Serve our Master by Serving Humanity
by Daaji, 27th December 2014, BMA, Chennai
To me this is not any kind of a meeting, this is more of sharing the heart’s feelings. You can also share with us. I wish there were more people here as well, those who can make the difference in our organisation, those whose thinking is of a different order. Master has infused them with so much love, and he has instilled so much wisdom over the years. He had been positively feeding us all the time.
If you see the life of Master, from his early childhood till he attained mahasamadhi, it was all struggle. I will not go into detail. And the biggest challenge came when he took over after Babuji’s mahasamadhi. He had to struggle even to establish himself as Babuji’s successor, his spiritual successor. Ninety percent of abhyasis were against him. He turned the entire thing around, and less than one percent remained against him. Ultimately it proves only that they were against themselves, this one percent. Because they had nothing better to do in life, so they took up a challenge, and they thrived like this in their life.
But if you observe his lifestyle, from ‘83 onwards, he tried to convince people. And how did he do that? He visited a lot of people, centre-wise. He went to their houses, and he sat with them. Some houses would not even offer him lunch or dinner – they would just sit and sit and sit until he left the place. In many locations it happened like that. He was not welcome, yet he would go again, and slowly with his personal interactions he started changing people.
But it took a toll on him. Nothing comes freely. So much energy was wasted in convincing people. Many a time he would watch movies with them, listen to music with them, take them out to the theatre, take them out to a restaurant, play with their children to please the parents. And his pleasing of individuals never ended. He was always afraid that, “If I don’t pay attention to so-and-so, what will happen? He might leave me!” This was his permanent fear.
So, even though he was spoon-feeding us with good qualities, good wisdom, good spiritual strength, courage, fearlessness, love – all this he instilled in us – and organisational skills, but he could never discipline us. He was always afraid, “If I speak to V, ‘Oh, he did this!’ he will cut off, and that he might leave the Mission.” “If I talk to someone, even slightly, they would get offended and leave the Mission.” But there were a lucky few to whom Master could give a slap also. He could give a slap, he could curse them, he could write them an email and reprimand them – I think those are the luckiest of the lot, where Master took liberty in saying, “Look, you’ve got to correct in this way.” But with many abhyasis he could not even mention this, because he was so afraid that they would leave him.
Any time you asked Master, “That gatekeeper, that stupid fellow stopped me at the gate,” he would give you a card: “Use this card whenever you want to come again.” Why did he make you exclusive? You are not exclusive, no one was exclusive, but he felt for us. Some of the people said, “Oh, so-and-so is coming to the cottage, Master, but they stopped me. They have prejudice Master was… “Okay, take another card.” Abhyasis would say, “You are allowing only the rich people.”
So now what happens? He would cry out from his heart, share it with nobody except one or two people and say, “How to change the system? It’s too late in my life to change the whole thing around.”
I tried my best also. In the last two to three years I have been outspoken about the whole thing. No one listens. Even till today no one listens. And the fate or the future of so-called abhyasis, devotees, lovers of Masters… I am not going to play around and say, “Please take this card or take that card.” I will always say, “Find your own way, where you can be pampered.” It will not be tolerated, because, if I become nice, and freer with so-and-so, “You can come at any time to my office,” then what happens? He takes liberty. Others watch him come in, thinking “Oh, we are not in that category,” and we start establishing a class system in our Mission, which is a very unfortunate thing.
If you have a spiritual problem… This is not only for you I am talking. I would say if Master was here he would say these are the core hearts. There are many core hearts outside as well, but they are not here. So I am sharing with you. You have the ability of sharing with others; people will listen to you. Carry on, spread this message. If you have a spiritual problem, talk to your prefect. If you are not happy, talk to your ZiC. If you are still not happy, talk to the Secretary of the Mission. All the efforts should be made. Go through the literature, go through the Masters’ talks – all the answers are there. You don’t have to escalate to World Headquarters for answers. Spiritual problems, again, if they can’t be sorted out by reading, by asking preceptors, pray at bedtime and see if the answer won’t come by the morning time. They will come, because this system is very well established, it is a foolproof system.
Any question about any subject – be it spiritual, be it material, be it a family problem, be it an emotional problem –one must be able to listen to the heart and have the courage and guts to follow it. No one can give you that, no Master can give you that, no God can give you that. You have to have courage in yourself, in the Master, and move on with that.
The second thing is about organisational things. Abhyasis should be told to let the organisers do their job. If you have any recommendation, if you have a suggestion, make a suggestion. Write it to them, don’t talk about it. Write, make it official and see what can be done. We all are here to take the Mission to the next level, every time improving, so that we can serve humanity, and serve our Master in the process through this means that has been given to us.
Communication also: we all must become aware of the principles of communication, which have been laid down by Lalaji Maharaj, on how we must be conducting ourselves, communicating, and taking this communication to further heights, from communication to communion, see. We have a long way to go, a very long way to go.
This gate at the cottage has done so much damage to this Mission. Single-handedly this gate has done the biggest damage one can think of. One officer left the Mission because another officer got a chance to enter the cottage. And now that officer who left the Mission is creating so many problems, you cannot imagine. And what would you do by meeting Master anyhow? What do you do with him? You go to the cottage, you cross the gate, you go to the living room, and you sit around for hours. Master is sleeping, or Master is doing this, or Master is doing that. Then you enter the bedroom. What next? Spiritually speaking, what are you gaining out of this except pampering your heart and saying, “Oh, I met Master today.” You tell your wife or you tell your husband, “I met Master today,” making that person also jealous.
This competitiveness to meet Master at a physical level must be dissolved once and for all. Those days are gone when Kabir used to say, “Even if my neighbour is my satsangi, he has to close his door and come.” But he didn’t have the ability of transmission. We have that in our Mission. Babuji Maharaj has been saying through these messages, “You need to meet your Master once in your lifetime.” The rest of your visits are bonuses.
Meeting Master without doing the homework is not going to be productive. And what is our homework? Passionate practice – practising with vengeance, as Master puts in his diary sometimes. Babuji Maharaj told him, “Aap toh bade laat sahib ban gaye ab, toh safaai bhi nahi karte ho.” Babuji told Master, “You have become too big even to clean your system.” This was many, many years back. After that Master felt so bad, and he wrote in his diary, “After that I started practising with vengeance.” There is no way out, so you must practise at any cost.
Being with Master and not practising is going to be counterproductive. Babuji used to say, “Make me happy and see what I can do for you.” And Master kept on repeating the same thing: “If you make Babuji happy, you can do a lot of things.” I like to think always the opposite of such statements – what if you make them unhappy? To the extent that he is not even able to tell us that, “I don’t like this.” But I submit to one and all today, such habits must stop. Such liberties must not be taken up with Master.
They were very subtle. They said, “Do not take away the limited resources your Master has.” People thought, “I should not drink milk from Master’s refrigerator, because these are resources of his house;” “I should not eat too much here, because these are resources of Master.” But there are other resources we must not waste, especially his time. That is the biggest resource. His time with us has always been limited, and our time also.
But we have eternal time of being together if we interiorise his presence and let his presence be absorbed in every particle of our being. Every particle of our being must be in an absorbed condition; it must become one with him. And that is not going to happen if I am going to constantly worry about my jumping near him, sidelining people. You are going to damage yourself only. You will have the temporary satisfaction of being with the Master.
Organisationally also, I shared the other day, very gently, the example Master gave me that these black marketeers, they hoard certain grains and chemicals to jack up the price. For example, they will phone their compatriots, the cartel of mafia all over, and say, “Okay, you keep two thousand tons of wheat in your godown.” “I am requesting somebody in Kolkata who will store a few thousand tons of wheat there.” You make a phone call to somebody, and all over India these people will start hoarding certain grains. Within a week the price doubles, and then they put it on the market for sale.
Criminals have so much unity, because they know that if they are not united there will be competitiveness. Competition kills everything. One of the recent messages from Master, where they say that this action that is happening, this message to you all, is a united effort of all the Masters. It is not one person’s efforts. We are united. Also he says, “Our united blessings are always there with you.”
The Mission –what is its mission? If the black marketeers and the mafia have a mission to accomplish, what is our mission? At an individual level it is something, and as responsible disciples, lovers, bhaktas of Master it is another one.
Some of the abhyasis, disciples especially, they think this is it. There is nothing much more to be achieved. This is the highest thing Sahaj Marg can offer. No! Sahaj Marg opens up the potential for the highest. It opens up the possibility for the highest. You are not there yet; it is a beginning. The word itself shows it starts. But people think it is the end.
That is another problem. Having considered those special sittings from Master, “Oh, I got a sitting from Master. It is the ultimate thing I have achieved.” No, it is only the beginning – watch that word – it is only the beginning. Much more awaits us.
There is an indirect hint also in one of the messages from Lalaji Maharaj. He says, he’s the first human being – Babuji Maharaj, Ram Chandra – who could stir up the Ultimate. And the Ultimate started waving towards Babuji Maharaj and wanted to engulf him, to be one with him, shook his hand, and they became one. Lalaji said, “This is my method. I did it, I invented this method.” Here lies the greatness of the Grand Master, Great Grand Master rather, Lalaji Maharaj, who invented the method during his lifetime, but chose to wait for his disciple to come to a certain maturity level, and then allow that Godly wave to engulf him and take him into Himself. This is the ultimate diksha [initiation]– ultimate.
The first diksha is from our mother, then father, and so many other people who play this part. The ultimate diksha is from the Ultimate, and we are prepared by our Master, who keeps giving us sittings after sittings after sittings, and then he gives us very special sittings now and then. And we say, “I did it!” It is not the highest. Please don’t fool yourself with that, because the moment we consider, “I made it in Sahaj Marg,” that will be our doomsday. And that is one of the reasons why we start thinking ourselves as superior to others who have not had so much fortune of receiving such association with Master.
The greater the benefits we have received from Master, it makes us more responsible abhyasis, more responsible sons and daughters of our Master. Please think very seriously how we can improve our organisation. I cannot do it alone, I need your help. Please don’t feel bad when another brother reacts, because we need to do something great together. Evolve the ideas, evolve different mechanisms to serve abhyasis better in such a way that nobody should have an angry feeling after coming to the ashram. They feel that so many people go in and they have special access to Master. People are watching, abhyasis are watching from the fence and saying, “How did he get in? He must be a very important person, Master must be loving him so much. Why is he not loving us so much?” Did you think about such problems, how other abhyasis feel? They go with empty hearts at times.
So if you have those red cards and green cards from Master, I would say burn them now. If anyone brings such cards to me ever again, I don’t know what I will do with that person. I am so mad. Privileges. We have crossed the limits of spiritual civility by showing ourselves to be so important.
The other day in the Working Committee meeting also, very regretfully I had to share that functionaries – how many hours do you need with Master? Master was so smart. You speak one word and he knows your pulse. Many a time you don’t have to say a word and he knows everything that you are up to. And we sit and sit and sit, and share the problem and share the problem. Poor man! He could not say “Please go,” because “He might leave the Mission. How can I hurt him! His condition will be spoiled.” But he, by coming there, wasting time, has spoiled the condition of another fifty people who are waiting outside. This has been the biggest problem.
So please don’t feel bad. We have to work together on this. And if you say, “I must be with you at any cost,” what can I say? I am also helpless. I will become helpless and I will leave the matters in the hands of Nature. Helpless: we should never allow our guide to become helpless.
Many people say, “Oh, I just want to spend some time with you, I like your company so much.” Please don’t do that to me. I have stayed away from my parents for years. I am a loner. I have stayed away from my family. I have been a loner. I chose to stay away from Master for many, many years. Even when I was in the cottage, I wanted my own space. I travelled with him, I was with him, but I was never with him, kind of a thing. I would go to the next room or stay somewhere, because I could not impose my presence on him. I could not. He needed space, and I could recognise that in my heart. Though he would say, “Oh, this fellow is not coming,” that is just at a level I can understand. Whenever Master wants, nobody is far away. You are happy to run from wherever you are. It is not difficult.
At the same time, Master had genuine companions, very genuine companions, who would not demand anything from him, who would promote his health and who would promote his well-being. There were very few though.
See where else we can improve our organisation. Giving sittings is a very small part of it. We transmit for half an hour and the work gets done. Everything is with closed eyes, so it is good. It is the moment we open our eyes that the problem starts.
I tell you, many a time, I would say more than fifty times I have heard him say, “Empty the cottage by seven, twelve and seven.” Why would he say that? It was his breakfast time, lunchtime and dinner time. But people wouldn’t leave. They would hide in rooms. If Master called Paul another abhyasi would feel shattered, “Oh, he called Paul. What about me? I am in charge of Africa.”
He called someone because that person was visible and hanging around when someone was pulling Master’s chair for lunch or dinner. Master looked around and his eye met with another abhyasi, “All right. Call that fool inside,” spoken in a hurry [he] spoke. And even at seven-thirty, when he was going to the chair, and there were fifty people waiting, he would say, “These vultures, they will never leave me alone.” Haven’t you heard this? And yet we hung around. Can you imagine Master speaking like that?
Now, look at the other side. Suppose I have the opportunity of being in the ashram. I am a preceptor. Instead of spending that much time waiting for three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours in the cottage, if I walk around the ashram and pick up some garbage, will it not beautify the place? Pick up some abhyasi who is in distress: “I will give you a sitting brother. Would you like to have a sitting?” There is a child walking around, “Oh, come, let’s have ice-cream together.” We can do so much good. We all have so much goodness in us, but it is wrongly invested. The same thing, the same energy rather, hardly one percent of efforts that we make there, if we make even one percent in ashram activities, the ashram will change, and people will appreciate all this. There will not be any competitiveness, there will be harmony created. The atmosphere of the ashram will change once and for all. This class system will be finished once and for all.
Master used to say, “Oh, where is the inner circle? People created this term. People would say, “We are the commoners, and that’s the inner circle.” When you wonder “Master, what is this inner circle?” it was the perception of others that there was an inner circle, but nobody from the inner circle felt that they were the inner circle, because nobody was made to understand or grasp the stability of being near him. Did any one of us feel stable around him? We were always on our toes. No one felt stable, because no one felt so sure of their presence with him. A person who felt sure always felt stable around him, and this surety is not inculcated, it comes from the heart. When we have felt and absorbed him altogether, completely, every fibre speaks of Master, then this stability comes. We lose that opportunity, also, of absorbing his inner spiritual presence, because we are hungry for his outside presence.
So much good can happen. “Master, please extend my stay here. Sign.” When I stay here for one week, completely absorbed, it is enough. Use this newly-acquired consciousness in the world and come back for more. This ashram is so charged by Master and the Hierarchy. Make use of this charge. Don’t let our actions and attitude become a kind of an envelope, not allowing that charge to penetrate into our being. And when we have created emptiness in our hearts through our practice, Master himself will run after us. We don’t have to run after him.
His forms are many, his presence is in many dimensions. Spiritual adventure is all about the journey, the spiritual journey. It is not a journey from place to place; it is from dimensions to dimensions. And all these great beings who could have gone beyond the Brighter World – they do go off now and then from the Brighter World to the higher worlds when they need a breather, but they choose to stay in the Brighter World for our sake.
I don’t know how many of you have read a message by an entity called The Foreigner. I think he is mentioned in the third or fourth volume of Whispers. He is introduced as a person arriving into the Brighter World. And he tells the medium, “I can remove your sickness in an instant. I can make you dance the way you used to when you were fifteen or sixteen. But I cannot do it unless your Babuji permits me to do it. Nevertheless, I take the liberty of granting you that state for one day.” Who is this Foreigner? He descended from yet another higher dimension. So there are many, many, many dimensions awaiting us. That travel is awaiting us; don’t waste time here, breaking your head and heart: “Oh, who is entering? Who is going? Who is doing what?” No! Let us be united in this. United we can achieve, united we can travel up and down in those dimensions. There is a great possibility, and especially when we have such a Hierarchy helping us, let’s take that advantage of that travel in higher, other dimensions.
Many people dream of the Brighter World, but it is just a waiting period for our Masters. They would like to take us and show us the other worlds. As he [Babuji Maharaj] told Master, “We will go to other worlds as well, once you return to us.” We have read that all. So, many worlds are waiting, but if we are going to play with small, small things here, with jealousy, discord and competition, then the gravity and the weight of all this will keep us here, even though we may have received thousands of sittings from Master, however special they may be.
The connection will never be shattered – it is a promise, an eternal promise – it is an eternal connection. He can be there, he can be here; the connection is still there. What do you do with the connection? It is a double-edged sword. If something great has been done upon us, take advantage of it. Become lighter, so that you can fly higher and higher.
I think whatever I wanted to share with you all, I have shared enough. You can dwell upon it, and you can expand it. Give me your ideas also. What can be done with ashrams, with our processes, how we serve abhyasis with our organisation? So many things – whatever comes to your mind share with me, share with others, discuss amongst yourselves how we can help each other, especially taking the Mission to further heights in serving the world. We need to cover the entire globe, if possible. Every family on this planet must know that we exist. They may not start meditation, that is okay. They must become aware of our presence –that we are there. Whenever they need us we are there to help them. And the Hierarchy is with us. Be fearless in this.
Thank you.