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.
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