Unity of Hearts

by Chariji,  February 20, 2006, Kanpur, India.

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

I am happy to be once again here in Kanpur and to meet my gurubhais like Pandeyji and all the abhyasis. You know, as we grow older it becomes more and more difficult to meet often and so these are rare chances for renewing our love for each other, faith in each other, and to promote the welfare of the family that is the abhyasis of Sahaj Marg.

My Master told me when he handed over his nomination to me way back, in I think it was here in Lucknow only, in the Vivekananda Hospital the day he came out of his coma—he said it is a family that we are dealing with, not members, because we have no members because we don’t charge any money. Remember this distinction carefully. Where money is involved you are a member, you are not a family. All these so-called Rotary Clubs and other similar bodies, including I think political parties which have required a membership fee from the days of Mahatma Gandhi, they are not families, they are associations of like-minded people. In their mind they held a similar philosophy or similar ambitions, political or otherwise. In organizations like the Rotary Club, the membership is all corporate—or other similar professional bodies, doctors, lawyers, you know.

Ours is probably one of the few organizations in this world—if there are any others I don’t know—where we are joined together by having the same goal. That is why we are here from so many different countries, so many nationalities, so many languages, and most important, so many different religions. Hindus of course, Christians, Jews, Muslims, name them, they are our abhyasis, not because we are linked together by any other reason than the commonality of our goal, which is to transcend all these things. We have to transcend our language or linguistic loyalties. We have to transcend our political loyalties. We have to transcend our nationalities. We have to transcend even sex barriers because here male and female has no difference. We are all abhyasis. I have heard there are sannyasis and sannyasins. One of my friends said, sannyasis who sin are ‘sannyasins’! They can be both male and female. We don’t have any abhyasins, they are only abhyasis, brothers and sisters certainly, but no abhyasins and abhyasis. One sees and the other sins!

So you see, we are here because we follow one goal, and like a train has one engine driver there is one guide. And because we all sit together there is one organization. Therefore Babuji Maharaj said Master, Mission and Method, the three ‘M’s of spirituality. This is what binds us together into a group which I cannot say is a loyal group or a faithful group or give it any other description except to say that we are a group who are here together because we are following the same marg [path] to go to the same destination. That is why we have no quarrels among ourselves.

There is no objection to Hindi on the placards or to English. We are here from all sorts of backgrounds. We have here people who have come from the Congress background. There are many who used to be Communists, ardent Communists politically. But then when they gave up Communism they found that there was no difference, you see. In fact they found they were better people, because when you give up an ideology you find that you have given up something which was limiting you in your mental, in your spiritual approach. Therefore in Sahaj Marg, in the constitution of the Mission, the Mission is forbidden to have anything to do with politics. Not abhyasis. The Mission cannot have any political affiliation. I have no political affiliations. I have brothers from the Congress, from the Communist parties, from the BJP, name them they are there. That is their business. Our business is to free the minds of people from anything that limits them in their brotherhood, in their approach to other human beings, which creates automatically tension, political or otherwise.

It is like, you know, I used to have at home in Jabalpur way back in 1937, two dogs and two cats. And they were all very friendly. In fact my cat used to sleep within the paws of the dog. Something not very usual. I think destiny intended these things to be in my life. Now if I have abhyasis who practice politics, it’s their business, but I have seen at my table during lunch or breakfast we have abhyasis with un-similar political motivations, political philosophies, political loyalties, and they are not snarling at each other like they do in parliament. Parliament is a place where politicians fight. My abhyasis, my sadhana, my satsangh is where politicians of different hues, colours, motivations, affiliations, sit together honestly, happily, eat at the same table, sit on the same munch [dais], meditate for the same goal.

So Sahaj Marg brings around what politics has not been able to do, what governments have not been able to do. Unity of hearts, whatever your mind may say. One mind says, you are a Muslim, he is a Hindu. Sahaj Marg says, nevertheless we are brothers and sisters. That is why, as of date, we have Sahaj Marg in something like ninety-two countries in this world. We have even centres in Pakistan, preceptors, original Muslims. Not Indians. Not Hindus. We have centres in Israel, Jewish country. We have abhyasis of every colour in the spectrum.

So remember, what brings you together here is that we have one goal, therefore we come to one organization, where, as I said before, we have one guide. M – M – M. When we come together like this, then that miraculous transformation occurs that whatever we may be, white or black or yellow, Hindu or Muslim or Jew or Christian, male or female, even husband and wife who are generally not so, you know, amicable towards each other, everybody is at peace here, they are calm, they are loving, and therefore we see our brotherhood is growing. And it is growing not only in numbers, [but] in quality.

I am happy to say that even here in Uttar Pradesh, which is the home of loving indiscipline, there is growing discipline, without the diminishing of love. It’s very important. Because in the South, I am not happy to say this, but in the South we have discipline without love. I prefer indiscipline with love, to discipline without love. This is a statement I make with some trepidation in my heart for it will have repercussions when I go back home. Because, you know, even before I go to my room this will be out on the web, thanks to some of my very diligent and ardent functionaries who will put it on electronic media. And in half an hour I have telephone calls: “Did you say this?”

So you see, love is the base. Like the foundation of a structure, huge structures, the foundation is there, the superstructure can vary. That is why we have so many varieties of buildings: we have short buildings, one-storey bungalows, multi-storey terraces, houses, towers, skyscrapers in the U.S. But the foundation is unseen, invisible, buried underground. Nobody looks at the foundation. But without it the superstructure cannot exist. I dare say that what holds together our satsangh is the love that develops. Nobody can say that on the day he came to Sahaj Marg or she came into Sahaj Marg there was love for God or love for the Master or whatever—nobody can say it. So what develops with sadhana, with continuous meditation and cleaning, is that pure love for somebody who we do not know, who we do not see, who we cannot touch—the Divine Master—and that is the miracle of Sahaj Marg. And when that love happens, when it becomes established, as Lord Krishna says in the Gita, they are dear to Him. When Arjuna asks, “Lord, why do you show me your Divine vision which, as you yourself said, you have not shown to Gods or to Devas or to anybody so far? Why me?” He says, “Because, Arjuna, I love you.”

So love is the thing which makes revelation possible. Mind, for education; intellect, for exhibition of intelligence. “I am,” the mind says. Money is the proof. But love is the miracle which opens all doors to outer world knowledge, beyond our senses, beyond our intellect, and so gives us that grand vision, transcendental vision, which can only be a revelation, which we can never see by ourselves. So it is love that has to develop. As I was saying somewhere yesterday, I think it was in Allahabad, this love must produce discipline in its wake—love for.

Why do we obey our mother? Because she loves. And she doesn’t have to prove it. When the mother sometimes has to chastise her son or daughter, the chastised baby or child goes back to the mother, for consolation, for love, whereas when the father does it, the child runs to the mother, not to the father. You all know this because you have experienced it. Fathers are like people who sow the seed. They come, sow in our rice or wheat fields, sow the seed and go. The man who nourishes that crop, waters it, removes the weeds, the gardener, the farmer, he is the real owner of the crop, and to him the grain is always grateful.

In the mother-children relationship the love grows, the love comes into being automatically with the birth of the child. That is Nature’s gift. Between God and the created being, we have that love already in our hearts. But what my Master used to say—we have to enlarge it, allow it to broaden its seed, its scope of activities, so that it goes beyond the mother, beyond the father, beyond the family, beyond our village, beyond our country and into the whole universe, it spreads itself. Three dimensionally, exponentially it grows, and when our love floods the universe, then that miracle comes that there is what we call laya avastha. There is no laya avastha other than, you know, His Love, my love, merging together to produce one love. The baby and the mother are together as long as the baby is still unborn. But the mother is always the mother, the baby is always the baby even after she is delivered of her child.

Similarly, the Master is always the Master, the disciple is always the disciple. Babuji said it is very rare that the ocean can go into a cup. That may be a miracle which occurs once in, I don’t know, several yugas, but it is possible for the cup to go into the ocean. And that is our goal, our aim. These are the miracles, simple miracles, unnoticed miracles, unpublished, unheralded miracles that happen moment by moment throughout our life in the Sahaj Marg sadhana.

People who are impatient—I have many ardent associates, sincere followers of Sahaj Marg but who are terribly impatient. They say, “How long will it take?” I say, “It will take as long as it has to take.” “Yes but, he said and you said…” I say, “This is not a train which takes everybody to the destination at the same time. This is one train, we are all passengers, but each one is in a, shall we say, virtual train which has its own time of arrival at the destination, depending on how you conduct yourself as a passenger. One train, hundreds of thousands of abhyasis, all having the same destination, but each one arriving at the destination at a different time, only shows that this is a train which is a miraculous train. And when it will reach depends on you.”

So the more you are able to put your heart into it, with faith, with love, with trust—you know a baby in the arms of its mother is happy to be with the mother wherever she may be. Later on, as children, three years, four years, the child still wants to be with the mother but at home. “I don’t want to go there. Let us go home, mummy.” At eight or nine the child has different goals, different motives, it is no longer physically with the mother but mentally with the mother. The love holds them together.

Here, we are everywhere at all times, but that love is the thing which holds us together as if we are in one big enormous bubble of love, and in which we are all safely held together, protected, nurtured, cherished and blessed.

It is a very common experience of strangers who come into our ashrams that when they leave they say, “Oh, I crossed your gate and it was a different world.” It’s a very common experience, if the atmosphere in the ashram is what it should be. Everybody has felt it. Abhyasis feel it when they leave and go out. What is it that is inside that ashram that is not outside? A scientist may say, “No, no, no, it’s ridiculous. The same polluted air of Kanpur inside and out, the same dust inside and out, the same mosquitoes, the same crows, the same trees, the same quantum of oxygen from your leaves. How can it be different?” We say, “Perceive—don’t ask how. Ask why.” You know. Science explains how. Spirituality explains why. Why is it different? Because in some way what we do here is different from what we do outside in the world. And if you are true to your spiritual belief, your spiritual faith, to your Master, you will behave in the same way outside too. And that is how this atmosphere can enlarge itself outside our barriers, outside the boundaries of our ashrams, and progressively improve the world bit by bit—again invisibly, unnoticeably, but it is there. And of course it is very important that your houses become like your ashram.

When Babuji Maharaj said I want every house to be an ashram, he did not mean convert your house into an ashram. He meant, make it an ashram by meditation, by living the life of a real abhyasi, and behaving there as you would in an ashram. That is how every house can become an ashram. An ashram is one where we find peace, where shreyas [spiritual love] abounds, where we have aashray [place to rest]. And if a house has that, it is as much an ashram.

The rishis of former days had ashrams of just straw and you know, bamboo huts, but the atmosphere there was that of an ashram so it was an ashram. Where God is worshipped it is a temple, not just because it’s a temple built by some rich man. Our houses have to be ashrams, not temples, because we don’t worship, we practice. In temples, God is outside. In ashrams, God is within the heart. There we pray. Here we love. So you see the difference between ritualistic puja and our puja. Babuji Maharaj used to call it puja in Hindi. It only meant meditation.

So I really hope that all of you will think over these things carefully, with the intention of really understanding what our Sahaj Marg means to us. Introspecting to find what it has already done to you, because it has done a lot, even for a person who has just received his first sitting. I know people who took three sittings thirty years ago and they have come back. They took three sittings and left. But that seed is there, you know, fortunately, and it cannot go without sprouting. It is Nature. If seeds buried with Tutankhamen in the Egyptian tombs can germinate after four thousand years, it only shows the tenacity of life. Under the proper circumstances it will come up again. So in the hearts of those who took a sitting or two and left, fortunately for them the seed is still there and they have to come back.

I remember I was once a little anxious about people who take sittings and leave. Babuji Maharaj said, “Parthasarathi, don’t worry. They will come back. Even after four lives, they have to come back. The seed is there.” So you see when you sow a seed of wheat you get wheat, when you sow rice you get rice, when you sow the seed of divinity in the first and second sittings it has to come, and it will come back only as divinity.

I know preceptors who are a little scared of giving sittings saying, “Oh, but they don’t come back.” That is not the duty of the preceptor. If every man who was to sow seeds insisted that every seed should germinate, there would be no farmers, there would be no crops, there would be no humanity. Our duty is to sow; He decides what will appear, when. So let us do our work upon ourselves, upon others, patiently, with faith, and most importantly with love, and we shall see the fruit coming multi-fold.

Thank you.