- Pujya Sri K. C. Narayana

We are meeting on the auspicious occasion of the 105th birth day of our beloved Master Rev. Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shahjahanpur. We are accustomed to experience of the shower of grace from the time fortune favoured us by enabling us to start following his system of sadhana. The grace with which he communicates his love for us all through the sessions of Pranahuti is really something highly personal. It is as though each one of us is dearly whispered into by him and it is an unique feeling we have and would rather prefer to dwell in the thought of his love rather than indulge in other activities. That is our method when meditate at home.

The celebration is a different occasion. Here we have several occasions to meditate, contemplate, share and communicate our feelings with fellow travellers on the path. This is an occasion of special fortune for two more days our celebrations. Not that the love abates then but by then collective enjoyment ceases is a painful fact.
We have always felt his whisper plain, bare, simple, bald, unembellished and yet austere. His message is such that it is never ornate. A few days back an intimate associate of mine asked whether it would not be possible for us to make the modern day enlightened ones or masters see the point of view of our Master and join with us to propagate or more appropriately share the wisdom of the method of the master. I told that I feel they want the subject to be highly articulated in the languages of philosophy and psychology and simplicity in expression is not all that welcome to them. I also informed that some of our associates did send the literature to some one who claimed to be a master or enlightened one but that master did not have the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of the same. Many are the ways of the masters! Be that as it may.

Our Master writes an unsophisticated language. He may even be said to be plain or I may call that plainness as blunt in his expression. Unfortunately the word blunt is associated with insensitivity, which is not what I am attempting to highlight or illuminate, but rather what is most sensitive, juicy, alive and truly sacred. There is a wonderful beauty in his expressions. Like the desert, it has a beauty that arises from simplicity and the need for economy. We are aware that with words, there can be such a maze of ornaments that is capable of obscuring the value of what is communicated. And where there is so much decoration in language we miss to note that there is nothing of significance that is being conveyed.

Yet, the fact remains such articulation and if we may call aesthetics, has become a standard for "sincerity". This is an unfortunate fallacy. This makes people very cynical, suspicious, and the irony is people seem to ignore anyone who does not speak aesthetically.

It seems many people have lost the ability to hear plain language. They have become so accustomed to looking for hidden meanings that they assume all language should have. Fortunately it is not so. It is a joy and an ease not to strain oneself to speak or hear a clear communication.

The real problem here is that the form and structure of the language gets all the attention and nothing worthwhile gets conveyed. But our Master always communicates something of significance and it requires cultured minds, to use his language, to understand these spiritual matters. We find the current day atmosphere is of forms for forms sake. In other words the form is the substance, which is an absurdity that is worthy of contempt. The misfortune is that these ideas are spreading internationally. It is a new religion of sophistication fused with aesthetics and embellishments. It is forgotten that the form should always project or express a function.

When I think of the various gods and goddess that adorn our religious atmosphere I find the form given to each and every deity is distinct and has the qualities that are invariably inseparable from the function that they are supposed to discharge. This is point to which I would like draw your attention.

When we have fixed up our goal as oneness with God, who ever and what ever that might be and have resolved not to relax till we achieve the same we have also formed and fixed in our minds the concept of the Ultimate. The word Ultimate should be understood as the last and final state of our being. Please note that it is not a stage but a state. The Ultimate state we were informed by the Master is where we feel 'Nothingness'. He says that Silence is nearer to God. And adds that Silence itself is the seat on which Silence stands. We find here, the Master is difficult to understand. We find the Master getting poetical. It is a poetry which by its very nature implies something and the message is indirect. This causes one to meditate over the meaning and the results can be varied. It is not my intention that Master could have been plain and direct; which mostly he is. Yet some times we find that he resorts to subtleties of language.

We cannot that easily understand his words when he says "Love him who loves all" or "This and that have gone now" or 'Divinity is a play and Divine the way.' This does not mean we can ask the Master to avoid such statements and tell us more plainly. Far from it, I have always felt that it is wonderful to have all ways of speaking, including not speaking, in which the Master used to revel for those who know that. Certain times it becomes difficult to reveal the rare beauty of experience and inner understanding in the plain spoken words. Aesthetic speaking may communicate better in some circumstances. Inner revelations many a time demand such expression.
One sentence that made me feel miserable when I understood hopefully, its meaning is "This is my prayer for all of you." This sentence was preceded by the sentence "May you be bold enough to make these attempts sincerely and seriously." How is it we are prayed for by the great master? What worth did he find in us to merit a prayer for us. This was a baffling proposition for long and I was addressing myself to understand the same.
He while assuring us his help to the best of his capacity all through, was pleading with us to put in efforts and said that would count most. Yet we have a notion of the infallibility of the master once he deigns to help us and our effort is not all that necessary. This is one of the greatest errors in thinking of the devotees who some how believe in the proposition of getting rewards for no effort.

On some occasions bitter words and not even sugar coated pills are given to us by the master. However the mind is capable of coating the same with honey and misunderstanding the message. He says very plain without any polish that "Suffering is the root and the results are flowers which every associate should strive hard to have." This he said in the context of emphasizing the importance of character. He said "The way of life should be pregnant with high morals." Morality is not just custom, tradition, usage or convention but is best defined according to me as the individual effort to maintain cosmic order. To experience the inseperateness of our being with others and the universe is the highest moral that I have come to understand and feeling the fraternity with all that exists is the greatest virtue. Surely it is sadhana alone that enables us live up to this as we locate and live with the centre of all existence.

We cannot understand the master unless we go through the practices he has advised. He "would say that the troubles remind us of its silent stage. We get comfort in the state of discomfort. We remember it when it's opposite is there. In this way we develop forbearance and a little bit of peace also." It is true that when we are pricked by a thorn or thistle we remember either the mother or the master as the case may be. The prick is painful and the remembrance of the master grants peace. In the same situation both the opposites are there and few think of master and the rest their corporeal self and its pain. It is Viveka to remember the master and that is what we are asked to practice.

The call was given for using the painful experiences and miseries or afflictions in a more sophisticated and articulated manner by Dr.K.C.Varadachari. He said "he loves us so much that every opportunity is provided for us to grow. When we ask for strength, He provides us difficulties to make us strong; when we seek for prosperity, He gives us the brain and brawn to work; when we ask for courage, He causes danger to overcome; when we ask for love, He sends us troubled persons to help; when we ask for wisdom, He gives problems to solve. The way of the Lord is difficult to understand but when we understand, the joy of awareness has no bounds." But the response from our side has been cold and tepid. However that is how real vairagya and forbearance is learnt and there is no easier way.

Master says" Many of you have not yet fully seen the grace of the beautiful flowers of the garden and have not tasted their fragrance." It is our sufferings and miseries that remind us of the master and the nectar of such remembrance is the substance in which the mind is drowned in ecstasy. The garden has the flowers born out of our suffering and who but one with mad ecstasy in the remembrance of the master would ever think of entering such a garden? For that we need courage and boldness and knowing our weakness he with his enormous love prayed for us to develop such a capacity. Still do we Love Him who loves all?

Another very illuminating sentence which is poetical that comes to my memory is "We can only know the unknown when we become unknown ourselves." Surely few would think of being without an identity card. I remember a person who was almost compelled by circumstances to resign from his relatively high post carrying a stature and position in society, wailing that he has no identity card to show any one and was lamenting over his fate. I wonder whether this problem is an identity crisis or identity card crisis. Identity card crisis is far too inferior to the identity crisis through which we go through in sadhana and we come to a stage where the illusory ego is almost dissolved.
Master states that "Sometimes these things come and go but we should grasp them and make them permanent with us. From there you rise above." The experience of becoming totally unknown to ourselves is one of the feelings during meditation and almost all those who practice the system have expressed the same. But we do not grasp that unknown status of ours and miss the message. It is this that I have been pleading for when I was asking the aspirants to own up the experience. Why is it that after experiencing the state of Void or Null during the meditation, we still keep an attitude of love toward God or Master? The obvious answer is that 'I-consciousness' persists. It disappears in the state of Samadhi or Void that we no doubt have, but it comes back. The 'I' never disappears on its own. It is the love for the Master or God that keeps us anchored in our path. However the goal does not require to be changed and our aim is to have oneness with God and not just love for God.

Only when we own that type of experience which comes and goes, do we really imperience the Divine. The call is there, the experience is there and yet it is our unprepared ness to lose our identity and become unknown by relinquishing all our ego and identity that is the barrier.

I agree that many an aspirant cannot confirm the true value of what I am speaking by agreeing or disagreeing with it. This requires that there is need to examine whether it is true or not within one's own Being. Once it is felt that it is as true in one's Being it becomes beautiful. Satyam or truth is always associated with beauty or Sundaram. In meditation when we try to look into our own Being we invariably leave behind all that is false. When we work with the mind keeping it in the lower mind, falsehood is automatically born. It is the true mind or Being that is what is left when there is no-lower mind. The only way to access the true mind is meditation and silence. Fortunately Silence is the secret that is not hidden from anyone and as we know Silence indeed speaks.