“But how can I love him just like that?” I was puzzled. She narrowed her eyes to a slit and for a while said nothing, just looking at me in the mirror.
“Are you sure,” she said, “are you sure that you will love him?”
I stared at her, “But,” I began….
“Are you QUITE sure that it is him that you will love?”
The electric kettle began to boil; she turned quickly away and began to make tea. What did she mean? Could it mean that the love is not really to the Teacher, or only apparently so? So, that would mean… I understood. And all went very still in me. Very, very still….
“What was it? Because something WAS,” I said to him as soon as he entered. But he turned and stood at the open doorway, looking at the pink, soft, sunset sky. Tall and erect, he seemed quite young seen from the back.
“What it was? Just as you have felt!” he said, entering the room, and sat down in his big chair.
I came about five p.m. L. was to come a bit later. His wife was in the room with the grandchild. When they had left, an idea occurred to me that he might be doing something yogically, of which my mind can know nothing. I proved to be right. It came like a flood of “something,” hitting me—it was almost physical. Nothing definite, just a feeling. The rhythm of breathing changed briskly, the heart seemed to go mad-racing, then missing beats, then going slow, stopping, then racing again. It was definitely uncomfortable; my head began to swim and I felt giddy. Tried to compose myself looking at the pink sky, all aglow with the setting sun. The door into the garden was open; a small breeze was rustling in the leaves. All the time I was wondering, what exactly was done to me? He went out of the room after a while. When he came back, I asked him what it was but did not get a proper answer; he just mumbled something into his beard and sat heavily into his big chair. I told him what I had felt. He only smiled. Told him that lately, in the last ten days, L. and I checked our pulse-rate; it was always around sixty, and a few nights ago mine was much slower, so slow that I began to wonder.
“Last week you told me that you wanted a miracle. You said that it will give you faith, will stop your doubts. What was my answer?
That you would not have believed them anyhow; besides, miracles are not ‘produced’ on command, to satisfy a curiosity. But how many miracles did happen to you since you are here? If you sleep or not, it makes no difference; the body is not tired, and in spite of the very low rhythm of the heart, you feel no tiredness either, but are fit and full of energy. My normal pulse rate is around 110; a doctor, if he would examine me, will think that I have a high fever, but I have not.”
I said that probably later on my heart will also beat very quickly and I will not sleep at all, or very little, as he does; I was told that after a while the disciple’s vibrations are adjusted to those of the Teacher, even on the physical plane. He nodded.
”If I understood you correctly the other day, the teaching is given according to the stage of evolution of the Shishya and according to his temperament. Truth is only partially revealed, more and more as the progress goes on. So, if I believe in Karma and Reincarnation, you will talk to me accordingly; to L., who does not believe in either, you do not mention them at all.”
“It is of no importance if one believes in these things, and if one believes or not in the Great Hierarchy; Karma IS, Evolution IS; humanity is taken along in progress. If they believe in certain things or not, it makes no difference. I never mention those things to Miss L., what’s the use? It is not at all important what one believes in our System of Freedom.”
In a sudden glow of affection, I told him how glad I was that I came to him, that it was the most wonderful thing that could happen to me, and whom have I to thank for it?
“Thank your Higher Self!” he said, but somebody came at this moment, and we were interrupted. Must ask him on a next occasion what exactly did he mean?
When L. came this evening, we went for a walk, the three of us, the Guru, L. and I.
“Recently you have said that we are not even asked to pray, but can we pray?” He said one can if one wants to. Told him that I will write down the prayer I did for years and show it to him, but he said that the prayer is not with words—NEVER. When asked again, he said that prayer is perfect Unity with God, and only this is real prayer.
When going home, I told him I felt hopelessly discouraged—even do not know how to pray, so it seems…. The state of Dhyana is what spiritual progress is all about. I feel like a child left outside the fence when a circus performance is going on inside. Dhyana seems to be a ring-pass-not, which one has to cross on the way to God.
As we were passing Pushpa’s house, I stopped at the gate to go inside where the Kirtan was already in progress; they continued to walk on. I stopped to look at them walking along in deep conversation. Somehow it seemed symbolical; they were going away, leaving me alone, to join a crowd of singing people, a ceremony which had no meaning for me… felt very low and deeply discouraged.
9 The Mystical Sound
23rd November, 1961
WE HAD A LOVELY TIME this morning and much laughter. To get some additional explanations, L. brought her notes on Kundalini, and Guru’s witty remarks and her comments were very amusing. But I had better leave it out. I must write here only what happens to me directly, and make exceptions only if it affects me personally or has to do with my experiences.
He sent us away before twelve. I lay down on my bed for a short rest, as I usually do when coming from his place. Listening within, I noticed a vibration. It was like a motor going inside me, vibrating in the whole of the body; but this description is not quite correct: it is perhaps like a SOUNDLESS supersonic Sound; the feeling was like after a great row, a strong tension, an excitement without excitement.
Parallel to that went a tremendous longing for IT, for that which is Nameless. And in this longing was peace… only infinite peace…. I know, it sounds rather complicated, but it is the best I can do when trying to describe it.
When L. came back from the post office, she told me that it is the famous Mystical Sound, “DZIG,” the preliminary step to Dhyana. I was fascinated… was watching it going, inside me… such a new experience.
In the evening a man was sitting opposite the Guru telling him his troubles, of which he had many. When he had left, the Guru began to sing. I was sitting there, the “sound” going on inside me with a tremendous longing—but for what? I was not quite sure….
Waited for an opportunity to ask. He sang in Urdu and translated it: “I will come to you in the shape of a Nightingale, Many branches are on a tree, on each branch I will be The nightingale is here, there, everywhere…
When you will hear it, you will know that I am here, The nightingale who at all times is everywhere… “
The room was dark, full of peace, filled with his voice. It seemed to me that he was singing it for me. I have to love him, I thought. The Shishya has to love the Guru. One can only progress through love . and love for the Guru is Love for God. He began another song: “I am here and I am there and I show myself in different shapes.
And you may wonder what or who am I and you will not understand…
But in time the answer is given…
I am here and I am there and it is all the same, Everywhere all the time, am I alone…”
This one I did not understand and was still pondering over it when he began another song:
“There must be a complete surrender even physically, Surrender of everything without reserve and without regret, If you want to see the Real Shape of the Guru.
Either the Guru has to come down to you,
Or you must go to him, but a complete surrender is needed, If you want to see the real shape of the Guru!”
“Did you get the idea?” he asked. Perhaps, I ventured, it was the answer to my request the other day, to let me see him as he really is.
“Yes, either you are a guest on my plane, or I am on yours, but at first, a complete surrender is essential, complete surren
der, beginning from the physical body and on all the levels.”
Told him that I understood, and even told that to L. a few days ago, that my physical body is going to be subjected to much strain and I am quite prepared for it, ready for everything which will be necessary to be “taken in gallop,” the expression he used when talking to me a few days ago.
“Don’t say that you are ready for it; rather say that you are trying to do it; it is better.”
“Yes, Bhai Sahib,” I answered, and my heart was so full of gratitude.
“If one is pledged, pledged for spiritual life and work, there must be no reserve, a complete surrender on all the planes, when one enters the Arena. What is a pledge? It is a promise, never to be broken, never.”
“It lasts for ever and ever and ever,” I said softly, thinking how I swore my promise with my fingers on the signature of the Master, that fateful day in the British museum—a day that seemed so long ago and yet so near, as if it was yesterday….
Later an incident happened. One individual who had been living on him for years without working, a lazy, dirty fellow, came in abusing him loudly. He answered in a gentle, pacifying tone of voice, and when L. began to tell him off for his disgraceful behavior, I could not control myself any longer, took my shoe off and wanted to bag him on the head. Only Guru’s gentle voice restrained me, asking me to sit down. The fellow was shouting abuses, it was all very disturbing, and it spoiled our lovely evening.
24th November
IT WAS LIKE A BURNING FIRE inside my heart today. The longing for God….
“Do you think I speak just for the sake of talking?” he said to L. on account of some matters concerning them. “Oh, no! Every word is said on purpose with meaning! And speaking of Love: Love can never be hidden: NEVER! It is something which cannot help to shine!”
L. was annoyed with me. She said, in Guru’s household nobody could sleep in the night, because the man whom I threatened with my shoe swore to kill the Guru and me, and was shouting all night. She said that I am too impetuous, and don’t know how to behave in Guru’s presence.
This man is a Brahmin. He is a school-teacher by profession, but he is not balanced in his mind. He is very ugly and looks like an orangutan, small, hairy, very long arms like an ape, and his face too is ape-like. L. told me that he lost his job years ago because of his Communist activities, and his emotional age is a boy of twelve. He has been living with Guru’s family for several years already, and he does not work. I asked L., how is it that Guru’s premises are full of most objectionable people? She said that this is the Sufi way. All those who are without work, who are rejected by society, the awkward, the too loud, too weak in mind, too sick in body, he will give them refuge and hospitality. So many people live in his courtyard, and one or two thatched huts are even in the garden.
“Poor wife of his! She must be a saint herself to put up with such conditions!”
“Yes,” said L., “it cannot be easy to be the wife of a Sufi Saint!”
We had a brisk walk in the park, in the evening. He was completely unconscious, walking swiftly with long strides. We could hardly keep up with him. L. told me that, when we are with him, we should try to remain on the outside, to protect him from the traffic, for he is quite unconscious in his physical body.
“Can Devas become human beings? I read somewhere that in order to reach the ultimate goal, they have to go through the human evolution?”
“How can they? Devas are made of Light and Light only. How can they become humans? Human beings are made of four elements, of five, if you include ether (Akash);Jinns are made of Light, Fire and Air, and they are more powerful than the Devas who, as I have said, are made of Light only. Devas are a different evolution. Devayan is a Path which humans take on the way to Perfection. Devas also take it, but are stopped at Nirodika, halfway through. Only man can go further on the Path of Devayan. Pitriyan is not a path; man comes back and back again on the wheel of return.
“One day I saw for the first time a Jinnee. I was only a boy and remained late, for I was massaging my Revered Guru Maharaj’s feet.
About midnight he said to me: ‘Go, my boy.’ I went out of his room—it was this room where we are sitting now—and I saw many of them outside. I was terrified. ‘Why are you afraid?’ laughed Guru Maharaj. ‘He is your slave! You are more than him.’ Jinns are very powerful, and beyond good and evil as we understand it. Like the Devas.”
DREAM: My overcoat was stolen. A man came to me and said, “It is not stolen; come with me and you will get it.”
“You must know how to interpret this one,” he said. He spoke with a stony, severe expression. His eyes were half-closed, cold, looking very far.
“But I can’t!” I exclaimed, “how can I?”
“What could it mean that an overcoat is taken from you? Was it an old coat?” he asked, not changing his severe expression.
“No, a new one, of good material, and I was sorry because I thought that it was stolen and I needed it.” He made a grimace of disgust.
“How can you be so dense? What is a coat? A cover, something to cover your body. The cover has been taken away from you.” His face was as stony and as stern as ever. I said that I still couldn’t understand.
“Do not insist; it is as I say. You believe in Karma. When you are on the Path earnestly and seriously, your Karmas are taken away from you. Either you have to suffer them, as I already have told you the other day, in your physical life, or they will come to you in dream. One second of dream—suffering is like three years of real suffering in life. When you are on the Path, you are speeded up, and you pay for them in your dreams. If you stay away from the Path, once decided, all the Karmas you will pay in full in your daily life.
But once on the Path, the Grace of God reaches you, catches up with you, and the mental Karmas will go away in dreams.
“Emotional sufferings are cleared up by the suffering Love causes, but the Physical Karmas one has to suffer in the physical body. We are not supposed to have another one, if we are with the Teacher. So, clearly, all has to be cleared in the present one. There is a place where Karmas cannot reach if it so pleases God. His Grace is infinite, and Karmas fall away from you.
“Every dream has a different interpretation according if the dreamer is a man or a woman. For instance, if a man dreams that the roof of his house is falling in and the house is roofless, it means that he is going to be without work. If a woman dreams the same thing, it means that she is going to be a widow.”
I suddenly remembered that L. told me not long ago that she dreamed she had lost her underwear in the middle of a street and was very embarrassed. I told him about it.
“If this is dreamed by somebody on the spiritual Path, it means that the person in question is nearing the ultimate illumination, but if a worldly person dreams it, it means that she is VERY worldly.
Did you dream it?”
I said, “No, a friend of mine.”
“You are deceiving me!” he exclaimed, and seemed very angry. I assured him that I was far from deceiving him. I only did not mention L’s name because I did not know if I was entitled to do so, for the dream was not mine.
“You are deceiving me!” he repeated.
I was annoyed. It was unjust.
“one day when I was still young, my Rev. Guru Maharaj asked me: ‘How much money have you got?’ Thinking that he meant how much money I had on me, I said: “200 rupees! Everything has been stolen from me except those 200 rupees!’ He laughed merrily—why was I such a fool as to think that he meant the money I had at that moment?”
“Oh, but it is unjust!” I exclaimed, “If he is a Saint and knows everything, why didn’t he know that you misunderstood him? He took advantage of the situation, and I think it is most unjust!”
‘This is a silly remark,” he said, this time really annoyed, and went out. L. said that I was wasting her time; she has to ask important questions on the subject of Kundalini.
“Don’t argue so much,” she
said; “it is a wrong attitude, try to understand.”
But I was furious, and I told him so as soon as he came back. It is so difficult to understand him; he expresses himself in such an obscure way; it is most frustrating!
“I express my thought clearly enough, but more often than not you pretend to misunderstand me and, as for me, it is a sheer agony to try to understand you! You speak in mysterious parables, and often you contradict your own statements!”
“I contradict myself,” he said ironically. “I really don’t know what I am talking about! What a pity!”
L. told me impatiently that my attitude is wrong and I will achieve nothing by it.
He sent me away soon afterwards because he wanted to give her some explanations on Kundalini. I left really angry. And what is all this mystery about? Why can’t I hear it? Felt humiliated.
10 Love is Produced
I WAS DISTURBED AND UNHAPPY. I knew that I displeased him, and it made me worry. Also I couldn’t see how, for a long stretch, I could accept the squalid surroundings and sit there for hours. Accept his injustice, the dirty beggars, the smelly, noisy crowd which assembles here during the Bandhara (a public ceremony: “the opening of the gates of grace”), as L. told me. My heart was very heavy. When L. came in the evening, I was already sitting outside, brooding my unhappy thoughts and watching the delicate sunset in greys and soft pinks, fading gradually in the sky.
“You are here? Come inside please!” I heard his voice, went in and sat with L. He was talking to his wife and baby grandchild. Then he took his blanket, and we sat outside. Curled up in his chair, his feet stretched out on the opposite one, huddled in his white blanket, he began to speak.
“When my Rev. Guru Maharaj was alive, so many people came to him only to hear him speak. He had such a beautiful voice, and he could explain so well that nobody ever misunderstood him; no doubt was left in the heart of anybody.” He turned to me, “I realize that my English is not perfect,” he continued, “I do not pretend that I never blunder; I am not a master of your language.”
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