I only had one extensive discussion with the Master, and that is my question and his immortal answer on the great composers Bach and Beethoven. Recently someone gave me the good news that my transcription of this talk has, after nineteen years, finally appeared in book form. I am so, so happy. I transcribed this talk and sent it out to be compiled and eventually published. But one of the things that I found striking, as I was transcribing it, was how carefully Guru chose his words, sometimes pausing mid sentence for a few seconds to find just the right word. Often he would preface statements by saying things like “This is just my own inner feeling or observation.”
I’ve shared a lot of personal information about my life on this and other forums. I guess the fact that I write on public forums means that I have to write in an organized way that other people can understand. But that becomes a kind of self-therapy. I feel the act of writing and sharing gives me more control. I put my problems (and yes, adventures, triumphs and foibles) down on the page. I can see them. I can name them.
A friend of mine called me a while back, and mentioned some aspects of my life that I’ve shared here, and gave me an unsolicited summary, mostly in his own words, of the Master’s views on them. He mentioned “The Cosmic Law” several times. I thanked him for his kind and illumining commentary and then excused myself, as I was in the middle of cooking hash browns.
As I was eating my crisped hash browns, after my friend’s sermon, I reflected that there are no outsiders in Guru’s world. There is no-one we can call the “other.” We’re all just reflections of God, manifested in the world. My friend basically said that people like me are not in harmony with the cosmic law. I just inwardly laughed but said nothing. I laughed because the cosmic law is my only friend. It is the sign of God’s Grace that we live in a world of cause and effect and can therefore find the fastest routes to progress. And the cosmic law is infinitely supple and generous.
If there is a sincere inner cry, then the cosmic law will support the seeker, will carve out for the seeker innumerable breaks and exceptions. Aspiration and a sincere inner cry are superior to our mental formulations of the universal laws.
The Master is always right, and the truths of all the scriptures, if they are both timeless and universal, are to be venerated and upheld. But the problem is that truth is living and flexible, and often inscrutable. We come to understand it through decades, even lifetimes of spiritual discipline. For unillumined people like my friend, and of course, like me, to promulgate the law like Emperor Augustus, is just silly.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter what is written in the shastras or (please pardon me) even what Guru said. What matters is whether we have realised these divine truths in our own being, and are expressing those truths in God’s own Way.
My friend called me a few days later and offered me a genuine apology for his hasty words. I thanked him, but I am also guilty of misusing Guru’s language, or misapplying it. Guru said that there is a particular nation where the people possess such oneness with Mother Nature, and such simplicity, that we do not even have to meditate. We can just mix with the people, absorb their simplicity, and this will be like meditation. Once I was working on a manifestation project with a gentleman from this country and I told him what Guru said, that the people there are extremely simple and we don’t have to meditate because the people have such a meditative consciousness. And he said, “Well, actually we are very busy with our own lives, and we’re just trying to get through the day like everybody else.”
What Guru said was very nice- the people in this nation are simple. It’s fine if these words come from the Master, because the Master was offering these observations to a particular group of devotees in a particular context. It’s different when it comes out of the mouth of Mahiruha, where it comes across as something like: “Look at the noble savages! They have such an easy life, unencumbered by running water and Snap Chat!”
This person was right to be offended. It was a stupid mistake on my part, and I’ve learned.
Once an Indian politician was asked about her sister, who was taken hostage by religious extremists, but was eventually released after the Indian government paid a large ransom. The question was whether she felt the government did the right thing by buying off the terrorists. And she said, “Today, as a sister, I will say she should have been freed. Tomorrow, as a politician, I may say something else.”
And this is why Guru was so careful even when answering a totally non-controversial question like the comparative genius of Beethoven and Bach. Any remark, however innocent, can be de-contextualized and twisted.
As a seeker, you have all the truths. Your own realisation will shine far, far brighter than all the scriptures and commentaries ever will.
This poem is most relevant:
“Poise is the hyphen
Between what you have heard
From God
And what you have told humanity.”
(Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, part 50, Agni Press, 1982)
