APPRECIATE THE SIMPLICITY OF LIFE AND THE GREATNESS OF IT WILL DESCEND UPON YOU
Vivekananda had given a discourse in a hall not far from where he lived, and on the way back they were talking and walking. He said, “Hey, I have got it!” They were all so excited and wanted to know, “You know, he has made some great discovery.” He said, “You know, I was wondering about that soup that I had eaten tonight, and the secret of that soup was the bay leaf.” What a momentous discovery.
It all means that if one can learn to appreciate the simplicity of life, the greatness of it all just descends upon you. He enjoyed that bowl of soup and wondered why it was so wonderful, and then he said, “I have made the most momentous discovery. It was the bay leaf, ah.”
Why do we not find those bay leaves in our lives, the simple, lovely little things that would make us so, so happy, that would make us radiate an inner joy, inexplicable?
TO THE GREAT SPIRITUAL MASTERS, THE BODY IS MERELY A VEHICLE
One of my chelas wanted to know about the relationship between the Guru and the Chela after the Guru leaves the body. Many tapes have been made on that, but of course we could always approach it from a different angle.
The Guru never leaves the body, for he has found the secret that the body, the mind and the spirit are one. He does not leave the body. He would transform the forms in which he exists, but he never leaves the body, because his body is not the material body that you would think of. The true Guru lives in a body, which you could call ethereal, which you could call by any name you like, but he is not this physical flesh and blood, for that means nothing. It is a conveyance.
You want to ride from here to Vancouver. You get onto the ferry. How important is that ferry to you while you are on it? You will go to the restaurant and have a cup of tea, a snack, and a sandwich. But that is not the point; you want to reach the other side. You want to get from Victoria to Vancouver. Likewise, the Guru does not care whether he has a body, whether he has a beautiful big ferry to drive into, a big car, perhaps a Cadillac, so comfortable to ride in, or whether it is just a little Volkswagen, which is just as important as the Cadillac. What difference does it make to the Guru between a Volkswagen and a Cadillac – none at all. The difference or the purpose is to go from Victoria Island to the mainland called Vancouver.
The Guru never bothers or worries about his body at all. If you study the lives of great Masters, such as Ramana Maharshi, he suffered very severely from cancer, a great Master, a self-realised soul. If you study the life of Vivekananda, in the last years of his life he was a severe asthmatic and could hardly breathe. If you study the life of Ramakrishna, he suffered greatly from throat cancer. If you study the life and the works of Christ, of Jesus, he suffered from thrombosis in the leg, so when those nails were driven through his leg, he did not feel any pain at all; it was totally numb.
You see, these great Spiritual Masters do not care for their bodies because they themselves do not live in their bodies. It is not necessary for them, because the spirit is so eternal within them that they have found the eternity of that spirit. They have found that, and they use the body just as a vehicle, a conveyance, like your ferry boat going up and down from Victoria to Vancouver. That is all. But if the ferryboat can be kept stronger, well oiled, it could last a bit longer.
Many of these people do not bother with that at all. They say, “My work is done. I have come to do what I had to do, and here I go.” Take the life of Ram Tirtha, who was appointed a Professor of Mathematics at the age of 22. What a brain he had, and he taught and taught – and when he felt he had finished his teaching at the age of 32, he walked into the river, sat down in a lotus position, and just stopped breathing.
THE TRUE GURU SYMBOLISES AND SHOWS THE PATH OF ONENESS IN ALL LOVE AND IN ALL PURITY
There is a difference here. The desperate commit suicide; the enlightened leave their bodies. It is not suicide; it is “Godiside,” if I might coin a new word. So, what relationship is there when a Guru leaves his body? Why do you talk of relationships? Whenever you think of a relationship, the thought behind it is separation. Let relationship be itself. It is self-existent in the relationship, but the motivating factor behind relationship is separationship. When a Guru and a Chela have come together in that Divine bond, not a physical bond, not a mental bond, but that Divine bond of the recognition of the spirit within each other, they would find that my spirit as the Chela and his spirit as the Guru are non-different. It is one.
So, wherever there is that oneness, how can there be relationships? The word falls away. It has to fall away because when you talk of relationships, it means two people communicating in whatever way, mental, physical, spiritual, whatever, but there are two. But when the realisation dawns that we are but one, at the highest level, the spiritual level, where I, my Guru, my God, my universe, my everything is one, then you reach the stage where you do not give and you do not take, because who is giving to whom and who is taking from whom? There is only one. If you have five dollars in your left-hand pocket and you transfer it to your right-hand pocket, where is it going to? Only to you. You are just transferring it from there to there. It is still in your own pocket. In the same way, the relationship between Guru and Chela works when the stage is reached where you feel that oneness and closeness, a total at-one-ment, a total at-one-ment, at-one-ment. And I am not referring to after-dinner mints. One-ment, totality.
Once that is realised, you feel oneness with the entire universe and all of creation, with manifestation and the Manifestor, for the true Guru only symbolises and shows you the path of that oneness in all love and in all purity. He will teach in so many different ways, some of which would not be recognised, while others would be known, but the finality would be that “That, ah, on reflection, looking back, you know, that old boy said that. It means something.”
MY PRINCIPAL AIM IN LIFE IS FOR YOU TO KNOW YOUR REAL SELF
It becomes applicable to your life, and you start realising more and more the oneness, because you could never establish oneness with God, which is a mental concept, as I have told you so many times before. But you could establish oneness with a human being such as you, who could inspire or give that human impulse by a glance, by a look, by a touch. That is the difference. That is why true Masters are needed in this world, not these false multi-millionaires, money-makers. They are running a racket, a business, and I tell them to their faces. Maharishi shivers in his pants when I speak to him. He does not wear any pants, in any case. It is easier to have this dhoti for his purposes. And the same thing with Muktananda and you name them all. I know them all.
“Are you making religion a business?” I went to Muktananda’s Ashram, and they had all those lights, you know, the infra-red and that ultraviolet, and all that, creating the mood and the pearl, and they had musicians playing lovely, soft music to get you into a mood. Is mood-making making you go closer and closer to the spirit that is within you? No. You can make any kind of moods. You could create devices that could create these moods. My principal aim in life, my mission, is for you to know yourself, your real self, and that does not come from mood-making. Moods have nothing to do with your spirit. Moods only have to do with your mind, because that is where moods are created. That is where moods are regenerated, and that is where moods are powered and empowered. But there is no mood. You discard the mind, you discard the moods, you discard the body, and you flow away into your real self. And when you flow away into your real self, you know the essence of yourself. The essence is there, brilliant, sparkling, joyous, and even for a few moments you mix yourself with that essence. Your life becomes so beautiful. You are baking a cake, say a two-pound cake. You do not need ten gallons of vanilla essence to put into your two-pound cake. You only need two or three drops, something like that, that is all. It gives the cake its flavour. That essence that you can draw from within gives you the flavour to the cake of your life.
IN THE COMPANY OF A SPIRITUAL MASTER
So, stop being cookies. I was a cookie too, and what a cookie I was. They just loved me to pieces. That is the world I came from – I had to work in Film Studios, starting as a sweeper and then as an Assistant Scriptwriter, Assistant Director, Assistant Casting Director, Assistant Producer, Assistant Cameraman, and all this, that and what-have-you, to pay my way through university. So, I know it all. And these little cookies used to run after me night and day! I think I have savoured more cookies than I have had breakfasts! And I am honest enough to tell you this. I have known life in all its facets, but that was the play of life I had to experience. It was necessary for me, because my Guru told me, “Your destiny is to be a Spiritual Master, but go into the world and experience everything, and then you are a Spiritual Teacher for the people. If you have not experienced things yourself, how are you going to advise and how are you going to teach?” It makes no sense being a monk – because that is what I wanted to be, a monk living in the caves – so Parvitranandaji said, “To be a monk is monkey business. Go out there, down there, experience life, and from your own personal experiences of life you can teach and help humanity.”
Here is a girl who is a qualified Psychologist, but when she speaks to me about the human mind, she will admit to you, even now, that she cannot even come near to touching my toes. Am I right? Experience, and this is what I want to give you, experience, experience, experience of your inner self, not false beliefs. When they talk in the Scriptures of false prophets and false Gods, that is what is referred to, false beliefs, because you could never have a false God or a false prophet without you first having a false belief.
Once in the company of a Spiritual Master, you gain a little. There is no magic wand we can wave. It takes its own time. Gradually, it seeps in, and in that seeping you will find that life begins to assume a different meaning. Things that seemed so dark to you before will seem brighter, a little at a time. “Lead thou me on, kindly light, one step at a time.”
THE FINAL REALISATION OF MAN IS TO FIND THE CHRIST, THE KRISHNA, THE BUDDHA WITHIN EVERYONE
That wall there might seem very dark to you now, but as the sunlight gradually catches it, it will become lighter. So what are we actually doing? We are allowing that sunlight to infiltrate our lives, and that is how Les, for example, could compose such wonderful music, or how Caroline could play her flute – when she played it for me last year, I got so lost that, to me, she became Krishna. Because my perception was not of Caroline when she started her flute, I melted away in her flute and went into the time of Krishna. I am trying to tell you that Ramakrishna, Buddha, Christ are here and now. What is not here is your perspective of life. That is not here. That is missing.
And that is what we humble Yogis try to impart to you, the perspective in which, after a few notes, Caroline transformed for me into Krishna. I would see a humble beggar on the road with a staff, sitting on the wayside, so tired, and I would look at him. I would wash his feet. I have done this many, many times in all my travels in the Himalayas, trying to find God. Sit down, wash his feet, give him whatever food I had with me, a little bowl I was carrying, which was a begging bowl. You would go to a house, you would say, “Ma, Mother, I am hungry, have you got some food?” Some of them closed the doors; some of them did give you. So what?
So, I would share it with this beggar sitting under the tree, but to me he was not a beggar, not a poor man, but a Buddha sitting under that tree. This is the final realisation of man, to find the Christ, the Krishna, the Buddha within everyone. This is one thing I have against theology; it separates you from God. You are not separate from the Lord. If you were separate from Him, you could never live, because the very lifeforce in you is the Lord. The very lifeforce is God, and because of the commercialisation of various Theological Schools and Theologies, they separate you.
Realise, for once and for all, that He is there in you, within you, in every cell of your body. You are permeated by Him. And when you realise this, that I am not only of Divine origin but I am the origin of Divinity, I and my Father are one, one, one, one. I do not know who invented all these damn zeros. You can have a thousand zeros on your cheque book, but if you do not put the one in front, your cheque is worthless. That One. That is the important thing. And where is that One? Not somewhere in the sky. Forget all that. That One is here and in here. Because of that oneness, there is contained, is filled and is full with all your skies and your trees and all the beauty around us. It is all there.
DO NOT FEAR GOD, DO NOT LOVE GOD, BE GOD – YOU ARE IT
So, what does all this mean? It means this. Do not fear God, because that is what they try to instil in you. When they could not capture you with love, the theologies tried to capture you with fear, eternal damnation, which is actually a contradiction of terms, and that is what all of them have done so far. I say to you, do not fear God. I say to you, do not love God. I say to you, be God. Be God. Because you are It, but the veils are obscuring your view of yourself. The only thing you need to see is yourself, and everything else is seen. Is that not in agreement with theologies? Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within. Man know thyself. Tat Tvam Asi, Brahmasmi – I can give it to you in many languages. It means the same. “You are It.” Realise that.
Realise you are It, that great It, which is indefinable, neither male nor female, that Divine energy, and that you are that Divine energy. And when you realise this, when you realise the divinity of this Divine energy, you will be rid of all your guilt, all your fears, all your shortcomings. You will be rid of the thing that bugs you most, lack of confidence. You become confident, you become strong. You have that when you realise that I am It. And if I am It and everything is It, what can defy me? What can defy me? Nothing. Nothing can defy me. There is no such word as defy in my dictionary, and if I should use words such as defy, it is only for definition. So fine, it is so fine, so subtle, so beautiful, so fine, then why do you defy? “De” is a negation of fine. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.
Life is beautiful. There is one certainty. Worry as much as you want to about life, worry, worry, worry about life, I do not give a damn, worry about life. But know one thing for sure, you are not going to get out of life alive. So why worry about it in the first place, damn it. Can you imagine the stupidity – the stupidity of this human so-called mind? Take it as it comes, and everything is good; there is nothing bad.
A TRUE GURU HAVE NO FAVOURITE CHELAS, THE LOVE IS EQUALLY SPREAD
If I stand up here now and slap my daughter’s face, you will say, “Oh, God, Guruji, you did this.” But can you really understand the relationship between the Guru and the Chela?
There is a little story you might know. This Guru was sitting with his Chelas around a fire in those ancient days, and one of his favourite disciples was sitting next to him. Actually, a true Guru has no favourite disciples or favourite Chelas; to him, all are the same. Everyone. Some are very close to him, of course, to look after his needs, so they are closer. I can shout and say, “Hey Vidya, I want a cup of tea now, please, if you do not mind. Is my shawl ironed? Wake me up at this time if I am gone into meditation.” That is a different thing, but the love is equally spread.
So, this Guru was sitting around the fire with some of his Chelas, and he pulled out a burning stick and stabbed a burning coal into the arm of one person who was supposed to be his favourite Chela, someone he was very close to, who used to serve him. Everyone was in turmoil and said, “Oh Guruji, Guruji, what have you done? Why did you burn this man?” And he said, “Oh, please shut up, go to bed, do not ask me those questions.” But they persisted, and then the Guru said, “OK, let me tell you something now. This man’s destiny was to be burnt to death in fire, and by jabbing him with a little fire, that calamity has been averted.” On this Course, you will find that a very, very dear friend of ours has suffered a certain loss, and I promise you one thing, that loss will be made up tenfold. Yes. You will know it in a few months’ time; I do not even need to be here.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1984 – 08
