This morning I did hope that he will come out. But the hope was in vain. He swept his room over an hour, then dusted it; he did not even lift the chik or look outside. I did not exist at all, and I knew very well that he knew all about my state of mind. I am left alone. Now I will have to see how far the self can reach. You are burning me, my dear… it hurts to be so neglected… and how is it going to be? I know nothing of his teaching, and what the Dynasty really means is not quite clear either, if it is not hereditary as he has told me. If it is a Dynasty, it should be hereditary, should it not? Worries, worries… endlessly, and no help from him at all .. ..
When I was sitting in his garden, I felt a great vibration in my heart, so I knew that he is switching the mind off again. He knew about the trouble, of course, and he tried to help, for there was no trouble in the afternoon, neither in the evening. He was not at home and I came back when it was dark.
“All right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. Went home. Had a quiet night.
40 There is No Luck, but only the Divine Grace
28th November, 1962
NOTHING NEW. All quiet. All vibrations seem to have gone.
29th November
IN THE MORNING after a peaceful night, woke up at four and the mind began to swirl about. This time the mind was attacking him, because he does not teach me anything.
“You will get a hint, it is enough,” he will say, but to others he explains for hours and in many details. If I only understood Hindi well enough…. I finished by weeping with frustration, and he was telling me off for a long time. “Things are done, and it is beyond understanding of the person to whom it is done. Who has the time to explain everything? Go on experiencing .•• go on writing it down.”
1st December
YESTERDAY HE WAS SITTING WITH us but did not talk to me at all. He looked so remote and unearthly beautiful. Prayed well last night, such was the stream of love that it was difficult to bear… and God is a Reality, so near, right in my heart. Today, I thought that he will not come out at all, but he did… looking rather weak and frail. A bit breathless, I thought… the heart is not working too well….
“Bhai Sahib, I have a dream to tell you, and it is so clever and important. It is a lovely dream.”
“Yes?” he said, and suddenly I felt that the dream which seemed so important to me, was not so at all…. Told him the dream and my interpretation of it. He shook his head.
“Wrong,” he said, “you are still full of the self. Don’t you see that this dream is a hint? It is always ‘l’ and ‘Me,’ and ‘I want’ and ‘I don’t want.”’
“So I missed the mark completely!” I exclaimed astonished.
“Quite wrong,” he declared. “Don’t you see that even in conversation continuously the self is present? If you have surrendered completely, where are you? Where is the ‘I’?”
“Good heavens!” I said full of dejection; “here I am trying so hard to get rid of the thing, but it is ever present still!” He smiled.
“It is not so easy: it lived with you for over fifty years; if you live in a house for so long, you would not like to go, would you?” I agreed.
“It will take time!”
“Could you not help me?” I asked full of dejection… “a little help?”
“I could, but would there be any merit? One becomes a Wali immediately when the ego goes. Then it would be like a father taking the child on his shoulder, but the child must learn to walk.
Here you will not progress; the stars disappear before the sun.” I said that it was a lovely analogy. He smiled.
“Many more experiences will be there when you go… you will see. I sometimes will write harsh things to you, like my Rev. Guru Maharaj did to me, sometimes about things which did not happen yet but will happen. Those letters you will not read to anybody else; they are for you only.”
“I wouldn’t dream of reading your letters to anybody,” I said astonished.
“No, what I mean is that certain things should not be told,” he said. “Even now, I was harsh to you-sometimes I am so hinted. If I don’t tell you, how will you know?” I thanked him with folded palms. “You made a progress in one year like others did not in twenty,” he said with a kind smile; “but still I have to be harsh sometimes. Why those people don’t progress, those Hindus?
Because they worship idols and they think what they do is right!
Even this man,” he pointed to the Sannyasi, who was walking away.
“He is not intelligent enough,” I said, “it is so evident.”
“Let’s leave this apart,” he said with a quick movement of his hand. “This is not the point; the fact is that they don’t want to accept anything apart from their beliefs; they don’t want to sacrifice even the smallest belief, not to speak to give away oneself. Who wants it?”
“Oh, but Idol” I said, and how, “I will pray that the ego should go, for I can go on the wrong path if I have to go from here and the ego is still strong.” He smiled.
“The higher you go, the higher will the ego go too; but if you reach the highest state, where will the ego be?”
Of course, how simple, I thought; when the ego merges in God, where will it be? Nowhere! “Oh, I will pray, pray, pray, and please help me!”
He looked at me thoughtfully.
“How deceptive the mind can be; I did interpret this dream in such a way as to reach completely misleading conclusions!”
“The mind… sometimes it hits the point; sometimes it is completely wrong. Dreams either show the future, how it is going to be; sometimes they show a stage one has passed, and sometimes they are worthless… just mind dreams.”
“Was this one worthless?”
He shook his head. “It was a Hint—that the ego is still very much there.”
Tasseldar came. “Very difficult it is to get rid of the ego or self,” he was saying in English (for my benefit). “To my father, so often, my Rev. Guru was saying: ‘You are still so full of the self?’ And my father was the last and the least, and he never used to say ‘I’…
never. He always used to say: it is all due to my Rev. Guru Maharaj’s feet… never to me… where am I? We are like a flowing streamthis is the formula always to be remembered. The Saints (in the Sufi terminology, a Saint or a Yogi is the same thing) are like a flowing stream: they flow where they are directed.”
“Your Rev. Guru, he never spoke in the first person also?”
“He was a Master, a maker of Saints,” he answered quickly. “He would say: ‘Come here, I will make a Saint of you just now .. .‘and he did! Just like this! If the iron is put into the fire and melts, the iron is right when in this moment it says: I am fire! But then it cools down; it becomes iron again. When one is at this stage, a maker of Saints, then it is a different matter!”
“But there is no merit to be made a Saint in this way; you just have mentioned it, is it not?”
“None. It is better to get the experiences oneself!”
“That’s why you send me away-to be tested and re-tested, and how difficult it is going to be!” He nodded and kept silent for a while.
“When you will be in difficulties, and people will puzzle you, you will pray and… it is always there!” He smiled gently. “Here you won’t progressI told you already.”
“I think that I understood why you said to me that one never makes any prophecies; it is because of the self… is it so?”
“Of course,” he said looking directly at me. “This is it! There is much self in every prophecy, knowing better than the others: I told you so, I have foretold you, etc.”
To Tasseldar he was saying how people want him to go to London, but he does not want. L. called him and others too. “One should be without desires to flow where one is directed. Sometimes all is ready… the taxi waiting; I have packed everything, and I don’t go at the last moment. I got a hint that something is going to happen, or I should go another time. So, I don’t go. I don’t care. I do as I am hinted.”
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br /> When Tasseldar had left, he told me that now I can go home.
“You don’t go anywhere?” he asked. No, I said, not today; I was with Pushpa yesterday.
“Yes, go home and stay home.”
I left happy; it seems that I get much encouragement nowadays.
Dreams, his statements. It sounded like music in my ears: you have progressed in one year more than others in twenty… sounds wonderful….
Was full of stillness all day long. He went to a wedding tonight.
9th December, Evening
I WAS IN A STRANGE MOOD for over one week. I suppose I did the usual things, like eating, drinking, sleeping, doing the daily chores, going to his place-but I have hardly any recollection of it. Remember dimly that I was worried because he never came out all this time, but I seem to have lived on a different plane altogether… a place of great Peace, and of practically no memories of it.
To avoid boys who played cricket in the garden, I went around the corner of the house to sit behind the nimbu tree (lime tree). It grew outside the window of his room, and its green foliage used to reflect in his eyes and on his skin when he sat in the big chair near the window. Took three nimbus from it, just for the pleasure to have them from his garden. They were green and smelled fresh and spicy.
Later I sat in front of the house in the usual place. People came, and then one of the men who was in the room came out and asked us to go inside. He was not well at all… it was very plain. So my fear that he was ill and that this was the reason why he did not come out proved to be correct. I sat for hours… Hindi was spoken. I just looked at him… and looked. His head was under a towel, and one could not see his face well. But in the brief moments that I saw it, I thought every time: how beautiful he is, my lion… even with the flu, even weak, always this light… too beautiful for words….
Some people began to leave and he said: “You can also go.” I got up, saluted him wordlessly, ready to go. But he began to talk, telling me that he was not well, and he does not know if he will be able to attend the Bandhara, explaining to me the difficulties of going there in his state of health. Then speaking of one of his disciples in Delhi, he said how much trouble he had—daughters became widows, one son died in an accident, the other lost his job, then died, and so it went on-but now he is better off than before… because he accepted it. For He alone is the real help; He looks after everyone; He is the real manager….
“Who is without trouble in this world? Hardly any that I have seen, except my Rev. Father and my Revered Guru Maharaj-they were so happy, so wonderfully happy-nothing could disturb their happiness. That is how it should be,” he said looking at me. “Real happiness lies there—in acceptance.”
I said that I knew why he says that to me; it is the answer to what I have been thinking in the last few days.
“Yes, yes,” he said kindly… “no talk without meaning.”… “I did not come out, I could not, those days I had fever; but it is seasonal, it will pass. I could not go out and talk to you, but it does not matter; it did not matter to you anymore… no more.” I said that it mattered because I knew that he was not well, and I was worried.
“You can go now.” he said. I was standing before him all the time he was speaking to me. I went. I thought that he knew everything, and his talk was to the point. It is exactly what I have thought already: the state I am in now is the answer to all the problems. To live like this on some other plane of being—no worries, no desires, not really, and I will be with Him always… one with Him in infinite peace… good God, can it be true?—that I have reached You… reached You really? After such a short time? Difficult to believe. If it is true, how lucky I am, and how I have to thank Him for His Grace. Guru Krepa, the Grace of the Guru….
“If I am well or not, this has nothing to do with the people; they sit and are benefitted; I do my duty always,” he said, and don’t I know it…. “And who am I to say that I do it? If I say so, there is trouble.
It is He the Doer, always He, never us.” And he looked at me and I knew why he was telling me this. It has to be my attitude from now on, always. I AM NOTHING, HE IS THE DOER. He is training me well, I must say….
10th December
MR. CHOWDRIE WENT INSIDE in the morning, and I sat until eleven outside. It is all very well to say that I don’t mind anymore to sit alone, but I am human after all, and not to see him at all for days, knowing that soon I will have to go, is hard… hard indeed. The hatred against all is tiresome. I have found that it is the best policy to let the mind run, and when it did run itself empty, then to conclude… and the conclusion is always against it, for love is stronger….
The moon was shining on top of me; I slept badly… had a kind of nightmare… thought that I was going off my mind. In the morning I was serene. During the day though I did not see him; he has fever, so I have been told, and I can hear him coughing pitifully… I was serene….
Prayed to Him who is Merciful and Generous and Infinitely Almighty, to be united with Him soon… to be surrendered soon.
Sitting outside in the evening, had spells of such serenity as was not of this world… dying colors of the evening sky. The air transparent like crystal. And the large, infinite happiness, so all pervading, so great, so full. You who are Merciful, listen to my heart.
“Tawadje,” said Mr. Chowdrie, “is a sort of Shakti, Shakti Path, which is given by the Guru. It can manifest itself as vibrations in the physical body, its lowest expression, or as vibrations far beyond the understanding of the mind.”
There must be urge from within (longing, keen desire), and engagement which is the RIGHT kind of effort-plus the urge within which will lead you to the realization of God (like voltage in electricity).
“You are lucky, very lucky,” he said later, shaking his head, as I narrated some of the troubles and sufferings to which I have been subjected in summer.
Yes, I thought, it is all due to his lotus feet. Such a fool I am… so many doubts, so many troubles my mind gives me. And he is still kind to me. Never mind, if it is his wish, I will sit in his dusty garden forever and ever….
12th December
I WAS SITTING IN THE GARDEN in the morning, alone. Nobody was there, and nobody came out from the house, so I was suspecting that he was very ill and became worried. Suddenly Satendra came out of his room and said: “Father wants you inside.” “How is he?” I asked, and he said that he is better. I went in. He looked up and my heart melted, so frail he looked, and so pale.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I am well Bhai Sahib, but how are you?”
“I am better.” He smiled with infinite kindness.
“Really better or you just say so?”
“Truly better.” He looked at me, his eyes shining in a wonderful way. I sat down and he began to speak. Could not hear properly, for he spoke so softly, so I changed my place and went to sit in his father’s chair.
“Jalaluddin Rumi has written: I remain with those Saints who are faithful and obedient; if you want to realize Me, go to those Saints and realize Me through their hearts. From the wood of a tree a chair is made. It is the carpenter who has to make a chair, to polish it and make it beautiful and a useful object. The wood in itself is worthless. From iron the sword is made. Iron in itself is worthless. If I am what I am, if people admire me and respect me, it is all due to my Guru, my Revered Guru, Shamsi Tabriz:.
“It is due to the Grace of the Saint if we realize God. The Soul is in the body from head to foot. When one realizes the Self, the body becomes quite stiff, so if the body is stiff it is all Soul, so go to those Saints whose body is the body of the Realized Souls.
“Christ was walking along, and it was raining heavily. A fox ran across the road and went into his den. ‘My Lord,’ said Christ, ‘even a fox has such a dry home and I have none!’ In one moment a golden Palace appeared and a Voice said: ‘Go and live there if you want to!’
But Christ understood and said that he was content to do only the Will of God.
“Golden Palace means also a purified personality. Worries purify and cleanse if there is Bhakti.”
“Why do you say you had good luck?” said Mr. Chowdrie to one of my remarks.
“You Europeans are always too much on the mental level: why don’t you say: Guru gave it to me? If he gives you trials, he also gives you the strength to bear them.”
He is right. I must switch over from the mental concepts. Looking at a tree outside my bungalow, a sort of mimosa full of white flowers, only one year ago I would have loved to look at it. Now as soon as I saw it, I said to myself, how more beautiful are You than the reflection of Yours. And there was such a longing… and I understood fully what he said last year (and it did amaze me at that time): “Your heart is like a hotel; you love this and that, only One can, must be loved.” Now I understand. One speaks from the level one stands upon, said Mr. Chowdrie yesterday. How true.
13th December
LAST AFTERNOON IWAS SITTING outside full of peace… such were the vibrations of love. He must have done something to me this morning, for the state of consciousness was very keyed,up. Like a white flame on a windless day burns my love, trembling in the still air…. And then I remembered a dream I had about five or six days ago which I thought was not important, and I forgot it afterwards.
But now the idea came to me that it may be important after all, and when the idea surges like this suddenly, I have learned already it is better to follow it up because it may be a Hint. It was a dream about a torch,light procession and a golden,yellow rose in a silver container.
Then Satendra came out and said that Guruji has a severe vomiting condition since half past eleven—he took a little dahl, and then the vomiting began. The doctor had been called and gave a medicine, so now everybody hopes for the best. The fever is not high, only slightly over 100.
Daughter of Fire Page 43
