Pain and Pleasure

here is one peculiarity associated with pain and pleasure, which I
would like to share with you. The more we think of our pains and
suffering, the more they go on increasing. On the contrary, the more we think of
our pleasure, the lesser the pleasure we derive.

Is there not a hint in this phenomenon which can be extremely useful to
us in the conduct of our life?

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Duty," The Spider's Web, Vol. 2,
p. 243.

Love

It is well known that where there is no love there can rarely be

courage, and I would request you here not to confuse courage with sheer

bravado or the front-line necessity to kill. Similarly, where there is no

love, there can be no faith, charity or chastity and, therefore,

existence devoid of love is an empty existence. Love must grow and embrace more

and more within its orbit of expression. Love for one's wife must

enlarge into a deep love for the family resulting from such love. Familial

love must grow to include neighbours.



Thus, slowly, as love matures, it must widen in scope until ultimately

it envelops the entire universe within its sublime embrace. My Master

has said that the only way of approaching the Ultimate is through love.



Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "The Inner Needs of Man," The

Principles of Sahaj Marg, Set 1, Vol. 1, p. 29.

God

Now, there is a famous small poem written by an Englishman, "The Hound of God."It's about eight pages and about eight couplets per page. A woodsman, one who takes, you know, collects wood for his daily fuel needs and for selling in the market, he has been working in the jungle all day and it's now nearing sundowntime. He bundles up the wood that he has collected, lifts it on to his head and starts walking home and hears feet "pit-pat pit-pat pit-pat" following after him. He gets frightened. He starts walking faster. This pit-pat also goes faster behind him. He starts running and the steps behind him start running behind him;ultimately he falls exhausted, throws down this bundle of firewood that he has collected, and looks behind him in horror, you see, "What is going to happen to me?" And there he sees the glorious presence of God. And he says, "Who are you?"He says, "I am God." The wood cutter says, "I have been trying to reach you all my life. Where were you?" And God !says, "My son, I have been following you all your life. Running after you all your life. You have been running away from me. Haven't you heard the footsteps behind you all your life?"

So this raises the question: Are we going towards God or is He coming towards us? Babuji has said, in relation to the need for a guru, that if you just sit and pray direct to God, "Please send me a guru," the guru will reach your door.He will come to you.

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Questions and Answers," Heart to Heart,Vol. 1, p. 121.

Goals

It is true that the aim of all great souls who incorporate themselves on this world is ultimately to bring about a divinised society. But it must always be remembered that the society is composed of individuals, and therefore a divinised society must consist of divinised individuals. Therefore the level ofaction of any spiritual organization is at the individual level, with the aim ofcourse, of ultimately creating a society entirely composed of such individuals. As far as the individual goal is concerned, freedom from rebirth on the physical plane is a very small and immediate goal only. The spiritual journey is a very long one and indeed it can be said to be an Infinite One. The goal of spiritual endeavor lies far, far beyond emancipation from physical rebirth. Every such aspiring soul will naturally contribute, as he develops on the spiritual path,by his own thoughts and actions, to the moral and spiritual level of the society in which he resides and, therefore, the individual growth is automatically reflected in a social growth also.

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Spiritual Flame," The Spider's Web, Vol. 2,p. 308.

Fear and Temptation

Analyzing the religious content and the modes of religious approach of those coming under its fold, we find that all religions have heavily relied on two important instruments for regulating and controlling the behavior of the flock under their control. These two instruments, by and large, have been fear and temptation. It is perhaps beyond any reasonable debate that this is an established fact. Religions have always held out to their devotees the temptation of redemption and a place in heaven, whether during the course of this life itself or after death. They have always tried to control and canalize man's behavior in a desired direction by trying to induce him to accept this temptation for the fruits offered by the respective religions. This is one side of the picture. How to enforce a man's behavior in the pursuit of the goal was the next question and here fear came in all too handy - the fear of punishment for swerving from the performance of religious rituals stipulated; the fear of punishment for not supporting the body of one's own religion in its continued existence; the fear of retribution for acts forbidden; and so on and so forth. Therefore, fear on one hand, and temptation on the other, would be a fair representation of religious activity, and religious control..

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Religion and Spirituality in the Light of Sahaj Marg," The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Set 1, Vol. 1, p. 5.

Divine Forms

So we must remember that there are two aspects involved in our coming here into this world, again and again: one is like us, who come because of the bondage of the impressions (samskaras). We have no choice. We have to come; we are pushed here. The other is the divya swaroopis [divine forms]; you can call them saints -Divinity itself, who out of compassion for its own creation, takes on a form,suffers with us, laughs with us, enjoys with us, teaches us, and goes back. Now suppose Divinity did not have this compassionate aspect to descend again and again, to teach us and lift us up, where would we be? We would be wandering in the mire of ignorance and sin, all our lives, life after life!

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Adhere to One Teaching, One Goal," ThePrinciples of Sahaj Marg, Set 1, Vol. III, p. 406.

Dependence

There is a beautiful story highlighting the need for total dependence, which goes thus:
A mystic was wandering in the desert, and was almost dying of thirst. He stopped thinking of God in his search for water. Suddenly, he met a traveler and begged him to give him some water. The traveler turned to his camel to get some, and when he turned round with a glass in his hand, he found the mystic lying on the sand, his body in the process of rapid putrefaction, dying.
The traveler was amazed at this miracle and asked the mystic to explain it. The mystic answered that when he asked the traveler for water, he had swerved from dependence on his Master, and this was the punishment!

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "The Disciple," The Principles of SahajMarg, Set 1, Vol. II, p. 179.

Concentration

My Master has clarified that meditation is the process and the result is concentration. Now this concentration, by itself, is not of much value in our development because concentration is only the use of a power, and power, by itself, does not lead to evolution. But it has a positive advantage in our dailylife because by meditation, when we are able to make the mind concentrate, we are able to exclude thoughts we don't require, or we don't wish to receive. Here I come to one of the most important teachings of my Master. When we have thoughts it is our attention, it is the power of our attention, that gives the power to the thought. A thought by itself has no power. It is the attention that we give it that gives the thought its power. By meditation if we are able to exclude such thoughts without fighting with them, without attending to them,then the mind achieves a state - a state of existence, a state of being - where a single thought alone can exist at a time. Thus, the process of meditation gives us the ability to concentrate, or makes the mind come into a state of concentration, which we in India call one-pointedness.

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Purification and Regulation of the Mind bySahaj Marg Yoga," The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Set 1, Vol. 1, p. 52.

Change Agent

Change in one level can only be brought about from a superior level acting upon it. So we have to always seek assistance from a superior level. And as long as human beings try to change the mundane level by operating on the mundane level from within the mundane level itself, their efforts are doomed to failure. Therefore, when we come to the spiritual way and accept the spiritual Master, we seek his assistance at the highest possible level of existence - not at any intermediate levels. Because the highest level alone can change everything that is below it. And there we have the Master who is the Master of that highest existence. That is why on several occasions I have said he is the Master of change. Because in him exists the capacity to change anything at any level of existence.

Source: P. Rajagopalachari, Chapter "Change," Heart to Heart, Vol I, p. 155.