THE RETURN OF ENLIGHTENED BEINGS FROM AGE TO AGE
There have been many self-realized individuals in the world who merge away into Divinity, much like a drop of water dissolving into the ocean and becoming one with the sea. Then another class sits on the fence, like Buddha, Krishna, and Christ. They sit on the wall.
They can merge away if they want to, or they can come back and retake birth if they want to. Their hearts are filled with kindness and compassion, which is why they keep coming back again and again. Like the Gita says, when there is a significant imbalance in the world, when evil rises, I shall be born again and again from age to age. And that is true. That is true.
They are not the ones who would want to merge away. They found that consciousness, explored in its entirety, merged into it, and by will, they took birth. And their will is determined by us. We assess their will. Because as a person radiates an emanation of some force from him, likewise, a city emanates a certain force, a country emanates a certain force, the whole world emanates a certain force. And it is that force, that very emanation, that draws that Christ or Buddha back to this planet.
WE NEED TO HAVE A CERTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS TO RECOGNIZE A BUDDHA OR A CHRIST
There may be one man living at this time who is simultaneously inhabiting many other worlds, holding different jobs. Because once you know the entirety of consciousness. It is similar to holography, where a hologram can be broken down into its constituent parts, and the entire picture can still be reconstructed from a small piece of it. There is one transmitting station, but its transmission could reach millions of wireless sets throughout the country. The oneness is there and yet it is within each and everyone here, and not only on this planet but on many, many other planets and places of existence where the fullness is there of that. When there is a radio broadcast, a transmission, such as a symphony, you do not only hear a bit of the symphony on one radio, a bit in another, and a bit in another. No. You hear the whole symphony of five million radios. In that way, the consciousness is everywhere doing its job.
But I can tell you one thing, though: Buddha or Christ should have taken down your main street; they might get arrested for vagrancy because we have got to have a certain consciousness to recognize that consciousness. Because these individuals live on two levels simultaneously, there is another paradox—human, no different than you and me. Yet, like the two birds in the tree, they live on two different levels of existence: in that vast universal level and yet at the same time in the individual level. The only difference between you and Christ is that you live at a particular level, whereas Christ lives at the universal level, which can be experienced, and I speak from experience, not from books.
I only discuss the experiences that I have personally had and am having, but you can live in those two levels simultaneously. So, you are God and man.
WE CANNOT JUDGE A MASTER
As you know, a great many people have very stringent preconceptions of what a master ought to be and what his level ought to be, and that is the trouble. You are projecting your prejudices, your own biases, like this woman who went to this political party with her particular ideals. Those ideals come from your thought level, from your understanding, and we have no right to have a fixed ideal in our minds. Therefore, it is said in the Bible, “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” It is very accurate. How can you judge a person who lives on two levels simultaneously, when you are not living on those two levels? When you lack knowledge, how can you judge something less, with a limited mind?
There is a story of a monk who was sitting around the fire with his chelas, and all of a sudden, the monk, the guru, spiritual master, pulled out a piece of burning coal and jabbed it in the arm of one of his chelas sitting there. So, everyone was aghast; they were shocked. “How can you do this?” He was the epitome of kindness and compassion. Yet, you burn your chela. So later, he had to explain. He said, “The destiny of this man, within a week, was to be burned alive, and I averted it.” So, if we see such a man jabbing his chela with a burning piece of coal, we would think, “Oh, my God. Let us not have anything to do with him.”
Ramakrishna, a great sage who lived at the turn of the 19th century, if any psychiatrist or psychologist should see him today, would say he is mad, insane. One day, he was walking on the road, and he saw a dog eating food out of a bowl. Ramakrishna went to sit next to that dog and ate from the dog’s bowl with the dog. If you see that, would you say that is madness? But to him, he felt that the food and the bowl and the dog and he were but one! The same essence, the same consciousness.
So, we never judge. We never project our ideals upon a master. But we can ask ourselves, “Does my master benefit me? Does my master give me a better understanding of life? Does my master gently guide me along the spiritual path and show me the way? Am I gaining anything more, my serenity, calmness, peace, am I gaining?” That is the question to ask yourself, and not to judge a master. You cannot.
WE CANNOT PROJECT OUR IDEALS ON A SPIRITUAL MASTER
My guru, Parvitranandaji, used to do funny things. But I knew, I mean, I could recognize it. For eight months, he would never, ever so much as speak to me, and if he did, he would shout at me. He would say, “Pick up that piece of paper lying there. What is it doing there?” or “That pen lying there. What is it doing there?” But I stuck it out, you see. I would say, “Oh, look at this guy,” you know, “he is ignoring me.” You must listen to the tape I made in England about Parvitranandaji and our relationship. You must, you will love it.
But he was a true master, a self-realized man. He was not an avatara, but he was a self-realized man, and I used to speak to him many times. I used to visit him once a year while I was living in South Africa, and I have lived there for about twenty-seven to twenty-eight years. However, every year I took the trip to visit him. At that time, I was in big business, money and everything, and I used to tell him, “Look, let me start up an ashram for you, so that more chelas can come and you can teach others.” But he said, “No. I came for one mission; it is to take you to realization, and you start teaching the world.” I was his only chela. Do you see? So, how can it hurt? You would say, Oh, Parvitranandaji, a self-realized man, an intellectual genius, and a spiritual giant. That is what he used to call me, and I would say, “Guruji, do not talk nonsense.” But he was that. So, we cannot project our ideals.
THE TRUE GURU KNOWS THE KIND OF MEDICINE THAT IS REQUIRED
I think we are causing bad karma by projecting our ideals on what a master should be. They are damn funny people, I can promise you. So, how can you understand funny people? They will make you laugh; they will make you cry. They will tell you one thing today, and next week they will tell you something else, creating a conflict in your mind so that the real conflict within you can be resolved. But then you would say, “Hey, Guruji, you told me this last week, and this week you are telling me that. It is so opposed to each other.” But the true guru knows. He knows. He knows the kind of medicine that is required. You cannot judge.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1983 – 03
