One of the key issues on the spiritual path is being in the right relationship to the guru.
Too often in our spiritual life, we try to muddle through by our own power, even when help is readily available, because we’re too proud or stupid to ask.
There was a point in my life when I began to notice an interesting phenomenon – that incompetent people will never ask for help, whereas people who are extremely competent will always ask for help.
It may seem strange, because you’d think that very competent people wouldn’t need help. But I noticed that the reason most people become competent in the first place is that they understand that no one can know everything, so it’s nearly always very helpful to consult other points of view.
Too often, we try to protect our ignorance, and hide it from others, instead of asking for their help. We rationalize: “I’ve got this task before me, and it’s up to me to figure it out. And, in any case, everyone’s probably too busy to help.” But, in fact, we’re just trying to hide our ignorance.
There’s another weird law of human nature, that when we’re doing something wrong, something that clearly isn’t taking us toward our goal, we decide that the best way to get back on track is to push harder in the same direction. “If I increase my energy, it will all work out.”
Master describes how we struggle, life after life, trying to find our way through the thick underbrush of life by our own effort, until we finally admit, “I am lost.”
Years ago, some of us traveled to Los Angeles with Swamiji. He was giving a service in one of the outlying districts, and I was in the back seat with the map. But when we arrived, we realized we were on the right street and right address, but the wrong city. And when we finally arrived, the program was over.
I thought it was an excellent metaphor for the spiritual life. There have been many times when I’ve gotten to the right address, but it was in the wrong city. As Swamiji once very kindly said to me, “Once the ego gets involved, you make very bad decisions.”
Once we decide that we have “something to prove,” we get into a strange internal competition with ourselves. It’s absolutely beyond me why we would do this, but we get proud and defensive, and then we invariably end up crashing and having to admit our error.
I was helping a friend who’d gotten herself into a great deal of trouble, after working very hard and sincerely to find the right answer. She’d written long letters, and she’d thought hard and meditated, and everything just got worse. Finally I said, “You got emotional at the beginning – you got emotionally invested in your point of view, and from that point all your reasoning was misguided.”
When you’re in the midst of the battle, it’s hard to realize that you’re on the wrong track. It can be difficult to realize that you’ve started out in the wrong direction. And so you march ahead with aggressive self-confidence because you think you’ve got it all figured out. And the problem is that it isn’t obvious that it’s a false direction, because many of the pieces are right. But the heart is wrong, and yet a part of you keeps insisting, “I want to do it my way,” instead of surrendering and having the receptivity to say, “Lord, I don’t know anything about climbing the mountain of Self-realization – I need a guide.”
Let’s face it, if we knew how to be Self-realized, we’d be Self-realized. And if we aren’t, it’s probably because we’re caught in the all-pervasive delusion of Maya. And it’s so pervasive that we don’t even realize it.
Swami liked to tell the story of a man who had a great deal of money, but he had a shrewish wife. His enjoyment of his wealth was spoiled because his wife was such a shrew. And as he lay on his deathbed, he prayed, “Lord, I’m grateful for the gifts you’ve given me, but next time, may I have a sweet wife?”
So he was reborn, and he had a wonderful, sweet wife, except that nothing worked in his business, and they were always on the verge starvation, and every day was misery.
At the end of his life, he prayed, “Lord, thank you for the sweet wife, but next time perhaps we could be a little more prosperous.”
So he got a sweet wife and plenty of money, but his wife died at a young age, and he spent the rest of his days grieving and building shrines to her memory.
As he lay dying, he said, “All right, Lord – prosperity, sweet wife, long life – okay?” And he has a sweet wife and plenty of money, and the wife lives for a long time, but he’s sick the entire time.
Finally, at the end of that life, he prayed, “Lord, from now on, whatever You want, that’s what I want, too.”
Master said that this is the cosmic trick that causes us to reincarnate – the idea that we can figure it out for ourselves and make things perfect.
It makes you wonder – what did I do wrong this time? And how can I make it better next time? We’re so optimistic – “This time I’ll get it right – I’ll remember the lessons, and when I’m reborn and the physical world tries to attract me again, I’ll be able to say, ‘I’m done with all of that.’ And I’ll be free.”
In India, there’s a tradition that if you die in Varanasi, the city dedicated to Lord Shiva, you’ll be liberated. They tell the story of a man who lived a dissolute life, but he believed in spiritual principles, and when he was near death he renounced his bad life and went to Varanasi and cut off his leg, so that he would have to stay there, and he’d be able to die and go to Shiva.
One day, a young man came riding by on a handsome horse, and as he passed he recognized this man as a former thief who was trying to be good man. So he began to make fun of him, and the former bandit got very angry. The young man was prancing in circles on his horse and jeering at him, and finally the former thief said, “Look, even without my leg I’m twice the man you are. I can ride that horse, even as I am.” So the young man said, “All right,” and he put him on the horse. And as soon as he was in the saddle, the horse bolted and ran to the edge of the city and threw him off, breaking his neck and killing him. And the moral of the story, of course, is that you can’t outsmart your fate.
We try very hard to get our lives lined up perfectly and keep them there. And we see so many people who paralyzed with tension from the effort of holding their life together. And as the years pass by, the lines begin to form on your face, writing the story of your habitual consciousness.
I was standing in front of a mirror making faces at myself, just for fun. It’s an interesting experiment, because this face is an expression of the consciousness behind it, and it’s a very malleable instrument. I was assuming these different states of consciousness, and watching all the ways this face could form. I was pretending to be happy or sad, like a child. But you can see how it would change your physical form, if you made a habit of those attitudes, and how different you could become, depending on your consciousness.
In time, we reach a point where we’ve tried it all, and we realize that it hasn’t worked, that it hasn’t brought us the perfect fulfillment we’re seeking, and that we need help. As the Festival of Light says, “Ever and again, through your awakened sons, the answer comes.” And this is the very simple thing that God is trying to help us understand.
It really is simple: that whatever we’re trying to do, the gurus know how to do it, and their entire job, and their only purpose for existing, is to help tell us understand how to do it.
They speak to us through the scriptures, through the example of their lives, and through those who are deeply in tune with them.
Master gives an interesting interpretation of the end of Jesus’ life. When Jesus said to his disciples, “Eat my body, drink my blood,” there was no authority to explain what he meant, and to tell them that it was deeply symbolic. As Master explains it, Jesus was testing his disciples’ attunement with him, and their ability to understand him on an intuitive level.
They had come face to face with this magnificent spiritual force that had created a transformation in them. But Jesus’ work was very controversial at the time, and they had no external support for what they were feeling inside.
That’s why he said to some of the disciples, “Who do you think I am?” And Peter Simon said, “Thou are the Christ.” Some of the disciples were saying that they thought Jesus had been this or that prophet in former lives. But Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the living son of God.” Meaning that he was the Christ consciousness. And Jesus said to him, “No man has told you this. But you have known this from your inner self.” And that was when he named him Peter, the rock: “Thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.”
Not the church in the sense that the Catholic Church has interpreted his words, but the church of inner divine communion. Because Peter alone had the intuition to perceive the divine reality that was, in fact, what Jesus was. Peter had the power to receive the grace that Christ had to give.
Toward the end of his life, Jesus knew that he would be crucified, and that those who had allied themselves with him would undergo a tremendous test. And he knew that only those who were strong in their inner experience of him would be faithful.
He knew that if there was too much chaff with the wheat, his teachings would not endure. The movement that he came to give the world would have to begin with a core of disciples who had the strength to do the things that would secure his mission.
Swamiji observed that toward the end of Yogananda’s life, many of the disciples began to leave, including some who’d been with him for years. When Swami asked Master about such-and-such a person leaving, and so-and-so having a hard time, Master said, “God is testing the organization.”
Swami realized that at the end of a master’s life, the divine power drives away those who don’t have the strength to help his mission. Because when the Master is gone, the movement will enter a phase of expansion and building, usually in the face of persecution. So Jesus told his disciples things that would test their faith and their understanding. Because they would have to believe in Christ even when he was crucified and killed as a common thief. And they would have to believe, from hearing the testimony of those closest to him, that he was resurrected.
It’s not something you can accept because everybody else believes it. Their lives would be in danger, and they had to be able to hold firm even at the cost of their lives.
He was driving them to find a deeper, more intuitive level of understanding. And the Bible tells us that many of the devotees began to say, “This is a hard teaching.”
We can picture them whispering among each other: “Were you there last week? Did you hear what he said?”
And I’m sure they said it casually, “What did you think about it?” And then some of them very likely said, “I thought he was nuts. What did you think?”
And then the Bible says that from that point many walked with him no more. Because he had become something that they couldn’t fit into the neat categories of their experience. And that was when Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Will you also leave me?”
It’s a dramatic moment. Jesus has given his life to start this work, and now great crowds are leaving. And Jesus turns to his disciple and says, “Will you leave me, too?” And Peter answers, “Where could I go?”
It’s a beautiful answer, and one of the most inspiring lines in the Bible. Peter didn’t reply with careful thought: “It’s not a problem for me, because I understand the symbolic meaning of what you’re saying.”
He replied from the heart. He was essentially confessing: “I don’t understand, Lord. You’ve confused me as much as you’ve confused the others, but I know who you are, and I know what you have done for me, and I know that it’s everything. And if you take me to places that I don’t understand, I have no choice but to walk with you.”
This is the attitude of the disciple. Jesus wasn’t testing people to see if they thought he was powerful or even right. He was testing them to see how much faith they had in their own experience of him.
When their rational minds were confused, and when people were deserting, would they stay? Would they say, “I know what I’ve seen. I know what I’ve experienced. I know who you are to me.”
It’s worth meditating on. “Where would I go?” And there has to be an answer of courage, not an answer of mental hesitation – “Well, I don’t have any other place, so I might as well stay here.”
It’s an understanding of the heart, that I’ve made my commitment, and I trust my inner knowing. I know this in my heart, and where else can I go? Because there is no other reality than this.
Sister Gyanamata said, “God gives you tests that have no purpose except to take away the ego, and to purge you of everything.”
Do you remember what Jesus said earlier, that if a tree bears fruit, I will purge it. If you’re doing a good job, that’s when he’ll cut off even more from you. Because he has another vision of reality. And when God says, “This won’t make you perfectly happy – let me cut it away” – is that suffering? Or is it what we’re looking for?
That’s the real power of the spiritual path, that what God takes with one hand, he returns a hundredfold with the other.
What an extraordinary journey this path is. It’s so much fun, really. Because so many people just waste their lives. You see them at the end, and they’ve gained nothing. I’m talking about the great mass of humanity, who run around and pass the time and die. As Master says, they are born, they live, they procreate, they eat, sleep, and die. But then at a certain point you realize that you have to hold on to the feet of the Master.
I like to think of it that way, that the Master is trying to get away from you, and you have to grip his ankle securely and hold on, and wherever it takes you, that’s where you’ll willingly go.
In your heart of hearts, and in the depth of your meditation, cling to that picture: “Master, it doesn’t make any difference, I’ve knotted my will to yours, and it doesn’t make any difference where you go, or where you drag me, or even if I kick and scream. I’ve tied the knot securely, and I will not untie it. Because, Lord, where would I go?”
(From Asha’s talk at Sunday service on July 27, 2003)