A different person. I could not take my eyes away from his face. The light about him, the stillness and infinite peace expressed in his features, were indescribable. He had a look of Divinity about him, merged in deepest peace. The Power seemed less today than in the last two days.
11th February
ALL DAY there was much coming and going. Many disciples from the provinces are still here. He did not even look once in my direction.
Left earlier in the evening. Was tired and depressed; only Hindi was spoken.
17 Circulation of Light
12th February, 1962
ARRIVED THERE about 9 a.m. Sat alone around the corner near the lime tree, so fragrant, on a heap of folded tents. L. soon called me inside where everybody was having tea. Guru appeared after a while.
We all got up, and he gave me a friendly look and a faint smile.
Had a bad, bad night. The power inside my body did not abate all night, and I could not sleep. If only the tormenting shapes would go.
But I noticed something completely new; at first, it was indistinct; I had to concentrate on it. Then it became clearer. At first I thought that my blood was getting luminous, and I saw its circulation throughout the body. But soon I became aware that it was not the blood; the light, the bluish-white light, was running along another system which could not have been blood vessels. For I could see the blood vessels too; they were pulsating with every beat of the heart, doing their work of supplying blood to the tissues. But they were not the carriers of light. This strange unearthly light, clearly seen in a semi-transparent body, used other channels…. But of course! I suddenly understood; it was running along the nerves!
The whole nervous system was clearly visible, and the light was circulating in it just as the blood does in the blood-vessels. Only, and here was the substantial difference, the circulation of the blood stops at the skin, but this light did not stop at the skin level; it penetrated through it, radiating out, not very far, say about nine inches (I couldn’t be quite sure, for it kept fluctuating, increasing and diminishing with some kind of flares). As I say, it came out of the body and re-entered the body again at another place. Observing closely I could see clearly that there were points, as though agglomerations of light in many parts of the body, and light came out of one of them and re-entered through another one. As those points seemed to be countless, it looked like a luminous web encircling the body, inside and outside. It was very lovely. The Web of the Universe, I thought, and was fascinated by the unusual and the very beautiful sight.
Soon, however, I became aware of something rather alarming.
Because I was so absorbed and enchanted, or perhaps the heat at the beginning was not great, I became increasingly aware that the body seemed to be on fire. This liquid light was cold, but in spite of it being cold by itself (and for some inexplicable reason I was sure that it was cold), it was burning me… as if currents of hot lava were flowing through every nerve, every fiber, hotter and hotter, more and more unbearable, more and more luminous, faster and faster… shimmering. Increasing and decreasing. Fluctuating, expanding and contracting, all the time. And I could do nothing but lie there, watching helplessly, as the intense suffering increased with every second. Burned alive, flashed through my mind. This must be the end. Surely this time I will die. It became more and more unbearable… the whole body on fire. Hot light circulating everywhere, leaving not one particle of my body alone, everywhere it went. And when I concentrated on some part of my body, I noticed that the light and the heat increased to an unbearable degree, concentrating where my thought was concentrating. How long this intense and at times unbearable suffering lasted, I don’t know. It is a kind of in-between state when it happens—neither sleeping nor fully awake. The body behaves as if in a high fever, full of perspiration… burning… a terrible pain, a kind of muddled consciousness not aware of time. It was all gone in the morning, leaving a great tiredness behind, but nothing else.
He was sitting with us; a few of his men-disciples were still here; he was supervising the taking down of the large marquee and the sweeping of the courtyard. Filibert and a woman, both L’s friends, were expected from France and were coming in a few days. He did not ask me anything.
We went for a walk tonight in the park, and it was quite an experience. As soon as he came out dressed for a walk, I suddenly choked and could not speak or swallow. Kept in step with him which was not easy, for he is so much taller, and his legs are longer than mine, but it gave me a curious sensation of rhythm and elation. Was trembling, for such a force was sweeping through me that it was very hard to bear. Felt breathless, as if a strong wind was blowing through my heart, the same sensation when a gale blows against one’s face making the breathing difficult. L. teased me because I did not see the roses when we were walking amongst beds and beds of them all in full flower. But there were no roses for me this time. I was fully occupied with holding this experience as long as possible… the feeling of elation, of a glorious storm blowing through my innermost being….
All the time during Kirtan I tried to keep it, but lost it later while chatting and laughing during the dinner at Pushpa’s. The whole night I tried to recapture it in vain. The body was still: no currents, no shapes. When we sat down on a bench in the park, I asked him (I could hardly speak, so breathless was I), if there was a danger that the heart could stop completely, or even burst, for there were moments when it felt like that. He shook his head.
“No, nothing will happen to you. On our Line the heart becomes very strong.”
Could not help wondering if he had meant the physical heart?
14th February
SAT IN THE GARDEN. L. was late. I feel rather sad, for I notice that I am not invited to go inside lately. Everybody else is asked in, or just goes in as soon as they arrive. I have to wait. I can sneak in, only if somebody else comes; otherwise I sit alone outside for hours on end.
He was in high fever last night, and I had a very bad night of restlessness. The body behaved as if it had high fever, but fever I had none.
I gave him the paper. I was in agony for days to compile it and try to remember all my failing and mistakes since my youth, my childhood even. Once when very young I stole a fountain pen from a colleague. I think she got it for her birthday—it was a shiny one, looking like gold. My desk was next to hers. She was heartbroken about the loss of it, and I promptly lost it and was also heartbroken about it. Silly. But it was something I hated to remember and tried to forget. It was like a dark spot I had pushed away somewhere, and now had to put it on paper. Many, many things I had to dig out, write down, and I hated doing it. It was most humiliating. I had an awful struggle to drag old skeletons out of the dusty corners of my memory, to dig out things I thought forgotten, of which I was ashamed. Felt dirty and small, and very miserable. Written down on paper, it was a crude, revolting, squalid document.
L. warned me not to give it to him before the Bandhara, for he is very busy and is capable of forgetting it in his kurta pocket, and his children could get hold of it. A chilling thought… I saw his children reading letters from his disciples.
He took the folded sheet of paper. “Hm… rather a lot,” he remarked. I felt like shrinking into a speck of dust. There were several foolscap sheets….
“Will you give it back to me after you have read it?” I asked. He shook his head. “You will not forget it in your pocket; your children can get hold of them,” I ventured with sinking heart.
“This is an impertinent remark.” His face was somber.
I was so crushed and in my anxiety did not know what to say. After a while he said not unkindly: “I don’t need to read it; I take it in my hand and the meaning comes to me word by word.”
“And then? Then you destroy it?” I asked hopefully… felt like a drowning man clasping at a straw. He shook his head again.
“No, that would not be enough; it is made to go.”
“Made to go?” I echoed, absolutely at a loss as to its meaning.
<
br /> “Yes, it is taken away; the sins once confessed are taken away.”
I did not press further. I knew, of course, that if one knows how to manipulate the laws of nature, the paper can easily be made to disintegrate. No great power is even needed for that.
His face is grey, and he looks very weak. I cried silently, much worried; my heart was aching, seeing him like that. Nobody saw me cry.
15th February
FILIBERT CAME in the morning, a typical French businessman, rather large with a soft face. He meditated with L. for the last few years and had a regular correspondence with the Guru. He was full of the deepest respect. I saw him going into Dhyana almost immediately.
He sat there perfectly still, his eyes closed, oblivious to everything, and I was thinking that I am here for such a long time and still I don’t know what this famous Dhyana is supposed to be. God knows if I will get it and if at all….
In the afternoon, L. and Filibert were late… naturally so, with Pushpa having a new guest, how could it be otherwise?
I was alone sitting in the garden for a long time. He came out only when they arrived. He looked very weak; I felt worried to see him like this. But he was telling us that the Saint is usually ill all the time his Guru Maharaj also was.
“When I am ill, I am really more healthy, for I am spiritually very powerful. When the body is weak, the Soul is very strong.” The story of Arjuna which he told us some time ago came into my mind.
Later he said to me: “You were here shortly after 4 p.m.” I nodded. I already knew that he always knows when I come. Several times in the past he would say to me: “You came at such or such a time,” or, “I saw you sitting there under the mango tree,” etc. And I knew that he was resting in the courtyard and could not have seen me coming in at least not with his physical eyes.
He also said once that the Guru is supposed to know what the Shishyas are doing all the time, but if he sees them doing something wrong, one never says so to them. So, it means that he can have a look at us at any time wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
And if he sees us doing something private, I hope he will look away. I spoke to L. one day about it. She shrugged: “What does it matter?
We are all human; we all have to do certain things; he will not be interested in that.” Since I know that, somehow I never feel alone, and try to behave in such a way that I could be seen at any time of the day without being ashamed of anything.
He dismissed us very soon, for he wanted to rest. He was telling us about the relationship of the lover and the beloved. At the beginning, when the heart is not used to real love, there are many troubles and sufferings. But as time goes on, the Shishya gets more and more tuned into the wishes of the Guru—the same suffering becomes bliss, the pairs of opposites meet.
“So it means,” said Filibert, “that the time must come when the Shishya has such a faith in the Guru that if he says, ‘throw yourself from the third floor,’ the Shishya will obey and, when he does, nothing will happen to him.”
16th February
DREAM: I was in the water; he was standing on the shore telling me to swim to the distant shore; huge waves, like a tide, were carrying me there effortlessly, but I was arguing that this huge tide will dash me to pieces against the sheer rocks of the shore. High mountains were rising right from the water edge, rock-like walls—no hope to get a foothold anywhere. And I was telling him that I had better swim to the other side, to the right, where there was a flat sand beach. But the waves did not go there so swiftly, and I woke up without having reached it.
I think I know the interpretation: I am still not quite there. I still don’t obey without arguing… still haven’t got enough faith to throw myself from the third floor….
In the morning sitting alone in the garden trying to read the Gita, I was swept all of a sudden by a terrific force, so that I had to sit quite stiff, and breathe heavily to be able to bear it. And I HAD TWO HEARTS.
I had already noticed that in the night the first time. A strange feeling, to have two hearts. One must be large, going strong and rhythmic, and one smaller, which was quieter, more like my own. It was the strangest Maya imaginable!
Later L. came with Filibert and a friend from France, Mme Vinod, who is an archaeologist and is in India on an archaeological tour. We were sitting outside all around him, and he was telling us about the qualities and attributes of a Sat Guru.
A Guru is not a Guru if he has desires left. The real Guru can be recognized because he is without desires. The Shishya must still have desires, but not the Guru—he has none… the same with a Saint.
But a Saint need not be a Guru; that is a Teacher. The Guru will not do anything to damage the Shishya’s reputation; he will never give a bad example or take advantage of a situation.
Women can reach a very high state. The desire for Truth is important; it is the greatest qualification for the Path.
A Sannyasi can have only a few real disciples, but a Saint—if he is also a Teacher and lives in the world and has his sexual vitality well transmuted—can have thousands of disciples; it matters not how many. The Vital Energy in human beings is the most precious thing.
It makes a Saint fly; it takes him directly to God. The Vital Energy must be transmuted, so that it will function from the navel upwards and not below. Only then are high states possible. To expand, to flow out without any destination, this is our Path. “Those who have attained Pure Existence (Sat) become One…. Pure Existence (Sat) is the Truth beyond life and death” (Rig Veda).
We must live within the very turmoil of life, but not be influenced by it. We must get rid of likes and dislikes. We must return to the very core of our primitive being in order to become whole. This will naturally produce conflicts, for we have to accept ourselves as we are and not as we THINK WE ARE. If you suffer from fear or some sadness, it means there are still attachments to get rid of.
Every Guru has only a very few “Seed-ideas” which represent the fundamental note or chord of his teaching. Only those ideas which he has absorbed lead him to Realization. He cannot give more. He will constantly manipulate those ideas which took him to the Truth, through his personal effort, and which represent a living Truth for him. Consequently, no Teacher ever conveys the whole amount of his teaching, only what he himself has assimilated. Besides, no teaching can be transmitted until the disciple has reached the stage of comprehension; one cannot teach a small child the principles of higher mathematics. We have to grow to the Truth, and only then is it communicable.
The task of the Guru is to help the disciple to grow. How is it done?
One has to merge into the Teacher. Only then the little self will go. It is like a voluntary death in the Guru’s Essence. It is called Fana. A complete surrender to the teacher is the first step leading to complete surrender to the Will of God. Only little by little can we get used to this idea. It must be absorbed, become part and parcel of the blood, just as food is absorbed into the body and becomes part of it. It must be integrated as a Wholeness into the mind. This is the Goal of the Spiritual Training.
He was also saying that one does not need to ask questions; those of immediate urgency will be answered automatically, almost immediately, and the others which are at the back of the mind will be answered by and by as time goes on.
Last night when I came home, I still had two hearts going strong.
What a sensation! Quite extraordinary! Lightning flashed on the horizon; a storm was approaching. Thunder and lightning about 1 a.m. woke me up. Noticed that I had only my own heart beating softly. Fell asleep. Woke up about 3 a.m.—two hearts beating strongly and not quite in unison. It went on, and I was listening.
What a thing! Incredible! Have not even the slightest clue nor an explanation for this strange phenomenon. Fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the two hearts were beating fast and furious, the whole body reverberating with their rhythm. Since then it goes on.
17th February
IT WAS RAINING this mornin
g. I went at 9 a.m. The room was open. I hesitated, but went inside because it was cold and draughty to sit in the doorway leading into the inner courtyard. Through the open door I saw him having his breakfast in the next room. I timidly asked if I could sit here in the meantime because it was too cold to sit outside. He grunted something into his beard, and I understood that I was not welcome. So I went out and sat in the doorway. It was raining steadily, and a cold wind was blowing in gusts. I was cold. My feet were wet. I hoped that he would soon call me inside. But he did not. Sat there for many hours, and I must confess that I was resentful.
Everybody else was always allowed to go in. As soon as they arrived, they went in. Everybody else had the precedence… always the last and the least and the shabbiest dog—that’s me—I thought bitterly. If I wanted something of importance, there was never time for me. As soon as I opened my mouth, a procession of people would start crying babies to be blessed, servants, people in and out, children fighting, or howling, or quarrelling, and so it went on. I was always the last. Felt like crying; my feet became colder and colder. When L. and Filibert came, I stood up and also went inside. He sang us a Persian song and translated it.
“Though it is a birthright for every human being to know how to love, we don’t know how to do it, because there is the personality, the little self, which does not want to go.
“Until it goes, real love is impossible. For Love is the negation of the self. The Guru is well aware of the difficulties of the Path, and in his feet I take refuge. I have to cross the river, and the night is dark and stormy. I can see people on both banks of the river; they seem safe enough. Only I, in the midst of the stream, am tossed about helplessly.”
Then he sang another one:
“The lover must be like a dead body in the Hands of the Beloved. How is the dead body? Helpless it is. If it is put in the rain, it gets wet; it if is put in the sun, it gets hot. It cannot rebel, it cannot protest. And it is by the Grace of the Guru that we are learning how to be always contented in the Hands of the Beloved.”
Daughter of Fire Page 16
