To be like the nimbu tree, knowing nothing, to grow as the flower grows, unconsciously—the beautiful words from Light on the Path—I was thinking when walking to the post office on my way home….
In the afternoon he came out about six. He was talking all the time with his brother and a Punjabi man on the subject of politics. Before leaving about seven I told him that Mr. Sharma spoke to me about himself and him.
“You will tell me tomorrow,” he said at first. Then he asked: “Is it anything good?”
“Not really; he lost faith.” Then he got up and walked with me to the gate away from others; he clearly was interested and did not want to wait till tomorrow. I related the conversation with Sharma.
“I love him,” he said. “It does not matter if he lost faith. Faith comes and goes; it takes time. Think of him before you fall asleep.”
I answered that I always pray for people.
“No, think of him before you fall asleep; it is done this way.” With a smile he made a gesture with both hands like a swimmer before diving, the fingertips together.
I tried to think of Sharma before falling asleep. Very difficult to have it as a last thought. Practiced much la-il-llillah. Had a very restless night. So many vibrations. The body is restless. I am thinking of his words yesterday: how much suffering is still in store for me, physically and otherwise, before becoming a Wali… and he said weeks ago that I will be one….
“Go on tolerating, go on accepting, and without the slightest doubt you will be there! There is not even the smallest doubt about it!” And I clearly remember how my heart made a jump and then stood still for so long that I thought that it had forgotten to beat…. Great joy pervaded me, remaining like an echo reverberating in the very depth of my being. About the Mohammedan, I was thinking that he was so worldly and now he will be a Saint… and what about myself? A worldly woman with no other interests but dresses, enjoyments of this world, parties, excursions… especially with my first husband who was in the banking business—we lived for three years in Switzerland in an elegant hotel. Every night we had food with friends in another restaurant, to taste one or the other specialty, dancing in the evening… intensely selfish, intensely greedy for life. Now too, I am greedy. The human being is greedy by nature. The soul comes into this world to gain experiences. So we are greedy to experience, and now I am greedy and selfish again: greedy after Truth. But this kind of selfishness is a good kind of selfishness.
As long as we are in the physical body and there is the sense of the “l,” selfishness will always be—it cannot be avoided. At least there should be a good kind of selfishness leading us towards the Goal….
62 Rebuff to a Bore
10th February, 1966
“IN DHYANA THE MIND IS THROWN SOMEWHERE. Where does it go?
The smaller is supposed to be absorbed into the Greater. And what is this Greater? One should not say God, not even Almighty. It is Absolute Truth. Truth as such is absolute and it is everywhere. The mind itself forms part of this Absolute Truth. Imagine an earthen jug—air is contained in it. When the jug is broken, the air will merge again into the surrounding atmosphere. If the jug is mended, some air again will be imprisoned in it. But will the surrounding air be affected? Surely not. You have seen how it is done. (He put a newcomer into Dhyana just before this talk.) “In the Bhagavad Gita, there is a hint: Param Para… it means from the heart.”’
I said that I thought that Param Para means ”succession,” as in the Sufi Dynasty.
“Yes, it is the same thing… from heart to heart, a succession.”
The man who was with him had a very disturbed mind; everything was falling away from him. He had a good position (Home Secretary of Mattar Pradesh), a car, good food, friends, influence, everything.
And everything was a burden to him; he wanted nothing; his life seemed so useless. After he had left, Bhai Sahib commented: “Viragya (detachment) without love is a burden and very troublesome; it gives no satisfaction.”
When I told this to Sharma, he said: “It is the detachment from the particular and attachment to the Universal. And the Universal is Prem (Love). It is at this turning point that one needs a Guru.” He was right. I had this experience in the past. I was traveling in India and, as the time went on, I kept thinking: what for? One more town, one more valley, or river, or mountain. It all seemed so useless….
Darjeeling… Chandigarh… Kashmir… so pointless… so boring… and it was then, that I met Guruji. I was ready, and when the disciple is ready… well, we know the rest.
This morning the longing was strong. But as I sat in his presence, there was everlasting peace. And I could hardly keep my eyes open… even the body was so completely at rest that I lost myself somewhere….
He was dressed all in white, kurta and trousers, and looked so young, and so gay. Partly he was dictating letters to Bhim his youngest son, partly he was talking and laughing with the usual crowd seated around. I was looking at him. Bhim with the eager, sensitive face, is really getting very handsome, I was thinking… and so like his father….
11th February
ON THE FRONT OF MRS. SHARMA’S BUNGALOW there are two creepers coming high up to the flat roof terraces. One—orange, large, tubular, flowers; the other, rich scarlet. Poinsettia is flowering at the bottom of the garden, and the beds are full of roses. A large, scarlet creeper is tightly hugging one of the columns of the veranda near the table where we take our meals. It is such a lovely thing—covered with bunches of rich scarlet, dark green glossy leaves. Early in the morning the sky in the east was robed in the colors of the dawn, grey stripes of clouds cutting across it. The Moti Jheel Park was just beyond where the garden ended. One could see the street lights, the lit windows of the houses behind the trees at the other end of the park and, far on the horizon, the dome-shaped temple standing like a sentinel watching over the just—awakening town. From where I was standing, one could not see the chimneys of the factories as from the flat roof of Pushpa’s house.
I sniffed the wind—the gorgeous smell of lndia’s endless distances.
Sky everywhere, and the daily drama of sunrises and sunsets…. I cried in the afternoon and my heart was very heavy because Mr. Sharma had said to me that he asked Guruji point blank what H. had achieved. And apparently he had said that she had achieved nothing.
“I gave her something to encourage her, but she is still in Dal-Dal (morass).”
I did hope so much that H. did get something. For her it was such a sacrifice to come here… sitting there in the afternoon, Hindi was spoken, and Guruji answered questions on Atma, Dhyana, the function of the mind, and so on. And I could not help thinking bitterly, that Bhai Sahib, sitting for so many years with his Rev. Master, at least had the advantage of listening to what he was saying to others—never mind that he did not speak to him or very seldom.
When Guruji got up and went inside, pandit Meva Ram said to me: “We are speaking about you. We are saying what an advantage it is that you don’t understand our language. So the mind remains without distraction and you can concentrate on one thing.” I said there is not much concentration—the mind wanders and I get very bored. In this moment he came back.
“Bored, why?” he asked. I explained that it is a very hard punishment not to understand anything… month after month to sit here from morning till evening….
“When I was with my Revered Guru,” he interrupted, “I never could follow what he said. The mind was not working… God knows what was happening. I never could follow him. All I knew was that he was speaking; that was all. Also my Father and my uncle, as far as I could see, did not understand. Sometimes he used to ask: ‘Munshiji, did you follow?’—‘Yes Sir!’ he answered; that was all.”
I laughed in astonishment: “So we are in the same boat!” The idea amused me. “But at least it was your language; from time to time to time you must have understood at least something! It would be so wonderful to get the meaning of your many explanations, at least something, even if I
am not able to absorb all of it. I am sure it would be helpful!”
“But you benefit from non-understanding!” said Meva Ram.
I shook my head in disagreement. “I am a human being after all; it is bitter to sit here mute and dumb for months on end…. “
“Change the patterns of your days; give yourself a change,” suggested Meva Ram.
“Yes, there will be a change,” said Guruji, and he fell silent thinking of something.
“But the change Bhai Sahib must make,” I said, “I cannot. I cannot do anything else but what I am doing. It is impossible! It is like a compulsion to come here and to sit, and if I am even ten minutes late I am restless! I simply HAVE to come here; it is an urge and a necessity for me.”
He kept looking at me thoughtfully, thinking something, and I had once more a splitsecond feeling of panic, like a premonition; it passed…. Happy Babu came, the wedding album was brought, and I pointed out to him the photos of Bhai Sahib I would like to have for H. and for myself. His brother is a professional photographer; he took all the wedding photographs.
Later it was nearly seven—I was thinking that I will go home soon.
It was dark already. Suddenly he asked: “Are you depressed?” I told him, not exactly; but my feelings are hurt because Mr. Sharma told me what he had said about H.
“About H.?” he repeated. “I don’t understand.” So, I came nearer with my chair and told him. He shook his head in disapproval.
“I never discuss anybody except only when I have to say something favorable about them. And if people ask, I give such answers that they will not ask again. That is how Sharma understood it; it was his interpretation of my answer. Certainly not mine. If you believe what people say, how will you protect yourself?
Who will protect you if I am not with you, or if I am dead? People ask me: have you realized God? Have you realized the Self? I have not realized the Self. I have not realized God, I answer.”
“Bhai Sahib, this is a lie!” I laughed. “It is not nice to tell a lie!”
“Why a lie? If I am nowhere, how can I realize something? To realize something there must be somebody to realize: if I am nothing, if I am nowhere, how can I have realized something?”
I was amused at the cleverness of the answer and how philosophically correct it was….
“I often say to my children, to my brother: ‘You are nowhere.’ It is a nice thing to say—it is helping people. My Father used to tell me: ‘You know nothing; you are nowhere!’ I don’t remember to have had a talk with Sharma about H., but if I have said that she is nowhere, as he says, so he did not understand what I have meant.
That’s all. You should not let your mind to be so easily disturbed.
Keep it quiet and still.”
I left. And walking home I was thinking how subtle the training is: a passing remark, a sentence here and there sometimes said in a casual way and easily forgotten when not written down, and even then I don’t remember it because I don’t read what I have written.
Sometimes it is clearing a point… like today… taking his stand in a definite way, but more often confusing my mind with contradictions.
13th February
ON TilE PHYSICAL PLANE, or the worldly platform, as Guruji likes to put it, the Sufi training is chiefly a test of endurance. How much one can endure for the sake of love. How much and how long one can tolerate.
Yesterday morning when I came, he was already outside doing his mala. He was dressed in white. And I wondered why he has his mala again. When he is in his official Sufi dress, all in white AND doing his mala, it means he will subject me to some tests or something of the sort. Usually I saw him in this apparel when he had to test me or gave a sitting to someone, in other words, when he was on “official duty.”
What a beautiful sight it is to see a Saint praying, I was thinking, and as his slender, strong, fingers passed one bead after another, I began to repeat La-il-llillah mentally. So we both did it together, only he held the mala and I kept his rhythm. At one moment after a while he gave me a glance as if to say: I know what you are doing, and then changed the position of his legs in such a way that the left knee hid his hand and the mala. It made me smile inwardly and I continued my practice following the rhythm of his wrist which I could see from where I was sitting. Soon Sharma came and he got up and went inside. As soon as he left, one of the new men, a droning bore, began to talk. And he talked and he talked in Hindi, an English word thrown in from time to time (probably for my benefit). A large, chauffeur-driven car brought Mrs. Sharma, and she also went inside.
The bore kept droning. He kept afflicting even the fat Bandhari who from time to time kept closing his eyes. The Sharmas were inside for already more than two hours. At one moment I could not stand it any longer. The bore was droning now about concentration and its benefits.
“How can you concentrate if you don’t stop talking?” I asked.
“For over two hours you did not stop for one moment, and you prevented us from concentrating. How can you benefit if your mind is working like this? This is not a place for talking—that you can do elsewhere. Here we come for something else. Bandhari Sahib does not talk; he absorbs in silence!”
“Thank you, thank you!” said the man, obviously infuriated about my remark. But he fell silent at last and I gave a sigh of relief.
Only I noticed that Bandhari did not appreciate my interference.
Strange mentality have the Indian men; a woman must not speak up in their presence, and as to pulling up a man—this is unheard of! A woman is a woman and should know her place…. After a few minutes the Sharmas came out and we left by car. When I was walking with them to the gate, I heard his laughing voice from inside: “Aia, aia, come in!” and saw the bore and his colleague go in. Bandhari remained seated. Poor Guruji, I thought.
Later his son told me that last night they stayed till half past ten, and this morning they came at seven and remained so long that he had to tell his father that it is already late for lunch. The bore did not like it. I hoped that he will not come this afternoon. He did not. But Bhai Sahib, as soon as I came, went inside. I saw only his back disappearing through the door. He closed all the shutters and went to rest.
Later about six, a stream of people began to arrive. They all went inside, at least most of them. The rest were sitting where I was, under the mango tree, shouting their heads off on the topics of the day and politics.
Bandhari came and asked aggressively: “Can I sit down?”
“It is a pleasure!” I smiled at him sweetly. But after a short time I had to leave because his booming voice covered all the others and it became unbearable. They all shouted now, each trying to prove his point. So I began to walk up and down in the garden and then took my chair and put it near the wall of the bungalow where the empty chair of Guruji was standing. People came, one after another, and in twos and threes they all went into the room. Vippin came, and his wife and daughter and her child. I sat outside, this time alone; all went in. It began to get dark. My heart was heavy. Ten minutes before seven his brother opened a chik a little and said: “Yes, you can come in!” So, I went in.
The small room was full of shouting men. The smell of feet was strong. My head was already aching from listening to shouting all day long. As soon as I sat down, he gave me a look. I lowered mine; I felt like crying, so exhausted I was.
“I will be coming back,” he said, and went out to take his tea. The men shouted all together, arguing. I waited for ten minutes. Then I went home. And I cried all the way home out of sheer exhaustion and frustration. Had no food. Could not swallow anything. Felt so sore and tired and cried myself to sleep…. There is complete separation from Him. Sometimes I look at Guruji and think, full of wonder: this nearness. A tremendous, intimate, nearness somewhere… like a haunting memory in the shadow of my dreams where the mind could not reach…. But when he is testing me like this, there is complete separation. He looks even evil to me, in a way, and I am afraid to go to his place; it be
comes a place of torture and evil….
14th February
IT WAS RAINING TONIGHT. And this morning it was dark and stormy.
The sun rose amongst threatening grey clouds in blood-red and crimson. My room was filled with red light. It was quite uncanny. I will go there now. It will be cold and uncomfortable… sitting in the draughty doorway probably….
As soon as I walked through the garden gate the brother told me that he was not well; shortly after I had left last night and he was having his tea, he got a heart attack, or a weakness; as usual, nobody knew for sure what it was. Bandhari came almost at the same time, and Virendra came out and asked us inside. The sound of singing came from the room as we were approaching. He was lying on the tachat. At his feet on the floor in kneeling asana was the young man who was singing so beautifully at the Bandhara. It was he who was singing now. And his voice was so tender and devoted that it brought tears to my eyes. Several men were sitting. They all listened with closed eyes. I looked at Guruji who, as soon as I saluted him, beckoned me to sit in the large chair in which he usually sits and which belonged to his father. So, I could see his face from where I was. A strange face. Pale. With large nostrils as if hungry for air…
the same face when he was so ill a few years ago. His eyes, veiled with Samadhi, were full of tears. Ragunath Prasad came. He probably felt that he was ill, and came from Lucknow as he usually does when it happens. He took his pulse. Later I was told that he had hardly any pulse, such a weak one, like a child. He opened his eyes for a moment and said something in Hindi to his son. The latter took a sheet of paper from the recess and gave it to the singer. The singer began to recite it in his soft, vibrating voice. Bhai Sahib opened his eyes and looked straight at me. My God, what eyes!!
Daughter of Fire Page 67
