[Part Eight]

 

 

Your problem of wanting something from others might be attributed to sane habit forming attitude all along during past, which should be corrected carefully. It is rather wrong to accept anything from others when you do not repay it. However, to accept gifts from your parents is alright, yet you must repay adequately lest these result in karmic debt.   

 

I have noted about your problem for which you are advised to draw a thick curtain over the past and just forget everything which has since passed as no amount of repentance or resentment can do it. You must start a new pattern of life, the commandments which would enable you to progress physically, mentally, and spiritually with the grace of the Master.   

 

There is nothing to fear you should forget all about your past and start anew. Just learn to live in the living present and making best use of time at your disposal. The precious moments of earth life spent in meditations and honest work, count much for inner spiritual progress.   

 

You are furthermore advised to please refer to the various circulars and messages since released from time to time which will enrich your spiritual understanding and many things will become clear to you with the grace of the Master.   

 

Too much talking dissipates spiritual energy. You should try to control your speech by resorting to Simran of the Names silently. You will be able to tide over the difficulty and improve in due course. Think twice before you speak. Think out as to what you speak is true, kind and necessary.   

 

Forgive and forget is the best motto.   

 

I have noted your thoughts about others. You may please note that all are not perfect as yet. Nobody should stand between you and the Master. You are advised to refer to my Birthday Message since released and sent to Mr. Khanna for arranging its distribution amongst all your dear ones over there. A sense of close fraternity and brotherhood amongst the children of the Father brings in more of inner joy and jubilation, much sublime and serene in essence. When two lovers of the Master get together in His Name, both foster inner loving devotion and humility.   

 

You should not grieve at the loss of divine presence of the Master Power, but try to consolidate your scattered attention by attuning within with the Holy Naam. An intense longing of the soul and burning desire to meet the Lord within invokes His mercy. When the heart wells up and involuntary tears flow, much of the inner dirt and dross of the mind is washed away.   

 

Pride should be replaced with a keen sense of self abnegation. You should try to increase the time for meditations gradually so as to have the target of two hours every day in the larger interests of your spiritual progress.   

 

It is high time you should bid farewell to your scepticism and devote yourself to holy meditations with great zeal, deep faith and renewed earnestness in accordance with the instructions given in my letter of January 31.   

 

Your present trials and tribulations are a passing phase and you will soon overcome them with the grace of the Master. You will gradually have greater control over your feelings and emotions, such as vanity, greed and lust, and develop instead virtues of humility, contentment, chastity and love. You will give up your habit of judging others and start adjusting yourself to their weakness,        shortcomings, either by overlooking or affording constructive help to them. By this adjustment, you will bring much sunshine and happiness for yourself as well as for all those around you. If you think with a calm and cool mind, you will realize that most of us have not became perfect as yet. Nobody should therefore stand between you and the Master. A sense of close fraternity among the children of the Father will lead to inner joy and bliss so sublime and serene in essence. When two lovers of the Master get together in His Name, they foster inner loving devotion and humility.   

 

Disobedience to the holy commandments by the child disciple affects inner progress adversely. An implicit faith and obedience invokes divine grace.   

 

If there is no other alternative (on innoculating child) and medical law enjoins these may be had if absolutely necessary as a safeguard for health. I think there may be some alternative in Homeopathy.   

 

Faith evolves in gratuitous hearts full of divine bliss and harmony. Any moment you feel depressed you should resort to the counting of manifold blessings granted to you by the gracious Master Power. It is a great blessing to be accepted and initiated into the Mysteries of the Beyond when you pass your earth life joyously under the protective guidance of the Master and insure perpetual       bliss in the Beyond.   

 

The letters should be short and to the point on which further clarification is required.   

 

The looking into the eyes of others should be avoided lest you are affected by their radiation. Eyes are the windows of the soul. It helps you a lot to remain aloof from the harmful effects of others lives when you can attune within with holy Naam undisturbed.   

 

Forget the past and never care to probe into it lest you be caught in unnecessary hallucinations thereby breeding morbidity and gloom. Always look ahead for the very best you can achieve by sincere and honest effort...   

 

There is no objection to your using one of the Master's quotations on the back of your personal calling cards.                                   

 

It is difficult to go through life without going through the motions of give and take. It is this very give and take which has to be worked out by the pilgrim soul that brings us back to this world. There is no harm in accepting small gifts from those with whom you come into contact in your business or family connections provided that you have been or are in a position to do them some service in a direct form. For example, your boss may give you a token of his esteem at Christmas. Likewise, small gifts may be exchanged during this season of goodwill among a family. However, it is not wise to accept gifts from acquaintances, business or otherwise, who are outside your areas of immediate contact with whom you have no give or take.   

 

Man has got himself so enmeshed in mind and the outgoing faculties that his release from them can only be brought about by struggle and perseverance. - His plight is, in a way, similar to that of a bird that has been kept in a cage for so many years. Even if you should open the door of the cage, the bird will be loathe to fly out. Instead, it will fly from one side of the cage to the other, clinging with its talons to the wire mesh, but it does not wish to be free and fly out through the open door of the cage.

 

Similarly, the soul has become so attached to the body and the outgoing faculties that it clings to outside things and does not wish to let go of them. It does not wish to fly through the door that has been opened by the Master at the time of holy initiation, at the  threshold of which the radiant form of the Master is patiently waiting to receive the child disciple. True discipleship does not start until one has risen above body consciousness.

 

It is from this point that the disciple will feel not only comfort, but will begin to experience the joy and bliss that awaits him in the Beyond. He will have as his companion the charming radiant form of the Master, who is ever at hand to impart the guidance that is so necessary in order to avoid the pitfalls on the way. Until this point is reached, the disciple is, as it were, on probation, but such probation that cannot be severed. It is during this probationary period that the soul will feel some discomfort. It has become so besmeared with the dirt of the senses that it has lost its original purity of heart and is not fit to be raised up out of the prison house of the body.

 

Even though the door has been opened, it is so attached to the things of the outside world that it does not wish to be free. It is only when the soul begins to regain its original purity of heart and mind that it can at last want to be free of the desires of the flesh and outward attachments. The loving Master tries to avoid all possible discomfort to the child disciple by explaining what are the vices to be avoided and the virtues to be developed in order to regain this purity.

 

Unfortunately, more often than not the words of the Master do not sink in and little or no action is taken by the disciple to amend his ways. Therefore, the Master Power must take firmer measures to bring home to the disciple the importance of the truths that have been explained in words. Hence the discomfort that is sometimes felt by the dear ones in their day-to-day living. If implicit obedience would be given to the commandments of the Master, all difficulties and discomforts would vanish. If a child gets itself so dirty that only way the mother can wash it clean is by using a scrubbing brush, can it be said that the child will feel comfortable during the scrubbing process? It will only feel comfortable after the scrubbing has  ceased and it is shining clean and pure.                              

   

Help and protection is always extended by the Master to His followers. He looks after their comforts in every way, both outer and inner. Even the effects of the reactions of the past -- from the gallows to an ordinary pin prick -- so much concession is given. As the mother sacrifices everything for the sake of her child, even so does the Master sacrifice everything for the sake of His children. The follower in fact does not dream of what the Master does for him. He fills his followers with His own thought, with His own life impulses. When we remember Him, He remembers us with all His heart and soul. He is not the body. He is the Word personified, the Word made flesh. To get the full benefit of the Master Power, the disciple must develop receptivity. It is impossible to develop receptivity until implicit obedience is given to the commandments of the Master. When you pay heed to the Master's commandments, then that is a sign that you are growing in love for Him and the more you grow in love for Him, the more receptivity you will develop.

 

When you begin to develop this receptivity, all discomfort will vanish and you will truly begin to tread the Path in the firm assurance that you are on the right way, together with the loving companionship of One who will demonstrate more and more his greatness and His power on each step of the way until you find that it is the very God Himself who is your Guide and mentor, who will never      leave you until he has safely escorted you back to the true home of the Father.  

 

While on the way, one of the main functions of the Master is to wind up the back karmas of the disciple. It is through conscious contact with the sound current only that the karmas of back lives can be burnt away. This process is started at the time of holy initiation, at which time the disciple is given a contact with the light and sound principle, or God-into-expression Power. To avoid opening a new account of bad deeds, the disciple is enjoined to lead a clean life and weed out all imperfections in him by self-introspection from day to day. This is the sublime principle behind keeping the diary, which the disciple is asked to maintain in order to become aware of the shortcomings which stand in his way to God.   

 

Ego is the self-assertive Principle in man that makes him feel that "I do this, or I do that." When one rises above body consciousness and knows himself and he becomes a conscious coworker Of the Divine Plan, he sees that he is not "the doer" but is a mere puppet in the hands of God, he will cease to be responsible for his actions and will become Jivan Mukta, or a free soul. The ego in man is part of the grand delusion that he is laboring under. It will cease to act or will be nullified only when a great degree of purity has been attained by the disciple, in which all of his actions will reflect the Master in him. Like Christ, he will proclaim "I and my Father are one."   

 

All beauty and glory lie within you. Once you have learned to rise above body consciousness and transcend into the Beyond, you will regain the knowledge of former lives. The Overself or God, which is the Controlling Power in the body, is within you. The Master is also within you. You have but to invert your attention within to find that both are one and the same. The main helping factor to realize this Truth is to give implicit obedience to the commandments of the Master. It is the work of the Master to give His children that which is in their best interests.   

 

Everything will be given to you in due course of time if you follow His behests and live up to what He says - Every day you are given tasks which are intended to help your spiritual growth. Unfortunately, most people look for a very special assignment to be given to them by the Master personally before they accept it as a task from the Master. They do not see hat their day-to-day dealings and behaviour with other people in their work, the responsibilities they have to assume in their other mundane duties and how well they fulfill them, are all tasks given by the Master. If you watch closely your reaction to situations that confront you in life you cannot but be aware of how much you have grown spiritually. This is the most important part of spirituality as far as the disciple is concerned. He must first complete his course in "MAN MAKING" with full honous before he can be given higher tasks to carry out.   

 

All those who are initiated into the Mysteries of the Beyond by a Living Master were destined to become His disciples. It is not a question of one choosing the Path or the Path choosing the disciple, but rather one of the isciple's background.   

 

You are correct in your assumption that the Path of the Masters is the path of pure bhakti. The pearl of divine knowledge can be preserved securely in the casket of bhakti -- or loving devotion. Bhakti in its pure and pristine form is Love Divine.

 

But one must practice the elements of all Yogas (though not in their extreme degrees) in order to obtain the fruits of this Path. For example, the practice of Hatha Yoga is inherent in the fact that we must lead a clean, chaste life, living in accordance with the laws of nature by eating satvic foods, to ensure that the body gets a reasonable amount of exercise and abstain from all harmful habits of activities that will affect our physical health. Similarly, the arts of Gnani Yoga, and Raja Yoga are inherent in the diary form that you are asked to maintain every month. The observances of non-violence (control of anger), truthfulness, and  chastity are all qualities that must be built into the mental habits of the mind and become second nature, before the mind will be purified from its present dross and dirt. The correct practice of these ennobling virtues will give you the full fruit of Gnani Yoga, which is self-knowledge.

 

The form of Bhakti that you are asked to develop has nothing to do with the emotions. You are asked to develop love for and faith in the Master and to obey his commandments. If you can do this (and it is by no means easy to obey the commandments of the Master), you will have that Bhakti which will give your soul its freedom far quicker than the most accurate practice of Raja or Gnani Yoga can give you.