MAKE YOUR GARDEN BEAUTIFUL AND THE BUTTERFLIES WILL COME BY THEMSELVES
We say that when we take one step towards Divinity, Divinity takes ten steps towards us. You will find this occurrence in daily life when the mind is filled with goodness. Divinity is always synonymous with goodness. Nobody ever says Divinity is bad. So, if our minds are saturated with thoughts of Divinity, we draw grace from Divinity. It is a natural force of our thoughts, be it negative or positive, that whatever we think we will attract, and this attraction applies to love as well. If you want to be successful in anything, in a career, in love, in anything, and if your mind is firmly established on that particular object that you want to reach, you will find conditions around you that will make it conducive for you to achieve that object.
One of the secrets of success in worldly terms, of course, is to develop a burning desire. With a burning desire, you plan to make five million dollars in five years. That desire must burn within you; it must consume you. Meanwhile, you formulate a plan and work according to it, setting your goal. You will find that because of that burning desire, you will attract people and conditions to you that will further your plans and make you successful.
The same principle applies to Divinity, but here it is not a burning desire but a yearning to become one with Divinity. If there is any selfishness, that by becoming one with Divinity I will have this reward or that reward, or that reward, then it is not yearning, it becomes wishful thinking. So, you develop that love, that yearning for that which is Divine, and you proceed on the path towards Divinity, and because of your yearning and feelings within you that are so strong, you attract. Just as I used an analogy before, you do not need to call the butterflies; simply make your garden beautiful, and they will come on their own accord, hundreds of them.
OUR ACTIONS HAVE TO BE CONDUCIVE WITH THE LAWS OF NATURE
That principle also applies to love. The love between a man and a woman is not so dependent on both parties being together. Suppose, If you love a woman just for the sake of love, not for lust or any other greed, not because of any infatuation. In that case, you just love and you will find, for example, that the practice of Gurushakti is based upon that – you will find that she will start loving you, but for that, one needs strength, which is acquired through spiritual practices. When one loves strongly and deeply and first understands the meaning of love, that love is then activated in the entire relationship and the whole universe. I have never found anyone who hates me, and the reason is simple because I love everyone and everything. By loving everyone and everything, those who are receptive come to me with love. Love becomes a gift that you give unselfishly, and love is another name for expressing Divinity. Suppose you take a step in the direction of Divinity. In that case, Divinity takes ten steps towards you, not necessarily in the physical form that makes things easier for you or conducive for you, for who knows the ways of Divinity. A man might be going through so many troubles, there too, Divinity is at work. It is the energy of Divinity that enforces the law of karma, and whatever you sow, you reap. It enforces; the very Divine energy enforces that. Therefore, our actions have to be conducive to the laws of nature, to Divinity, or to love, which is the same thing.
LOVE KNOWS NO ATTACHMENT
Modern Psychologists would talk about physical and mental chemistry that brings two people together. There is some truth in it, but only a fraction of the truth. Whatever happens inside you does express itself in a kind of mental or physical chemistry. They cannot define the chemistry. They cannot define the various secretions in the body that make one love another. For lack of a better word, they would say that there is some mental chemistry at play when two people are deeply attracted. However, due to each experience, many of you can have a great deal of attraction and yet not love. It could be just a surface feeling, and then as you pursue this, the surface feeling would naturally fade away. But if it is from deep within, it would never, never fade away, and every day it would seem as if you had married your wife just yesterday, even if you are married for twenty-six years, twenty-seven, thirty years, still looking new.
But in the beginning, the chemistry, to use that expression, was not right, and that inner feeling was not there, and then people still dove on together for twenty-five, thirty years, but not with the intensity of love. They become attached, which is why they often live together. Love knows no attachment. They become dependent on each other, and so they are forced by circumstances to live together, rather than the husband having to hire a housekeeper to cook and clean, so he has a wife. The wife requires a breadwinner, so she has a husband, and they go through life for all those thirty, forty years, perhaps or whatever, being dependent upon each other, but not because of love. There is a difference. You find people saying, “Oh, John has been married for thirty years with his wife, and they must be loving each other so, so much,” but that is very seldom true.
LIKE DIVINITY, LOVE IS NOT A QUALITY
Supremely few people in this world can love, and as Dante has said, the greater the man, the greater his love. So, by greatness we do not mean that he is a Prime Minister of a country or some great genius. That is not greatness, that is surface greatness, perhaps in the eyes of ordinary people. To become the President of the country is an excellent aspiration. They might be worse off inside themselves than an ordinary man in the street. But Dante was describing the “Greatness within man,” explaining that integration that should be there to foster love.
People regard love to be a quality, but like Divinity, it is not a quality. Because qualities are definable, qualities can be detracted from or added to. You make a pot of curry, and if it is not strong enough, you add more masala and chilies to make it stronger. So, that curry has a pungent quality, and you can make it even more fragrant. But not love. Love is an expression of one’s totality, mind, body, and spirit, like the fragrance of a flower which is but an expression of itself. So, when one is integrated and learns to express oneself fully, then one will have a glimpse of what love is all about. And when that expression can be felt and experienced by both partners, then two people are truly in love.
A young man comes to me and says, “I met a girl yesterday, and I’ve fallen in love.” I would say that is pure rubbish; it is not true. You have an attraction, both mentally and physically; you might think alike, but that is not love. Love is something that grows and grows and grows and grows and grows. It is forever expanding, limitless, and every day becomes an exploration within the framework of love.
The man you have married or the woman you have married, how much do you know about her? Very little. Yes, you know she has brown hair, blue eyes, and a cute little nose, and so on. That is all you know, and if you go further, you know something about her mind. What is the most important thing that stands out in your mind? Oh, that she has a terrible temper. She would not take any nonsense. You see, the negative qualities always stand out more than the positive ones. Then, when you think a bit deeper and are in a good mood, you will say, “Oh, she is very kind, she is very considerate, oh, she brings me morning tea to my bed.” You will say that, but then afterwards the cunning little mind thinks “Well dammit, it is her damn duty.” I work so hard, earning the beans and bread, so why should I not be served? Where is Love?
On the other hand, the woman thinks he is kind and considerate to me. But I have born children for him. I look after the home, I look after him, his clothes, his dirty socks, and so on. So, it becomes a business and not love. You do this for me, and I do that for you, fine. It is not love, it is partnership, and you do not expect two partners in business to love each other. They want to see profits. How can we maximize profits to make it a successful business?
THE NIGERIAN COFFEEMAKER
Talking of socks reminds me of a story. There was a Canadian man posted to Nigeria as an officer, and he was very well known for serving the finest coffee. In Nigeria, the coffee is rough; it is not as fine as the coffee we have here, which can be simply mixed in a cup. One day, a guest asked, “When you entertain us, your coffee here is so lovely, how do you make it, who makes it?” So, they called for the cook to come. In Africa, you get servants very cheaply; you pay them two or three pounds a month. If you want daily help here, I believe they charge you thirty dollars for half a day. In South Africa, we had a girl working for us for the past eighteen years, and she gets twenty-five bucks a month. Still, she lives in the house, is part of the family, and lives with us. Of course, she eats the food, so if Lata cooks for four people to accommodate the fifth, it is no extra cost. Here, for twenty-five dollars, you cannot even get a helping hand for half a day. Things are different there. So, back to Nigeria. They called the cook, and the guest asked him, “How do you make your coffee?” He said, “Sir, it is simple. I put water into the pot, and I put in the coffee, and I put in the milk, and I boil it.” ‘Ah, and then, after that, what do you do?” He says, “I take one of my boss’s silk stockings and strain it through there.” So here the boss got wild, and he says, “What, you use my best socks to strain coffee?” So, this poor African man was shivering there now. He says, “No, no, no, no, boss, I never use the clean ones.”
VERY FEW PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD CAN LOVE
Life becomes a business and not love. There are very few people in this world who can love. Your passion could be so intense, your mind could be so attuned that you might feel a headache, and your spouse would feel that same headache. So attuned. These are the various expressions of love. In Western countries, as I mentioned earlier, there is one divorce in every three marriages, and sometimes there are even three divorces in one marriage. Because the emotional stability is not there, but mental fragmentation. Therefore, I repeatedly advise people worldwide to meditate and engage in spiritual practices, so that they may find inner stability. Most divorces that occur are rooted in instability, which leads to inadequacy and insecurity. When you feel insecure and inadequate within yourself, you may not admit it, but instead, you will likely find fault with your spouse. You will find a million faults. A man who truly loves a woman may overlook her faults, even if she has a million of them. He is too involved in loving her, so he does not see her faults. The same applies to Divinity: if your heart and mind are in all your actions, twenty-four hours a day, and are forever filled with the thought of God, then every action becomes a meditation. Then you cannot help but attract more and more of that Divine force to you, until you have captured the entirety of Divinity. You become Divine yourself. You have unfolded it all.
IF YOU CAN TRULY LOVE, YOU FIND DIVINITY IN THAT LOVE
So, when we say, if you take one step towards Divinity, Divinity takes ten steps to you, that must not be taken literally. It has to be taken figuratively, and as we with little effort unfold ourselves, you find it automatically expands ten times more. You make an effort for one, but the result is ten. It is like a dam wall; you just need to loosen one brick, and the water starts rushing through. The force of the water will break all the bricks around, and the water will flood away all the discrepancies and insecurities that are within us, and that is what is meant when we say we take one step towards Divinity; he takes ten steps towards you. The most important thing is to be on the right path, the path that is suited to you. For Divinity and Love are synonymous, and I have said this before, if you can genuinely love, you find Divinity in that love, for love is the expression of Divinity.
BECOME LOVING AND YOU WILL ATTRACT ALL THE LOVE IN ALL THE WORLD AROUND YOU
Never hanker after love. You will find many people in this world who are incredibly lonely. It is a tragedy. Men and women who are lonely, and yet in this vast world, if all those lonely people could be put together, it would be something good. They are so, so lonely, and yet they do nothing to get rid of the loneliness. They do not join various societies, cultural organizations, or groups where they could meet someone, but instead, they will sit at home and be in a state of gloom. “I am lonely, I am lonely, I am lonely.” It does not help that way. You need to take active steps to overcome loneliness.
After all, why find a spouse, a girlfriend, or a wife? Why do you want a wife? Why do you want a husband? If the reasons are selfish, such as having someone who will cook and wash for me and someone who will bring home the daily bread, then it will not work; you will attract that kind of person. But if you stop hankering, hankering necessarily means a need. If you have no need, then there is no hankering. What you find is what you think you need, and when you find the girl attractive, you marry her. So, there must be no hankering. But by becoming loving towards yourself, you will attract all the love in the world around you.
It is very seldom, and I do not think this has happened in one in ten thousand times, where I would not be able to elicit a smile from somebody or a kind word here, a kind word there. Something happens. The same thing with a Guru and chela relationship. There is that indefinable something, some electricity that sparks, just brightens up. The same principle applies to men and women, and it must be diligently pursued. The mistake many people make is that while they are courting a girl, they will always be well dressed up in a suit and the woman too, and this is that, and after they are married, they say, “Well, we are married now so what,” so he will be lazy. He will not look after himself and be as attractive as he should be, and he will neglect all that. The wife will get into bed with curlers in her hair. If my wife puts curlers in her hair, I will chase her out of bed. I do not want to see you beautiful while I am fast asleep. During the day, while in your office, put on your curlers while you are working; not when you are getting ready for bed.
So, for you to find Divinity there must be all love, there must be no hankering, no craving, but an inner yearning to become one with Divinity and if you try to become one with Divinity through your spiritual practices, you will attract love from others, matter of direction and when you meet the other person. You feel that warmth; that could be the starting point of a very lasting love relationship. I do not deny that when two people meet, they may say, “We have fallen in love.” In very few cases, this is true, but it stems from a previous lifetime when a strong bond existed, allowing them to be born at the same time, perhaps even in opposite corners of the world, and yet meet to find fulfillment in Divinity.
YOU CANNOT CREATE LOVE. IT COMES ON ITS OWN
Among Hindus, there is a saying that means where women are worshipped, the Gods are well pleased. This “where women are worshipped, there the Gods are well pleased” has a profound meaning because you are expressing God in worshipping your wife; by being devoted to her, you are expressing love to her, and by expressing love, you are expressing Divinity. So naturally, the Gods would be well pleased. However, it is not a one-way street; the ideal is that the husband worships his wife as a Goddess and the wife worships the husband as a God. So there is a mutuality of total devotion, there is a mutuality of total respect, understanding, sincerity, and then love dawns on its own. The point is that you cannot create love; it develops naturally. You create conditions of sincerity, devotion, and worship. Worship does not mean that you fall at her feet every morning and night, or she falls at your feet every morning and night. The worship is in the heart. You can use your wife or husband for Tratak instead of a candle flame, where you visualize intensely and direct all your mental energies towards them, and they will feel it. Or you do Gurushakti and direct it towards her, because Gurushakti is nothing else but grace, and you consciously direct grace to her, and she becomes graceful too. Full of Grace, which is returned to you ten times.
THROUGH THE OBJECT OF YOUR DEVOTION, YOU REACH THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE
People find it to be a challenging thing. Very few become millionaires; they find it difficult. Fewer still can know what love is all about, very few. Yet love is the basis of our character. The basis of our essence is love and prosperity; we used the word millionaire, but that is the wrong word. Prosperity is also the basis of our essence. I always like this saying: to have a well-willed wife, a well-filled house, and a well-tilled field, with no shortage and no necessity, means a good business or a good job. If you have that, it would be conducive to happiness.
And how can the wife become well-willed if you are not well-willed? How can a house be well-filled if you do not work and make the field well-tilled? So, you require work; you have to work, for nothing comes for nothing, and minimal pay is five cents. So, action, not wishful thinking. Even around the home, when the wife does this and the husband does that, it would be appreciated naturally. Being considerate would be appreciated. And all these little things add up to worldly love between two people, and that worldly love between two people can be elevated to total Divine Love. Through the object of your devotion, you reach the entire universe, and that is what the Hindus do.
TRUE WORSHIP IS NOT A WORSHIP TO, BUT A WORSHIP THROUGH
When you have the statues of Krishna or Rama in the Temples, I suppose many people pray. Still, the essence of the story, the theory behind it, is that you are not praying to the statue of Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, or any other god one believes in. Still, you use that as a focal point and worship, reaching Divinity through it. So, it is not a worship to, but through. And why apply it to a dead statue made of stone, you could if you are inclined that way, why not a living being? The same thing applies to spiritual masters; why not a living one who can answer you back? Why a dead one? And as the saying goes, when the disciple is ready, the Master always appears. For example, many of you here were with me from the very first time I came to America, and we remain closely together. Deep Love. There is a union somewhere deep inside, and that union forms with every one of the pupils or the Chelas, and that is what works. You create the channel, that is all, and the energies that flow through the Guru flow to you, Divine uplifting energies. It has nothing to do with the body. Nothing to do with the mind. It is a direct hotline from the superconscious level of the Guru to the superconscious level that is within you. The Spiritual Master lives in that superconscious level. He lives in the conscious level as well, in simultaneous living, but the connection is from the superconscious level of the Teacher’s mind, through to the mind of the Chela, and it lightens it up, keeps it alive, guides it, and nurtures it, much like you would water a plant. That happens, and it occurs spontaneously and effortlessly. Those are the mechanics of love, and those are the exact mechanics of Divinity, where you find that attunement at the superconscious level.
WHEN MAN IS MERGED IN THE SUPERCONSCIOUS LEVEL, HIS EXPRESSION IS LOVE
Between a man and a woman, the initial attraction is on the conscious level, where mind and body are involved, and this can then lead to the superconscious level. From the superconscious level, you love superbly. And that can be attained by everyone.
When I speak of hankering, it usually refers to a kind of imbalance. You want to love and make some effort to find the person whom you can love. Through spiritual practices, you will discover that you have reached a state of deep, total love—a total oneness where you and your spouse are not separate, but joined together in the superconscious level, as if with superglue, becoming one, for the superconscious level is one. All conflicts, fights, and problems are at a lower level and never escalate to a higher level. So that is what man aspires to. Where he can find himself merged in that superconscious level, then the love becomes one with him, because he expresses it, and it is his expression that is love. So what happens here now? His expression from that level is so powerful, a powerful magnet drawing all the filings, even if the filings are rusty. The powerful magnet still pulls them in, not only drawing them in but also magnetizing that piece of iron that the magnet has drawn. Any schoolboy has tried this experiment, where he takes a piece of iron and rubs it against a magnet, and the magnet can also pick up other pieces of iron. So, here, between a man and a woman, if your love is strong enough, you are the magnet that magnetizes her, so she too draws love to herself. Those are the mechanics.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1983 – 08
