Dr.S.V.Raghavan

It is both a happy and auspicious occasion, the celebration of Re. Babuji Maharaj’s birthday- the time when all of us are yet again drenched and soaked in the showers of limitless His divine grace. Our hearts are experiencing a transcendent peace, silence, calmness indescribable and above all a deep feeling of gratitude towards Him who loves us all without reserve, who is compassion personified as He enfolds us again and again in His fond embrace despite our repeated failings in living as He expects us to.

I would like to take up for our collective understanding the message given by Him in Bangalore, titled ‘Constant Remembrance’ (p.117 SDG). The message though short is pregnant with meaning. He starts the message with the words, ‘I remained happy in your company. When all of my associates gather at one spot it becomes a temple for me and it is their duty to make their hearts as the temple themselves.’ A temple is the house of God, a place of reverential worship. Master refers to the place where His associates gather with their hearts filled with true devotion and imbued with real faith, as a temple for Him. It means that the place acquires a very high order of purity; it becomes sanctified and holy fit for the residence of the very Godhead. A temple is a location wherein both the inner (psychic) and outer environment have to be maintained at a level of the highest purity for incorporating the godly presence. A loving and pure heart full of devotion becomes the sanctum sanctorum, the garbhagriha where the divine resides and rules. We are all familiar with the srutis which refer to the Lord of all created beings living in the heart, as being the Lord seated in the heart lotus in a city with nine doors and so on. God’s omni- pervasiveness includes His being immanent in all that is. God indeed is the purest of the pure, unconditionally and absolutely pure and eternally so. God’s very presence, His grace is the ultimate purifying agency which burns away all the dross and impurities.

There is an oft quoted verse meaning that in whatever condition of purity or impurity a person may be he becomes pure both externally and internally the moment he remembers the lotus eyed Lord. We the loving devotees of our Lord, the Master experience the flow of His grace which purifies our hearts the moment we remember Him with reverence. In His commentary on the 4^th commandment Master describes the common situation encountered by us as we move about attending to our duties in the world, namely, witnessing some event which evokes the sensuality in us making us forget Him. Master suggests the way out for the serious aspirant saying that if he remembers the Master at that time he would experience the flow of His grace/power helping the aspirant to come out of the distraction and restore his orientation to the goal. This happens because the devoted aspirant has forged a link with the Master. The Master has said in His commentary on the 2^nd commandment, ‘Prayer is the sign of devotion. It shows that we have established our relationship with the Holy Divine.” Citing the noble example of Bharatha in this context, He urges us to establish the idea of Divine Mastership and our consequent serfdom in the heart and maintain the same. This is the true form of devotion forming the connecting link between the Master and ourselves. Remembering the greatness of the Master and our smallness before Him and our helplessness creates a vacuum which enables the flow of His grace to the heart filling it up with peace and contentment thus liberating us from the baneful influence of sensory experiences and our habitual attachments to them. This has also the additional effect of purifying the heart ridding it off the acquired grossness and impurities gradually as the aspirant progresses into constant remembrance from the stage of frequent remembrance of the Master. As Master puts it in His above cited commentary on prayer, “gradually everything of the Master begins to flow into the serf.’ Our Master is one who has attained the perfect oneness with the Divine, the purest of the pure, the Eternally Pure Existence which all of us have to arrive at finally. Thus the dedicated and diligent aspirant becomes progressively purified in the heart till it becomes fit to hold Master/God.

Now the Master states that it is the duty of the associates to make the hearts temples themselves so that He can treat such hearts as the temple. We may note here a hidden warning- the first part of the message is a satsamkalpa on His part who bestows such a condition on us so that the hearts become fit to be treated as the temple. It is His will with which the aspirants ought to cooperate for attaining and maintaining the required levels of purity. He has already willed it and it is our duty to bring that into fruition through our diligent practice backed by pure intention and determination, of the meditational and purificatory practices. The second part alerts us to the fact that the above cannot be taken for granted. It has to be brought about by the aspirant with the ever-present help of pranahuti, the divine influx from His heart. It is not automatic but it is to be won by us.

At this point I would draw your attention to two articles on the subject of purification, purity (Is there an end to purification) by our revered guide in Bodhayanthi  Parasparam V9. The discussion that follows is based upon them and I will be bringing out some very important aspects relevant tour topic. We all realize the indispensable necessity to be totally pure in the heart so that it becomes fit to be called the residence of God.

Master states in His commentary on the 1^st commandment (p.11 IB) that the ideal of purity held by the Hindus in particular is indeed very high though now in its degenerated state it is reduced to mere bathing and washing with all the principles involved quite forgotten. The principle of purity was based upon the thought that the Eternal and Pure Existence which we have to enter is entirely free from all contaminations. It is absolute purity devoid of all mala- superficial dirt- distortions (vikshepa) and coverings (avarana) and this as such has  been taken up for the Ideal. Our present condition contaminated by the various aforesaid impurities is far below the ideal. The purification practices external and internal are meant to restore our condition to the original level of absolute purity.

The articles referred to on purification contain many helpful insights and I will mention some of them which would endow our purification practices and the way we view them with enhanced meaning and purpose. Master describes our present condition as being trapped in a web of our own making.

Unless we believe in the possibility of coming out of it and work upon ourselves with firm determination steadily and assiduously we can not extricate ourselves from it. There is no point in raising our hands helplessly and plead for His help in this regard. We saw earlier Master stressing on the aspirant’s role in purification of his heart so that it becomes a temple for Him. The web in which the vast majority of persons find themselves is controlled by the physical and vital planes only. Resorting to the purificatory processes with well- defined and sustained aspiration to come out of the lower plane and diligent practice alone will help. The difference in God’s creation and our creation (in the unevolved case) lies in the purity of intention and expression in His creation and the self- centered intent and expression in man’s creation. As progressive purification occurs the individual creation is destroyed and our intent and expression become purer and simpler, we move towards the state of enlightenment. We need to connect with our innermost self, the Divinity, for transcending the web. We should recognize and acknowledge the truth in the statement of Master that we are all sailing towards the Homeland. It is the power of thought and its deliberate exercise which has imprisoned us and it is the same power which shall and can liberate us too. Master says we should breed positive thoughts, pure, pious and divine instead of harbouring negative thoughts of hatred, jealousy, ill will, anger, violence, passion and fear. The latter action leads not only to the tightening of the web but also to the release of scorpions and snakes into the atmosphere as observed by the Master poisoning it. This ought to be avoided by any conscientious and pious soul committed to obeying the Divine intent. Instead of running away from the world which is nothing but the outer manifestation of our thoughts and beliefs we should treat it as learning and training ground.

Our daily contact with the ‘light’ of our real divine nature during the meditation and the purificatory sessions with the trainers help in the reduction of the negative feelings and thoughts enabling our transition to higher states of consciousness inviting the descent of Master’s grace more and more. Our true self starts vibrating to higher planes of consciousness more synchronistic with the divine and we start radiating love.

The more we live in such higher planes, more is the effect we are able to cast upon our fellow beings and the environment towards divinization something which cannot be achieved even by the most gifted motivational speakers and charismatic political leaders. The higher and purer the levels of consciousness we live in, our energies vibrate quicker and our thoughts center on the highest good for all humanity manifest sooner. The more we are able to connect ourselves with the innermost self characterized by simplicity and absolute purity we move closer and closer to the Master with whom we get connected with the apex of our consciousness. Now we have at our disposal the entire universe to help us manifest the highest good for all which is the true meaning of living in the brahmanda mandal.

The purity of intention and will have another dimension namely helping us to distinguish between the voice of the ego and voice of the Master or innermost self termed conscience. Our daily company with the Master, the light divine, goes a long way in enabling us to interpret the intuitions correctly and thus benefit from the guidance of the real Self/Master. Purity of body and mind is an indispensable necessity for this to happen. The aspirant who is fully surrendered to the Master will surely be in a position to discern the voice of the Master arising from the core of being. In other words such ability is an index of the quality of the surrender. Our guide gives the method by which we will be able to make such a distinction properly. If it so happens that we are busy convincing ourselves that we are right in reaching a particular conclusion, we may understand it is the ego using the logical mind as a debater, not the highest source of wisdom. The voice of ego will be signified by self-centered considerations, an attempt at self-glorification and based upon fear; it will be angry, rationalizing, reactive and ruled by fear of the loss of its own existence. On the contrary the voice of Master will be humble, compassionate, peace promoting, trusting, tolerant, merciful, forgiving and grateful. Our meditational and cleaning practices are conducive to the attainment of progressively growing levels of purity leading to the proper discernment of His directions from within so that we can lead lives in full conformity to His directions. At the height of perfection one cannot think of doing anything without the express sanction of the Master, a state from which our Master always functioned.

As we grow in purity and become progressively enlightened, we have to guard against what our guide has called ‘spiritual arrogance’, the most pernicious impurity, the most destructive poison in spiritual life. This manifests in attitudes and behavior patterns where the individual feels that he has become so pure that nothing remains to be done in that direction. In addition they feel they are greatly advanced and some to the extent of feeling that they are Masters. They know everything there is to be known and their mastery is such that there is no need for receiving help from others. Some of them even feel that they have even surpassed the Master in purity and are moving in realms higher than His. They become victims to the practice of gurudom which renders them unfit for the very task they have undertaken. It is clearly a case of going terribly astray in the spiritual path being dictated by a grossly overblown ego, the voice of Master no longer being heard by them or silenced by them willfully! The only antidote to this is developing humility and emulating our revered Master who has been the perfect and unsurpassable example before us with regard to a self-effacing simplicity and humility. We should always keep an open mind and be ever willing to learn and be an unsparing critic of ourselves holding before us the illuminating lives of the Masters of the Order for preventing the development in us of such undesirable and positively malicious traits having he potential to ruin our spiritual lives.

Going back to the message we started with we find the Master stating, ‘It is their work to shape themselves for the divine purpose.’ Hence it is the aspirant’s paramount responsibility and duty to mould or work to shape himself so as to be fit for the realization of the divine purpose. This is the cooperation Master is expecting from us, the beneficiaries of His grace. It is not enough to realize our true self nature for ourselves but to give a call to our fellow beings for adopting spiritual ways of living as in the natural path for actualizing the new Era. Rev. Dr. KCV says (CW p514 V10), ‘It is necessary to condition the consciousness of the individuals all through the world by a systematic consistent and uniform method of substitution of universal ends in the place of the narrow parochial and patriotic motives. (This) must be conceded if life should evolve to a better order and plane.’ The 9 pm prayer followed by us in the PAM is an apt instance incorporating the above view.

Our guide puts it (p 192-3 BW9), ‘We dive deep during our meditations into our hearts and access the divine impulse to the extent our heart or vessel permits. But we need to improve our access to the Divine Self more and more. With the love of Master backing us all the time we can access the ever increasing amounts of love, energy and wisdom more quickly and easily than ever before if only we are oriented to the task of human transformation-divine purpose! All our practices are meant for this end only. We should recognize clearly that such a state of mind is not possible unless we purify our hearts and souls and more importantly, we cannot fulfill Master’s expectations otherwise.

 The article ‘New era and our responsibility’ (p 162 BW9) of our guide is an eloquent articulation of the divine purpose Master alludes to and it is incumbent on every serious aspirant to study the same, contemplate and assimilate the message it delivers. The new Era as we all know has been ushered in with the advent of our rev. Lalaji sahib. We are also aware of our Master’s relentless work for the change and transformation of human nature as the Special Personality. Our repeated exposure to Pranahuti draws us continuously closer to Him and His plans enabling our participation in His mission. If we are really serious about cooperating with the Master in His mission, we need to keep our hearts and minds as pure as possible so that the lessons of enlightenment will be received in the core of our hearts. These are aimed at facilitating the unfolding of the new Era which symbolizes the restoration of humans to their intended evolutionary path way which allows for the maximum evolution and expansion of universal consciousness. It is only the total commitment to Him and His cause that enables us recieve such lessons. Such lessons arrive like pearls of wisdom for each entity in a unique fashion enabling him/her to live the life of the new Era. Being attentive to this inner voice of Master protects us from external manipulation.

Then our commitment to individual empowerment, soul development, to individual, social and spiritual evolution, to love replacing fear, to feel light replacing darkness, to the rejection of evil and to the unwavering awareness and presence of the Universal Divine becomes complete. A careful listening to this voice yields wisdom enabling our spiritual alignment to the universal good. We should realize that we are the fore runners having the potential to turn the prevailing tide and lay the ground work for accelerated development of the inner divine resource in man. We need to realign with Him, the Universal Divine, the abundant and inexhaustible force of love, the universal consciousness of all that is as His responsible disciples.

As a fitting end to this article, I am quoting the last few lines of the above referred article, an inspiring exhortation to all of us from our guide, ‘ May we all stand by the Master and His call to make this world a world of moderation, justice, equality and equanimity. May poverty of material, vital, mental and spiritual resources get annihilated in the new Era.’