Method of Training
Life is the awakening of the State of Being. When we brought in our share of the awakening state, every function of the material existence commenced.
In the beginning, it was more in relation with the Divinity from which life started. With the progress of life, actions continued having their effect according to their nature.
Now we have lost our balanced character and have grown unbalanced.
Action is a very strong thing because it is connected with life. So its misuse has produced wrong effects and each center has lost its originality and imbibed different effects, with the result that the whole frame of the body became a human factory and began to pour out what we collected so far. This process continued for years.
When the span of life ended, we took another form with the accumulated effects of grossness we had formed. Thus, we have been adding in each birth till we have become the actions themselves.
Center of the nerves became a pole itself producing different climates and changes. We have formed the poles according to our actions and the repeated actions made the center more strong.
The outcome is that we remain unbalanced with the commands we receive from different center for each faculty. Now our life changed from spirituality to matter, and this went on and we became worse.
Somehow, either by the effect of circumstances or by the company of the pious person, we got a passing air of Divinity and began to compare it with the present state, and then we came to know that there is something superior to what we have. We now began to seek the method to revive our original condition. We searched for a proper man.
If the thought deeply touched the core of the Center which is ultimately found in all the centers - in other words somehow we touched the spirituality, the basic substance of all the centers - it produced a kind of trembling. And as every action has some result, it had its own, i.e., it would lead us to the proper man who is really spiritual.
If we fall short of it, we will move towards the person who has formed a personality, gross, in the garb of spirituality. We will always get the right person if the craving is for the Realization alone.
Fortunately, if we have got a Master who is all spiritual, then it will be Master's duty to destroy the poles we have formed by the effects of our unbalanced thinking. When they are destroyed, their channel of wrong influence is cut off and we move to the proper level of spirituality.
It became the duty of the Master to regulate everything and to bring about the original state into us, so that we may begin to realize the awaken-ness of Divinity which first fell to our share.
How does the Master proceed? He introduces in the Abhyasi the pure state of Divinity which he is having, because this is his work.
For the sake of help and cooperation, he prescribes certain methods. The best one is meditation, and he helps Abhyasi in it also.
Meditation really means that the mind may be accustomed to the Center itself instead of wandering elsewhere. Meditation on heart is prescribed for that.
Why we meditate on the heart is already written in the books, so I need not repeat it here. The Abhyasi meditates on the heart as I have already said, but there must be yielding attitude towards the Master.
If there is anything difficult in the path of righteousness, it is the surrender, if taken up directly.
People usually surrender verbally alone by going to the temple and bowing to the idol. It is not surrender at all.
It is a sort of state when one feels like a child going to the lap of his mother even if a tiger attacks him. He does not know whether his mother can save him from the tiger.
The best way of surrender which I have stated is to feel dependence upon God. Before it, as already said, there must be yielding attitude to a really capable Master.
By doing surrender we generally know "I am doing it". So, we proceed with "I" which should be shaken off. In this way "self" develops but not the surrender.
Surrender is really the outcome of Bhakti (devotion) if it is done in the real sense. Real Bhakti is the inner attachment with the Being.
Of course, Bhakti (devotion and love) is the chief instrument, and the highest type of Bhakti is that when an Abhyasi may not feel that he loves and for what he is loving.
There are such instances there also relating to Lord Krishna. The consciousness of separate entity not only bars the spirit of surrender but sometimes produces altogether different results from those desired.
If a tiger feels he is a tiger, he will pounce upon his own cubs. If a man thinks himself to be a man, he will torment others like a demon.
How do we know that our surrender is complete? It is when we begin to know that the Abhyasi is surrendering naturally to all humanity.
When surrender is perfect, the idea of surrender itself is gone and it becomes completely natural. To acquire naturalness should be the main care of the Abhyasi. Surrender and cooperation are twin sisters.
The Abhyasi proceeds in two ways and both are necessary. By the effect of the transmission and his own efforts.
The light which the preceptor infuses travels to the different centers and a sort of vibration is felt by the Abhyasi even at the higher points.
The other thing preceptor does is start Yatra to the different regions and centers. There are very few persons who do the Yatra by their own labor.
In Sahaj Marg alone, the method of training weaves all the requisites of the spiritual fabric of the Abhyasi, and so the preceptor has got very heavy work to do.
I can only say with authority that without the help of the preceptor, a man cannot cross the higher regions, because life has come from higher to the lower regions, or in other words it is descending with its own force.
Subtle force is very strong, and if an Abhyasi tries to go further, he is pushed down because he cannot get at the subtle force. Up to certain centers an Abhyasi can go in considerable time.
But beyond that none can go by himself. The preceptor has the knowledge of centers and the energy they contain, and he exercises the Divine power coming direct to him to set everything right.
If an Abhyasi proceeds with his own efforts, or if he neglects the Master at a certain level, he forms a curvature and it itself becomes a knot, barring his further approach.
It can be rectified only through the method of transmission. The chief instrument of work for the preceptor is the will.
Of course, methods are there which help the Abhyasi to have quick and better results, and these I have already written for the preceptors. Now I have requested the preceptors of the mission to add their own experiences.
The methods that preceptors follow for the Abhyasi are meditation and prayers. The other necessary methods are resorted to by the preceptors themselves for the elevation of the Abhyasi.
Why is prayer necessary? It is because at the time of prayer we adopt the suppliant mood and it becomes very near to surrender. When we cannot do surrender easily, this is the method.
Now other things follow. It often happens that a person occasionally, or as a habit, feels the charging of rage in the mind and he goes to a Master who prescribes a certain method to eradicate it.
My Revered Master has, in his notes, written that prescribing the method for certain mental ailments out of avowed authority is not good.
He should prescribe that method which a great saint might have prescribed in such cases with successful results. The method will, therefore, be correct because the evidence is there.
Of course, if the Divine wisdom has been awakened in a Master, then whatever he prescribes will be perfectly correct.
In Sahaj Marg system, all the methods of "doing" are for the preceptor, and "becoming" is the job of the Abhyasi.
The background of spirituality is the moral courage which rises when one is moral. My Revered Master used to say, "Howsoever advanced a person may seem to be, if his moral character is doubtful, I would say that he has not got even a breath of spirituality".
And what is morality in the true sense? It is that all the faculties may come in harmony for proper use.
How does this happen? When a man begins to be away from the “self”, it begins to develop.
So, all the methods given in any religion are only for this end, and the methods and procedure of Sahaj Marg are very easy for it.
With the overemphasis on "self", morality decays. But it is the part to be played by the preceptors alone that the self be turned to Divinity.
What is the self? It is the gross state produced by the charge of the mind. I may be more vivid for the common understanding. I can say that self becomes the individual force with its separate entity.
If we are in the hands of a real Master, all the things necessary for man to be called man gradually come out of themselves.
Really speaking, in our system, the methods are for the preceptor to introduce Divinity into the Abhyasi who is in a sleeping state. Remembrance on the part of the Abhyasi helps a lot.
The job of the Master is to remove the thick layers so that the Divinity may begin to bloom. In the state of spirituality, the bud becomes a blossom.
Every transmission from the preceptor, even if given with a lack of confidence in himself, will give light to the Abhyasi, whether the latter feels it or not due to lack of sensitivity, because the one and the same force is working in all of us.
Moulding is the preceptor's business. I am happy that all the preceptors of the mission are doing good service to the Abhyasis selflessly, not as a master but as a fellow being. May this develop further.