Karachi

In my earliest youth I had no desire, much less longing, for choosing the path of spiritual progress. In that or any other field, consuming desire is an indispensable requisite. I did have volcanic desire, but for another aim — that of national service. Without such burning longing, deep in the heart, there can be no achievement worth the name. It is like the extraction of mineral oil. It cannot be brought to the surface without a store of it underground.

Out of fear that I might take some lucrative job because of the pressure of financial stress and because of the nagging and sarcastic gibes of my mother, I took the vow. With that holy water of the Ganga on my palm, I vowed never to accept any profitable service, even if offered unasked. Of this I have already written to you earlier.

What I mean to say is this. I did possess the necessary quantum of honesty and loyalty to achieve a definite purpose. It was my Guru Maharaj who turned that powerful current of longing for national service to the different course of yearning for spiritual progress.

It is indeed true that such fitness can be acquired by striving for it. But even that is possible only when our heart and mind possess a craving for making such serious efforts. And if these two are really bent upon achieving anything, can the fact fail to be disclosed to others?

I don’t want to lead you into despair and frustration. But it is a must for me to open your eyes, by God’s grace, to the kind of people we are. Should I sit with hands folded, when I don’t find you possessing the necessary qualities of sincere desire, tenacity of purpose, assiduity, endurance, and zest to attain the very high goal you have set out for yourself? When I find you without even the awareness that you have taken to the spiritual path, I would, if I had my way, make you conscious of it even by throttling you. The right way is for you, yourself, to wake up to your purpose in life and feel really concerned about the matter. When I see you sleeping over it, and when my eyes get red with anger against you, you ought to shed off your inertia. Instead, you fasten the blame for the mess on me. If I could really do as I liked, I would pour hot molten lava on you. It is impossible for me to close my eyes to the fact that we are regularly cheating our own selves. For my part, by God’s grace, I have laid my life open before you by giving you solid proof of my achievements.

Suppose we take service under someone, but do not serve him properly. Will he then sit quietly and allow us to spend our time in idleness? Certainly not. He would not put up with our faults and lethargy. In the same way let me assert, with all the emphasis I can command, that I will never allow any lapse in your practices. If you have a real love for me , even that love will enable you to strive for your elevation.

Your actions themselves speak louldly to me of the extent of your sincerity toward gaining your goal or toward your love for me. What is the sense in bolstering up a show, if you cannot do that very work for with you have come to me? What is the meaning of sticking to me like the meaningless teats on the throat of a she-goat? Please, therefore, be kind to me and do what is needed.

If you really wits to turn your life in the direction of the spiritual, that desire must reveal itself in your everyday actions, contacts, talks and relations with others. Why, even if a man wants to do such a common thing as catch a railway train, he makes necessary preparation for it. If I see you all doing at least something to prepare yourself for the great undertaking of raising your inner selves, no one will be as happy as I. If you fully satisfy me through your earnestness, loving heart, and action in accordance with them, I will simply dote upon you. Whoever delights his Sat-guru through his heart’s love, his behaviour, his whole life, receives his reward twice, thrice, four times what he has given to the Sat-guru. This is my personal experience. It has already been described by my incidents in Karachi. Half-hearted, lukewarm, spineless efforts in this field of activity will take us nowhere. The spiritual way of living demands a brave, honest, tremendous, and very alert effort.

What a travesty! We ourselves commit a thousand faults. Or whole being is so worthless, so stupid, that it impedes the good work done by our Sat-guru to push us forward on the spiritual path. And when the Sat-guru finds that his repeated efforts are of little avail and rebuke us, our mind, instead of realizing its own drawback, makes us think that the Sat-guru does us injustice by blaming us! We simply ignore the perversity of our nature, the disorder it produces, and the harm its self-willed actions do to us; and yet we lay the blame on our Sat-guru for all our misbehaviour and ill results.

This is why you yourself must decide what to give me and what to withhold. This is not written to scare you away. It is the plain ungarnished truth that I am telling you. Be vigilant, therefore, if you really mean business. The love and devotion (for me) that I demand is for your own good. As for my own self, I have no use and no need at all for your love for me. If you want to remain in contact with me, you shall have to be wide awake every moment to the way of life you have chosen.

When I do not find in those who come to me the essential constant awareness of their purpose in doing so but instead regard themselves as spiritual aspirants, then I try to expose their hypocrisy with all the force that I possess. I consider it God’s wish that I condemn them outright.

He alone is a person of sincere love and devotion who thinks that he and no one else is that real cause of the Sat-guru’s wrath against him. If we try to probe into the matter from this angle, we shall surely find that the real cause lies in our own selves. Please be good enough to realize now that we who have come together, have slept too long. Even the alarm clock that has rung and run out, has failed to awaken us. Hence you have to be roughly and badly shaken out of your sleep. And when the Sat-guru does so, you find fault with him, “Is this justice?” I ask.

Be sure that our honesty of purpose and the intensity of our desire for the work we have undertaken will be frequently tested. This is not at all the field where you can afford to sit at ease doing nothing or very little. You cannot throw the ball in your Sat-guru’s court by simply wailing aloud. “This is too much. We cannot reform ourselves by our own effort.” Even if this is a temporary emotional outburst, it discloses plainly to me the speaker’s caliber and the fitness of his inner constitution. Mere words like “pray. Forgive me and cancel my debt,” do not save the man from the grip of his account in the ledger of businessman. In the same way, whoever has gone to a Sat-guru and accepted him as his guide will not be released from the clutches of his Sat-guru’s heart or from his work with might and main toward the disciple’s reform.