THE MASTER ANSWERS PART 15, Mysticism, reading, forums, Numerology, Sun Signs, Divination

Posts: 5115 · Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:27 am

Q Is not God's grace the power to shape all that we are destined to become?

A God's grace is always there, but brother, we have to become receptive to His grace. If it is raining very heavily and your cup is upside down, not a drop of water will get into it. You have to put that cup with the right side up, then it will be filled with rain water. So God's grace is always there, within everyone of us, but we have to be receptive to that grace, and by receptive I mean that we have to withdraw our consciousness to that point where His grace is coming day and night. Unless we attach ourselves to that and unless we are filled with that love and devotiion to the Lord, naturally these desires and attachments of the world will not go out of us. There is no limit to His grace, which is everywhere but we have to be receptive.

Q How may we always keep our love for you in the first position, as our highest desire? How can we keep it there if we do not display it so much?

A Brother, display is on the outside. The real love is expressed within. Meditation automatically creates devotion and love for the Lord. When we love the Lord, we also love the travelers on the same path, and we all become nearer to each other. Supposing you are away from your wife, and somebody comes from your wife. You like to talk to him about your wife, and he also becomes dear to you because he is talking about your wife to you, and you always like to hear about your wife. So,he also becomes dearer to you. Similarly, saints or Masters always come and talk about the Lord and thus create His devotion in us. So, they also become dear to us. We also love them. The meditation, as advised by the saints, creates this affection, love and devotion in us.

Q When you refer to saints now in your answers, are you referring to gurus? There are other saints, are there not?

A There are many saints. A saint is a saint, wherever he may be. Guru is a Sanskrit word, and it means 'teacher' or 'master'. Guru also means one who brings light into darkness. That is the literal meaning of guru, teacher or 'master'. Guru also means one who brings light into darkness. That is the literal meaning of guru, teacher or master, because he gives us knowledge, wisdom. After all, these are just words. All real spiritual gurus are saints, but all saints may not be gurus or masters.

There is a technical difference between a saint and a Guru. Saint is one who has reached a certain spiritual stage and has become one with the Lord. He may not be authorized to initiate and take the souls back to God. Jesus says in The Bible that the Father hath given authority to the Son to execute judgment and to give unto you that meat which endureth unto everlasting life "for him hath God the Father sealed."

For example, an advocate and a judge both have the same legal qualifications but whereas the judge is authorized to pass judgment, the advocate with the same qualifications has no such authority. But the words 'Saints' and 'Guru' in everyday language carry the same meaning.

Q Can you tell us more about love and how we can develop it in ourselves?

A The more you give love, the more it grows. The more you share it, the more you will have it in abundance. The more we share it with His creation, the more He gives us, and the more we feel nearer to Him.

Q Maser, love is very important on the path. Who helps to develop this love? Does the initiate really have to generate this love himself for the Master himself help the disciple to generate love for the Master?

A Brother, it is the Lord's gift. He gives it. We think that we love. Actually, He gives us His love. We think we love the Lord; but it is He who gives us His devotioin and His love. He is within us. He creates that love and devotion within us so that we love Him. The love comes from that side, but we have to be receptive to that love, He has given us this bliss, this joy. Nothing comes without His grace. To be frank, it is He who gives us love.

Q Maharaj Ji, says that we should be receptive to it. What is the best way to be receptive to it?

A Well, the best way to be receptive is, when He would like us to be receptive, we will become receptive. He knows the ways and means to make us receptive. But, we have to read the literature, attend the meetings, help each other, and devote the required time every day, regularly and punctually, to the spiritual practice. we have to live in Sant Mat, in that atmosphere. All these are means to be receptive to His love.

Q Sister, we should never entertain the guilty feeling of being a bad satsangi. As I told you, there are no failures in Sant Mat. You are going ahead. You have to go ahead. But we have to be satsangis, do not forget that. We should not forget the definition of a satsangi, and do our best to live up to it. The principles on which we have to stand, the time which we have to devote, these are pre-requisites of being a satsangi, what is expected of a satsangi. If we are real satsangis, we should have no feeling of guilt. Whether you are considered good or bad makes no difference as long as you remain a satsangi in the true sense of the word.

Q How does one develop true spiritual love for the Master and the satsangis, when he has grown rather hard in the business world and has almost forgotten brotherly love?

A Well, when it comes, it just comes, that is it. You do not have to build it, you do not have to grow it; it comes. When it is His grace, it comes, it just comes. For putting forth the effort, so to say, we should attend to the meditation daily, read literature on Sant Mat, hear Satsang which, unfortunately, you do not get an opportunity to do, and try to be in association with the saints. All these things help us to develop that love. But then, all these things can be done only when His grace is there. So, actually it comes back to the same thing that when He wants us to have it, only then it comes.

Q Master, can you tell us how we can increase our love for the Lord?

A The main thing is that it is in the hands of the Lord. We get love when He gets it. But when we are attending to the meditation, the love comes automatically. And when actual love comes within us, all human qualities automatically come in us like cream on milk. You do not have to fight for those human qualities to get them. They just come. Love brings everything in us. Everybody has virtues in him. But love, the real spiritual love, brings out these virtues.

The difference in spiritual love and worldly love is this: in spiritual love you are not conscious of anybody except the object of your love, except your Master or the Lord. In worldly love, you are always conscious of others, there is an instinct of possession, and then jealousy comes in when you are conscious of others. In spiritual love, there can be no jealousy, for you have forgotten the whole world; whether it exisits foryou or not, you are just in Him. That is the difference.

Q A man named Walter Russel once said that God said to him, "All men shall come to me in due time, but theirs alone shall be the agony of waiting that day." Is this a correct statement?

A Do you not think there is agony in waiting? We are all going through that agony of waiting. Every soul is the essence of the Lord. Unless we go back and merge into Him we cannot escape this agony. Just analyze the people here in the States. You have all the material objects to your credit. And what have you ot got for your comfort. Still you have not been able to say 'No' to agony or unhappiness. I think you have perhaps added to it.

Q We speak of mind a great deal. Can you tell us exactly what mind is and its relationship to the soul, and what it causes us so much trouble?

A Brother, I think I referred to this point a little yesterday. Soul is the essence of the Lord. Mind also is not a small thing. Its source is in Trikute, the second spiritual stage. The soul, having separated from the Lord, has taken the company of the mind. Mind itselfis not independent, for it has become the slave of the senses. The senses always keep the mind under their sway. So, being controlled by the senses, the mind does so many karmas --- good and bad actions. The result is that the sould also has to reap the fruit of what the mind does, as long as it has the association of the mind.

Mind is the agent of Kal, the Negative Power, and Kal does not want any soul to get out of his reach. So, with one trick or another, the mind always likes to keep us in the cycle of birth and death. The mind is a very obedient servant of its master. In its present state it is such a slave of teh senses that it does not want us to go back, merge back into the Lord. Sometimes, as a friend, it tries to deceive us. Sometimes, as an enemy, it tries to threaten us. The purpose of the mind is to keep us astray, not to let us go back to our own original Home. So, we have to release oursoul from the clutches of the mind.

Yesterday I tried to explain that in our body that seat of the soul and mind, knotted together, is in the center just behind our eyes. From here mind is being to the senses. Mind is fond of pleasures, and unless we give our mind a better and superior pleasure than that of the senses, it will not detach itself from the senses. And that superior pleasure is the Word,the Holy Ghost, the Shabd or Nam, which is within everyone of us, right behind the eyes. When with the help of Simran and with the help of contemplating on the form of the Master we try to withdraw and hold our consciousness at the eye center, then only we can be in touch with that Sound, with that Shabd, with that Nam. That attachment automatically detaches us from the senses. For example, a river is flowing. If you put a dam on that river, how long will you be able to hold the water? Perhaps a week, perhaps a month, and when there will be too much water, the water will break through the dam. The water will rush out over the banks. But if you put a dam there and you also direct the channel of the river into another direction, then the dam is permanent and the river starts flowing into another direction.

So we cannot keep our mind vacant. We cannot control it by austerities. We cannot control it just by analyzing it or merely by suppression. By just withdrawing ourselves from situations, we cannot control it. We can ony get temporary relief in that way. Just as you take a criminal and hand him over to the police, as long as he is in a police lock-up you are safe from his vicious doings. But as soon as he is released he does the same thing, if not worse. If, instead of handing him over to the police, you try to correct him to be a good man and explain to hi, he is reformed, and you are safe permanently from his vicious doings. Similarly, we are not to suppress our mind in an attempt to detach it from the senses. Unless we attach it to something better than the senses, the mind will never be detached from the worldly pleasures. We may try to control it by running away to the forests, by reading holy books, by giving alms, by going into seclusion or by rushing about, by escaping from situations, but in this way we get only temporary relief from it, and the moment it gets an opportunity it reacts and rebounds and again makes us dance to its tune.

We can only control our mind when we attach it to that Word, that Shabd, that Nam. Attachment to that, automatically detaches us permanently from the world. Then the mind goes back to its own origin, and the soul gets release from the mind. It is only then that the real love and devotion of the soul takes it back to the Lord. Socrates said, "Know thyself". It is only after the soul is released from the mind that it really knows itself. Then only does one realize "who am I", Only when we know ourselves we are capable of knowing the Lord. Till then we do not know our 'self' and, much less, who is the Lord. We are just under the sway of the mind.

Now the mind is our guide, our guru. Wherever it wants to go, we run after it. We are just following the dictates of the mind. Even our devotion to that Lord is also under the sway of the mind.

Now the mind is our guide, our guru. Wherever it wants to go, we run after it. We are just following the dictates of the mind. Even our devotion to that Lord is also under the sway of the mind now. But then, when we know our real 'self', it will be pure devotion, pure love, pure faith of the soul in the Lord. That alone can take it back to the Lord.

Q What happens to the mind when we die?

A Mind does not leave us, brother. The mind has piled up so many karmas, and according to our karmas, we are again given birth. The same mind and soul come back into another body. Another cage is ready for the mind and the soul, knotted together; another prison is ready for the unliberated soul and mind. You leave one body, another body is ready for you. Here your relatives are weeping because you have left them. In another place in this world your new relatives are all joyful and happy and dancing because you have come. That is the only difference. Nothing else happens. We leave one house, we cut off our relationship with them, and we get another set of relatives. We forget the previous ones and we are in love with the new ones. That is all. That is what the mind does to us.

Q You mention that the mind and soul are different and inimical?

A I discussed this in the evening meeting yesterday, that the mind is our enemy as long as it is pulling us down, pulling our soul down. Soul and mind are knotted together, and in the body their seat is behind the eyes, what you call the third eye or the single eye. From here we are being pulled by the senses, the trend of the mind is towards the senses. Mind has become the slave of the senses, and the soul, having taken the association of the mind, has become the slave of the mind. So, the soul has also become the slave of the senses. AS long as the mind is the slave of the senses, and attach it to Nam or Shabd or the Audible life Stream inside, the mind starts taking the soul along with it back to Trikuti, the origin or home of the mind, and in doing so, it becomes our best friend. Once the mind has reached its home, it stays there and the soul is free to go up and merge back into the Lord. The mind and the senses are the dross, the filth and the coverings of the soul, and when it is released from these coverings it is its own pure 'self', and merges back into the Lord.

Q What is it that directs the mind in that direction?

A You mean, what is it which pulls the mind from the senses and takes it towards its home? First, we have to understand why our mind runs to the senses. The reason is, it is fond of pleasures. Unless we give our mind better pleasures and better enjoyments than the sense pleasures, it will never leave the senses. The real enjoyment which can make us forget the sensual pleasures is that Word or Logos, or Audible Life Stream, which is in every one of us. When we concentrate our mind at the eye center and attach it to that, that attachment automatically detaches from the senses. That is what pulls the mind away from the senses and will take it back to its own origin.

Unless the mind is attached, it can never be detached. I will give you an example. If a beggar is asking for a penny and he gets the penny, if you try to snatch the penny from him, he is prepared to fight and die for it. If you give him a dollar or a pound, he will just drop the penny. That is the nature of the mind. Unless it gets something better than the sensual pleasures, it will never leave the senses. We try to detach it by austerities, by secluding ourselves, by running to forest, by analyzing ourselves. We think we have conquered the mind. Actually, we have just got temporary relief from the mind and that is the great deception, for the moment the mind gets a chance, it makes us dance on the hot coals. If we run to the forest for three or four years, we think we have conquered the mind. When we come back to the world, we face the same faces again, and our condition becomes even more abnormal than what it used to be. Suppression does not help. The more we suppress the mind, the more it is aroused when it reacts. If we direct it into a different channel, we attach it to something different, then it automatically detaches itself.