish group has come; yesterday we had the group from Switzerland." Even in Sahaj Marg we have groups, we have separatist tendencies. That is why the need comes for us to make at least Sahaj Marg one group. You know, when you have drops of water, you will sometimes find one drop is big enough to flow, and it mixes with the next drop and becomes a bigger drop. You can see this on the walls of your shower. The moment it touches a drop, it becomes one-cohesiveness. But human beings are not like that. We are always coming together, separating. This is also reflected in your dance patterns-changing partners, coming together, changing partners, coming together. Culture always reflects what is inside you-your native desires, your wishes, your patterns.

So it is an urgent necessity, I believe, because I have been getting some indications, you see, that the spiritual Masters of all ages, who form a sort of a guiding principle in another dimension, are not happy with what is happening in this world. And we have to respond by taking upon ourselves a sense of responsibility, driven by love for human beings, to create a society which is the pattern on which the Divine wants us to build. And I pray that this can be realized as a concrete reality, a spiritual reality, a reality of love, soon. Thank you.