“He has a very interesting conversation,” Bhai Sahib turned to me—“highly intelligent man. He comes here often, but he is not my disciple; neither was he my father’s. You see, he is my neighbor; sees too much of what is happening here—how many people are living here and all of what is going on. He does not understand why I give hospitality to so many people of low caste who have such a low standard of living. He is a Hindu, a Brahmin, and a man of property; no wonder he does not understand, though he knows in theory our attitude and our System very well. But to know the theory and to be it… is a great, very great difference.”
He looked into the distance, and after a short silence: “Believe me, not even my family understands me. For one moment you thought this morning that it is your money which is being used to repair Tulsi Ram’s dwelling, and you felt annoyance. You were right; a little of your money will be in it too: but what business is it of yours?
This is ignorance. Once it is given, it is mine, and I do what I like with it. I cannot be limited. No more. Once one has surrendered somewhere, no limitation is possible, nor is it tolerated.”
Then he proceeded to tell me how he does not like to hurt people’s feelings, but he had to tell me what was necessary this morning, otherwise he would not have done his duty. Actually he was telling me off this morning about something which I don’t remember, because of my mind being in such a state.
“My revered Father and my uncle were surrendered before my Rev. Guru Maharaj in every possible way, and still he often told them: ‘You understand nothing; you don’t know how to pay regard to me!! Prof. Batnagar can tell you how my Father payed the greatest regard to him always. Of all his disciples, he had only two who did completely surrender: My Rev. Father and my uncle.”
“How great is the capacity of a human heart?” I asked.
“No limit… there is no limit!” He smiled his radiant smile. “The human heart is limitless, for it forms part of the Great Heart.”
Went home full of stillness….
31st May
MIND NOT WORKING, feeling giddy—all around is Maya.
Only one man was sitting with him this morning. Told him that I cannot be a good advertisement for him, for I cannot even walk. This morning I was walking zig-zag, like a drunkard. My feet did not obey.
People in the bazaar must have been thinking: look at this old European woman!—she is drunk already at seven in the morning!
He gave me a kindly smile fingering his mala.
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “the poets call us drunkards; we are drunk with the Wine from the Eyes of the Beloved… “
Then I began to talk. It must have been for a long time, over an hour, non-stop; it was like an urge, an inner necessity. One moment afterwards I did not remember what I was telling him. It was like a half-unconscious state. I remember, though, that I said that I was talking too much. If he thinks so, he should stop me; I have no possibile understanding of what I am doing. But he only smiled gently and said nothing. Plenty of people came in a crowd, and until midday they were discussing all kinds of topics: the price of butter, the Chinese trouble on the frontier of Tibet, the pruning of trees, and the immortality of the Soul. I was sitting crosslegged on the tachat next to his; all others were sitting on the chairs facing him. When everybody had left he said:
“This morning you were telling me that you were talking too much. Sometimes one is made to talk. The Divine Power wishes it so. One HAS to talk. I am supposed to hear everything, to listen to everything. If the disciple is asleep, the Master is behind; if the disciple is in trouble, the Master is with him. It is a troublesome job to be a Guru and a Wali,” he concluded.
I asked him if he would know if I was in danger, and he nodded.
His face was very still. I asked what he meant when he said: “One is made to speak.” I felt an inner urge, an irresistible desire to say all that was in my mind. Is it done to let him know things which he perhaps may have overlooked? He nodded absent-mindedly. I was not sure he was listening.
Went home. It was very hot. Yesterday it was 114° in the shade, but I hardly felt the heat… perhaps because the mind is not working, and when it does not work, there is hardly any suffering.
Wanted to do some typing—entries in my diary, but could not do that either. Could not concentrate at all. So I slept for a while, then got up, had some fresh lime juice with bicarbonate of soda… it was refreshing. The heat was deadening; the fan was useless.
I am baked alive, I thought, and fell asleep, or was in an unconscious state—I really don’t know. Suddenly, I saw his face in profile, very clearly, just one foot from my face… was not even surprised. He was probably having a look at me. Well, Bhai Sahib, I am grilled. Now I know a little how St. Lawrence must have felt when he was grilled alive, I thought, full of tiredness. Had a bath, tried to think, saw his face so clearly again.
Then I went to his place. A dust storm was gathering and had just started to blow fiercely when I was entering his gate. It became quite dark. They all sat in the small room playing a game of cards. I waited for Babu to give him his lesson, but he did not turn up. I didn’t care. I feel so humble now that I don’t even mind waiting for a boy who does not turn up. Later I saw that he was playing cards with his father, and I suppose that it was more important….
The dust storm resolved itself into a brief shower. The air became lovely. Went into the garden, sniffed the fragrance of the moist earth and damp foliage. The atmosphere cooled down considerably.
Talked to his brother for a while; later he came out while Panditji was still wetting the place for the chairs. The short rain was not enough to wet the soil properly. The hot, thirsty earth sucked up the moisture in no time.
He sat down, and as if it was the signal to begin, I started to talk… and talked… and talked. Do not remember a thing. It poured out of me—disjointed ideas, memories… heaven knows what!
He seemed to listen quietly, doing his mala. There were not even the slightest interruptions. Nobody came. We were sitting alone.
“Unusual,” flashed through my mind, but had no time to reflect upon it; such was the urge to speak. Then I noticed that it was already dark. I halted, looked around me in surprise; hours must have gone by! He sat there, in silence, composed, looking indifferent, mala in his hand.
“Now you can go home,” he said quietly. I went, profoundly puzzled.
In the night at 11 :30, it began to rain. Took my bed from the courtyard into the veranda. Rain woke me up. Had the feeling that something was taken away from me about which I was sorry. Fell asleep again about 1 a.m.
DREAM (towards the morning): He was standing beside me dressed all in white in a pool of clear water and, bending down, I was washing his feet and my own in it. The more I washed, the clearer, the purer, the water became. “Look!” I exclaimed, and woke up. The feeling quality of the dream was that I was performing a very important work, and I did it with utmost care. I also remember dimly a feeling of awe or reverence of some kind.
1st June
WROTE TO THE BANK in London to have the last large amount transferred into his account. Remembered to leave in my a/ c £100 for K. junior.
2nd June
WHEN I ARRIVED, I found many people already sitting, and I thought that it will be difficult to speak to him. So I just reminded him that I had to show him some letters and discuss business matters.
“All right, later.”
But more people kept arriving—the horrible Elaci Baba amongst them. I got more and more irritated; it is enough to have something of importance to discuss, and immediately it becomes impossible!
Crowds would want to speak to him for hours; he will give unending explanations in Hindi, how to get a male child, or how to meditatethere is no end to it…. At last, he told me to go into the room and wait for him. I was afraid that Elaci Baba will come too, so I closed the door. Sat in the chair waiting… was in a kind of unconscious state. He came in. He was surrounded by a blinding white light… c
losed my eyes—it was like looking at the sun. He sat down on the tachat. I lifted my head and all I could say was: “You shine like an electric bulb.”
“What did you say?” he asked, adjusting his legs in a comfortable position. I repeated. He ignored it.
“Where are the documents?”
In this very moment the wife stormed in talking rapidly in a loud voice. Somebody had upset a jar of pickles in the courtyard, and there was a commotion. Oh, dear, never alone, not even for an important matter like this one. He looked through the letters and wanted me to type them all over because his address, according to him, should be worded in a different way. I did not like it at all in my present state… the mind not working… I knew that I would be making many typing mistakes and will have to write the letters several times to get it right—it will take up much time and effort. But I said nothing… only remarked that in the state I am now, worldly things seem so hopelessly difficult and even silly.
“Just go home and do as I say.” He dismissed me.
Posted the letters which I wrote with the greatest difficulty. And when already posted, I remembered that I did not begin each letter with: Dear Sir, but simply began with the text. Hopeless….
In the afternoon when I came, he was in the room under the fan.
His wife was there too, talking. Some workmen came and were busy with the electric cables in the garden. When they had left, I closed my eyes to merge into stillness, for I thought that he will go inside. But he began to ask about the letters and some information about the bank through which the amount from the Australian investments will come. Then he began to talk to me kindly; he must have talked for over an hour, and there was no interruption…. But who will remember what he said? Where was my mind??
4th June
THE BODY ON FIRE. Mind is not here.
6th June
THIS MORNING AT SUNRISE, about 5 a.m., the sky was covered with the most exquisite pink clouds. I was lying on my charpoy in the middle of my small courtyard, looking at their delicate formation… feathery, magenta-pink. Deep in me, there was a strange, never experienced happiness—it was different, different from the glimpses I had of it before. It is so ethereal, so elusive, one cannot pin it down.
It seems to have nothing to do with me as a person, nor with my environment, nothing with my state of mind. It just comes. It is just here. Appears like a state of Grace, and I cannot create it at will. It comes when it wants to come, and it goes so silently that I don’t even notice that it has gone. I only realize, suddenly, that it is no more. In a strange way, it does not belong to me as an individual; I have nothing to do with it.
Last night, while I was looking at the sky, I noticed an object lit brightly. It seemed to be triangular against the dark, cloudy sky, but I could not be sure because only the rear part of it was brightly lit, so it was difficult to judge the exact shape. It was passing at a terrific speed in complete silence; no engines could be heard, nor a motor noise, and the speed was far greater than that of any airplane. It passed right across the sky, coming from the west, and disappeared behind the roof,tops to the east. I was wondering if it was one of those things people call a flying saucer? But I was not really much interested, nor excited by it. At that moment I was doing something more important: I was listening to the currents inside my body. For my body was full of Sound… a Sound connected with the light circulating in it, with this mysterious Web burning my tissues. The outlines of the heart were clearly visible—it was surrounded with a faint bluish light, beating regularly… a beautiful sight….
It was a windless, very dark night. Later, I saw another object passing, also very swiftly, but slower than the first. This one was dimly lit with a sort of hazy light and could not be discerned clearly.
It seemed to be round, or of a roundish shape, and it was flying lower than the first, and it disappeared to the right, to the South. But I was listening to my heartbeat, to the increasing and decreasing rate of it that seemed to be much more important at the moment.
No, as I already said, I will probably remember nothing of these days full of dust, heat, hot wind and wonderful fragrance drifting from the gardens behind high brick walls where white bungalows stand in sheltered seclusion… mindless days… of the longing so strong that I cried aloud sometimes in sheer physical torment—such was the pain in the heart….
There will be no one to remember. Without the mind? And it is a great pity, because those are water,shed days, milestones, on the way, leading me somewhere… they are a transition to something else.
Strong vibration was at the base of the Spine Chakra this morning.
Wondered if there will be trouble again, but there was none. The sky was a livid mother of pearl and turquoise, and delicate feathers of such tender pink were painted on it by the Great Painter of the World.
”Drunk,” I said, this morning when I came. ”Drunk I am.” He did not answer, but continued to pray, giving a slight shake of his mala from time to time. His lips formed a long succession of soundless words.
Talked to him for a while. Don’t remember one word… only remember saying that I saw one object in the sky.
“There were two of them,” he said quietly, interrupting his prayers for a moment to change the position of his legs.
“Yes,” I said, “two,” and I described them. “Do you know what they were?” He nodded. “Will you tell me what they are?” He shook his head. He and his family sleep on the flat roof, like most of the Indian families at this time of the year, for it is much cooler there. He must have seen them too. When later, I asked him again, as politely as possible, to tell me what they were, he said sternly that one should avoid useless talk. And that was all.
7th June
THIS MORNING WE SAT in the garden and were quite alone. I spoke a little, trying to merge into the stillness of non-being, but he began to speak, and remained with me for over three hours… something which I think never happened before in all those past months. Not only that, but there were hardly any interruptions to speak of. He touched upon all the possible topics, but he began by saying that today, on the seventh of June, his Rev. Father had expired. It was the anniversary of his death.
“He knew that he was going, and he kept hinting to us for months, but somehow we did not understand. He remained alone in the room, went into deep Samadhi and did not return.”
He was playing with his mala while speaking, winding and unwinding it around his fingers; his face looked transparent, the eyes half-closed, looking into the distance… Asiatic, oblique eyes, like an Oriental mask. Could not avert my eyes from it—it was not his usual face. One could sense how he loved his father by the special tenderness in his voice.
I will try to remember, try to write it down, must remember… remember… it will be fragmentary. Still, I MUST remember, somehow… how hopeless it seems. The mind… Hmm… where are you?
Told him that the vibration was at the base of the spine again this morning, and I was afraid that the horrible visions would come back.
He shook his head.
“Forget it. This is in the past. It has been taken away.” I suddenly realized that from the moment, in March, when I was breaking down almost in hysterics in his garden, I never saw them again.
“I told you, if I remember rightly, that past Karmas form part and parcel of the blood.”
“But what I saw was so horrible! I did not even know that such things could exist!” I protested. He slowly shook his head.
“Souls are old. How can the Soul remember everything… all the past? It was all there, in your blood. It was the worst situation possible. If this room is full of water, all the doors and windows are closed, and the water cannot flow out—what will happen? It will get foul. If the patient has to be operated, and the doctor operates on him, for a while the patient may even curse the doctor, but the doctor will do his duty just the same. It is not, as you have accused me, that I have caused this trouble by using my Yogic powers; why use the powers to do such a th
ing? If a horse is going slow, and another, a quicker one, overtakes it, the first horse, quite simply, gets wakened up. That is all there is to it. Why can’t you understand it? Why should it be so difficult to grasp? Why do we insist on Satsang? Because it is a quickening. We do not teach—we quicken. I am stronger than you. So your currents adjust themselves to mine.
This is a simple law of nature. The stronger magnetic current will affect, quicken the weaker. If you let flow an electric current through two wires, side by side, one a strong one and the other a weak one, the stronger will affect the weaker; it will increase its potency. It is so simple.”
DREAM: “You were the owner of a six-story building, and you said to me: ‘If you want to go to the three lower stories, you have to go up higher than that and then come down, because I have nailed up the doors of the three lower stories.’
“But how will the tenants of the lower flats reach their homes if the doors are nailed up?” I asked.
“Oh, they have front doors, which are open, but from the back where you have to go, you have to go higher and then come down.
The doors were old, worm-eaten and useless. That’s why I have nailed them up.”
Tried to get an interpretation of this dream.
He did not listen. As soon as I began to speak, he commenced to shout instructions to Babu who was buying mangoes from a barrel in the street. So, I don’t even know if he heard me at all and cannot ask him for explanation again….
26 Drunk
8th June, 1962
“COMPLETELY MAD!” I laughed. “Gloriously mad, irresponsible and drunk with joy!”—he was standing inside the fountain, his torso bare, clad only in a pale blue longhi. He only glanced briefly at me, occupied as he was in pouring buckets of cold water over his head and blowing like a walrus.
I felt fine, so free, so mad. Where was the mind? One is better without it, really….
“Today my Rev. Father was taken to Samadhi,” he said, rubbing his shoulders vigorously with a towel. Some prasad (blessed food) was distributed later to a few people who came. Then we remained alone. It seems to me that I accused him of some contradiction.
Daughter of Fire Page 26
