Love Alone Prevails

by Chariji, December 29, 2008, CREST, Kharaghpur, India

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am happy to see all of you, so many of you assembled here on this auspicious occasion when the Sahaj Marg Spirituality Foundation will be commencing construction of the second CREST campus. As you know, one is already functioning in Bangalore for the last two, three years. It has been doing very good work. It also has a five-acre campus, the only difference being that here it is going to cost us twice the amount that it cost us there.

So today is a very auspicious occasion on which Babuji Maharaj permits this campus to come into being. And I have pleasure in saying that all the five trustees of the Foundation will be here. Four are already here, the fifth is on the way. Brother Ajay Bhatter, brother Sanjay Lalbhai from Ahmedabad, brother Umashankar from Allahabad, P.R. Krishna from Madras, and myself. It is not usual for a full Board to be present on such occasions, and I am happy that all of you could take the time and the trouble to come to this place, Kharaghpur, which is normally considered remote. But all of you have seen that in less than two-and-a-half hours we have come from Kolkata, thanks to the improved highways, motorcars, and of course our own increased dedication to the affairs of the Mission.

What gives us time is not time. Time does not give us time. When we say, "I have no time," it only means I don't have the will or the inclination to give part of the time to an activity which I consider perhaps not so important, not so enjoyable, not so useful; and so we slip by, or let time slip by saying, "We have no time." It is essentially an effort at dedicating ourselves to the purposes of this Mission of which we are members. It is essentially the recognition of the importance of the spiritual life over everything else in life that we seem to think matters. And, of course, it is an appropriate answer to the call of the Master: Come and be here on this auspicious occasion to partake of the blessings that Nature will shower upon all of you.

More blessed are the abhyasis who have come here. They have no particular responsibility except to themselves, but I should like to stress that the understanding that you have a responsibility to yourself which is above all other responsibilities, that is most important. Once you are able to appreciate that your responsibility to the Self, which is your heart or what is inside your heart, then all mundane duties, responsibilities, which we acquire during our passage from birth to death, they fall by the wayside. My responsibility to my religion , I have none. Religion has a responsibility to me: to guide me properly, to set my feet firmly on the path to divinization, and if it has failed, it is better to be left behind and not carried as a useless burden which we have all been doing. Many of us are still doing partially, and some perhaps even more than partially. But that you are here shows the hold that these responsibilities had on you hitherto is relaxing.

We don't relax; as Babuji said, our samskaras fall off, our duties fall off. I have not abandoned any duty consciously. What has fallen off, has fallen off in the divine recognition of my soul which says, this is not your responsibility: religious responsibilities, social responsibilities. Family responsibilities? Yes, but they are limited. According to the ancient tradition of India, you have to get married because without samsaara jeevan [married life] there is no possibility of spiritual growth, at least not to the levels or heights which Sahaj Marg says is available. So married life (grihasatha jeevan) is essential. The first child is a duty to society. In our Vedic literature, in our Sanskritic language, in our praachin sanskriti [ancient culture], the first child is known as dharmajaa (born of dharma), of a couple's recognition of their duty to society, that my wife and I are here, we must give one child to the propagation of the species. After that, the rest of the children that are born are called kaamajaa (lust-born, desire-born).

So you see, there are various interpretations. The first child is a must. It is a duty. Therefore, after marriage we have the sanctification of the union of the two, the newly-married couple, so that a divine soul or at least a higher soul will be born to them, so that the population of this world is not just merely increased in terms of heads of population, but a soul which can divinize not only itself but others, bring them on the path, lead them on the path, take them to the goal. Such a soul can be born, and you are the blessed parents who will bring that soul into existence here in a corporeal form. So dharmajaa, kaamajaa.

So the limitation there, is the parents have to wait as a family, dedicating themselves to the welfare of the children till such time as the children are grown, the sons are well established, married, the daughters are married. And then they are supposed to go with each other alone, you know, into what used to be called vaanaprastha go off by themselves, dedicate themselves to the spiritual life. They have done enough for the family. They have brought it into existence, they have nurtured it, succoured it, provided for it, and brought it up to a stage where they are self-sufficient, they can stand on their own two legs, and continue their dharma towards the family that they are going to bring up.

So you see, our understanding of these affairs: spiritual affairs, spiritual matters, spiritual teaching, dharma as it is called, the proper understanding of the purushaarthaas (dharma, artha, kaama and moksha) [goal of life - dharma, wealth, pleasure and liberation], what they mean. "Nahin, nahin sahib. My dharma is Hinduism." Hinduism is not my dharma. Hinduism is a way of approach to God. It is very ancient. It is spoken of in our Vedic literature, and it is a means to an end. As Babuji said, even of the gods, the devas, the Surya, the Chandra, the Indra, the Brihaspati, Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva, you know, they are custodians, they are - what do you call? - operatives of Nature. They are there to guide us, to help us, to assist us. They are not to be worshipped. They are to be thanked. But we have made gods out of them. Babuji has beautifully said, "They are mere functionaries of nature." Please note the 'mere'. But we have started worshipping them. Now we have worshipped them so fantastically, so fabulously, so superstitiously, so hypocritically, that we don't recognize God; but we have too many gods, forgetting the fact which Babuji emphasized again and again, that religions have no God, God has no religion.

I wish all of you would write this above your mirrors, so that women while they are powdering their face, men while they are shaving, will read it again and again and again: God has no religion, religion has no God. No religion! They are all exploiting the name of God, mercilessly, skinning us of all that we have, of our faith in God itself, because if you put your faith in mundane objects, man-created objects, whether you call them vihaara [Buddhist monastery] or murti [idol] or whatever, there is no true faith.

So where is my faith today? What are we faithful about? What are we faithful towards? Babuji said loyalty and faith are two very dangerous things, because we are loyal to the wrong things. We are loyal to our religion, we are loyal to our religious custodians, we are loyal to politicians, we are loyal to our culture, our cult. We vote according to these things. And today you see where India is a land fragmented by several hundreds of millions of people, divided in their loyalties, no one goal, no one motive. Therefore India has no goal. India is a goalless, rudderless ship today, manned by a population vast enough to sink it; adding to that burden their so-called loyalties, their bhaktis [devotion], their shraddhas [faith]. It is we who are destroying our country, not our politicians. Our politicians would not exist if Kayasths stopped voting for Kayasths, Hindus stopped voting for Hindus, Muslims stopped voting for Muslims, Christians for Christians. But we voted solely for those who are upholders of the principles of right government, what they upheld in the so-called French constitution: by the people, for the people, that is supposed to be democracy. Here voting is by the people, for all sorts of riff-raff, and with what result? As the Hindi language beautifully says, more and more barbaadi [destruction], more and more fragmentation.

So you see, spiritual life is a true integrator of human values, including your political consciousness which we sadly lack, because had we been politically conscious we would not vote stupidly, partially, fragmentedly, cutting up our beautiful land into tukdas [pieces], four into forty into four hundred. I don't know where it is going to end. So spirituality is the guiding, primeval, primal force which affects even our political life. Because with purity in my heart, if I am able to achieve it through what spiritual practice offers, all my consciousness is purified, clarified, made, in a sense, divine so that when we look, when we hear ... you know? We come to that old Vedic precept, that noble thoughts come to me from everywhere in the universe (aa no bhadraah kratavo yantu vishvatah). They will not just come by repeating a prayer. When my consciousness is purified, clarified, divinized, only such thoughts will be able to penetrate my senses - noble thoughts. Aa no bhadraah. When I look into the newspaper, I will see what is good. When I am going to the election, I will vote for what is good; not for my community, or for this, or for that. This will penetrate, permeate the world society. Not only India, not only Chhattisgarh, not only Tamilnadu, not only Maharashtra will become better, India will become better because, instead of these fragmented states, fragmented languages, multiplicity of religions, cultures, we will have one desh [nation].

Eventually, we will have one world, because, thanks to my Master Babuji Maharaj, Sahaj Marg is present in almost a hundred countries of the world. Of course there are sceptics who will say, one sparrow does not make a summer. One Russian does not mean Russia is spiritual. But, you know, when it is extremely dark, Babuji Maharaj said, one candle is enough to dispel the darkness. We don't need a million candles. One candle! So if there is that one person in each country who has the guts, who has the willingness, and who has the heart to redeem his people, his nation, [he can] free it of all these bondages of culture, because culture too is a dangerous bondage, unfortunately it is glorified. We are having, you know, even an institute for the preservation of some funny language somewhere, some art form somewhere. And much money is spent on these, just to placate a stupid population by saying, "See, I am looking after even these people," which ipso facto means I am looking after you all, the higher population. They are not doing anything of that sort. They are cheating, and we don't have the sense to know that we are being fooled, cheated criminally. And we are being made to follow this foolishness by requesting more and more subdivisions of this cultural stupidity: "What about this art form? What about that art form?"

I am sure there are people here who will be very hurt by what I am saying. Doesn't matter, because truth has always been a bitter pill, and if you can't bear the truth, spirituality will be very difficult for you to imbibe, to accept, to practice. And if you don't do that, you are not going to progress. And if you don't do that (progress) the burden will be on India, on the world.

So one sparrow does make a summer. One person will make a difference. "No, no, sir, I am all alone in Tahiti." Why not? After all, when Babuji was on earth in the beginning, I know in Shahjahanpur there were three abhyasis. And when people asked him, "Why only three when you are here?" he said, "Below the lamp there is always darkness." When I joined the Mission in 1964 in Madras, what is now Chennai, I was the third or fourth abhyasi. I mean, all of you can see it. In Kolkata, we had only two families - twenty-two people: the Bhatter family and the Mimani family - nobody else. Kashiram Agarwal used to take Babuji Maharaj every year to Assam, where we had probably eleven abhyasis. A family starts with one child. Isn't it? You don't have hundred children all together. "No, no, ek baccha se kaa hoga, sahib? [What can be done with one child, sir?]" And today you see we are five hundred people here, in Kharagpur.

So the Mission has grown, it is growing, it will grow further. The direct result of that is the foundation stone that is going to be laid for a new campus of CREST. This CREST unlike the Bangalore CREST - I mean they are basically the same. Both will teach about, say, comparative religions as a sort of a foundation, which must sink into the ground like all good foundations. It must not be on the superfice. Religion has no business to be visible. If the foundation of a house is visible, it means that the soil is being eroded and the house will fall. But for purposes of understanding, especially of those who will be prefects, comparative religion, which means the teaching of the basic principles of all the religions of this world, will be offered through lectures by lecturers who form the faculty. The practice of Sahaj Marg will be highlighted; its principles will be highlighted. There will be training classes in both these places. One difference which we are proposing to introduce is, whereas in Bangalore the teaching will be on the philosophy and the practical aspects of Sahaj Marg, here in CREST-Kharaghpur, there will be more emphasis on ethics, principles of life, right living and moral values.

I consider that especially in India, it may surprise you to hear me say this, especially in India, morality has not been understood at all. If we had known what is morality, there would not be corrupt practices in business, in traders there would be no adulteration of ghee [clarified butter], of daal [pulses], of mirchi [chilli]. There would be no ground stones in rice. All of that is prevalent in our country. You must understand that adultery originally meant mixing; it had nothing to do with sex. When two things which should not be together are mixed, it is adultery. And in India the morality that we practice is confined solely and strictly to sex. That is the only morality which we understand, though it doesn't exist in practical life.

I was reading a magazine coming here to Kolkata on the flight, and there one politician has said, "Ninety-five percent of all politicians have secret affairs. I at least married my friend." It is in print. So our moralities are all word of mouth, you know. "I wear the religious thing. I put on the tikka [mark] or whatever on my forehead. I go to temples once a year or once a week. I have the wonderful example of being an example to my society: he is a God-fearing man." Sahaj Marg does not want God-fearing men. Sahaj Marg wants God-loving people.

Babuji said we are all children of God, and in religion you go to Him on your knees or grovelling in the dirt, which God will not like. No father likes to see his children grovelling before him. God wants that a son or a daughter must come upright, head held high, proud to be the son or daughter of such a father. Not to be proud by himself, that 'I am this,' 'I am this'. The 'I' has no business in spirituality. What are you? Well, worldly circumstances have made me what I am. I am poor, I am rich, I am a king, I am a beggar, I am a crook, even a prostitute. Even a prostitute is a daughter of a family. As Swami Vivekananda said in his famous lecture on the women of India, he said, "Let us not look down upon these fallen sisters of ours, for if they were not there, you and you and you would be them."

So remember, you see, that we have to look, not with mercy or charity but with love: she too is my sister; a crook too is my brother. If all the world were full of saints there would be no Sahaj Marg. God would have nothing to do in this world. Precisely because all this whole spectrum of possibilities in behaviour, in culture, in tradition, in manners, because those spectrums are there, we need something to unify them, merge them together and bring into what we call existence, light. Because, after all, light broken up is a spectrum: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. Without that light there can be no spectrum. If you say, "I don't want violet. I don't like it," there would be no white light. So, in a very real sense, all this is required to make up the kingdom of God and His established humanity on earth, and periodically they are blended, merged and liberated.

So let us not think of charity and compassion and mercy. Let us leave it to religions which practice these things. Sahaj Marg says: love and be loved. Love God - it's enough. Then you will not see these differences. The way of approach to God is only and only love. There is no second way. There are no pilgrimages - there are no teerth yatras. There are no temples or mosques or whatever. If you don't love God, all the rest is cheap hypocrisy.

So you see how we are able to pare down to the bare essentials the values of life, to give us that single guidance: 'not this, not this, not this' (the neti-neti-neti of the Veda), but this alone. Satyameva jayate [Truth alone prevails], that is religion. In spirituality, love alone prevails.

I pray that on this auspicious occasion we will all strive to understand ourselves better, forget our values, forget our tradition, forget our religion, the colour of our skin, even the differences of sex. Don't blame yourself for the past, because it can never be corrected. Babuji Maharaj said, forget the past because it cannot be changed. Use your present to create for yourself the future - that is divinization of humanity.

I pray that He will bless you all on this auspicious occasion. Thank you very much.