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Likewise
with the bullock cart. You got off it when it had brought you to Ramanasramam.
You don’t need either the train or the cart any more. They were the
means for bringing you here. Now you are here, they are of no use to
you.
‘That is what has happened with your sadhana. Your japa,
your reading and your meditation have brought you to your spiritual
destination. You don’t need them anymore. You yourself did not give
up your practices, they left you of their own accord because they had
served their purpose. You have arrived.’
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Then he looked at me intently. I could feel that my whole body
and mind were being washed with waves of purity. They were being
purified by his silent gaze. I could feel him looking intently into my
Heart. Under that spellbinding gaze I felt every atom of my body being
purified. It was as if a new body were being created for me. A process
of transformation was going on—the old body was dying, atom by atom,
and a new body was being created in its place. Then, suddenly, I
understood. I knew that this man who had spoken to me was, in reality,
what I already was, what I had always been. There was a sudden impact of
recognition as I became aware of the Self.
I use the word ‘recognition’ deliberately, because as soon as the
experience was revealed to me, I knew, unerringly, that this was the
same state of peace and happiness that I had been immersed in as an
eight-year-old boy in Lahore, on the occasion when I had refused to
accept the mango drink. The silent gaze of the Maharshi re-established
me in that primal state, but this time it was permanent. The ‘I’
which had for so long been looking for a God outside of itself, because
it wanted to get back to that original childhood state, perished in
the direct knowledge and experience of the Self which the Maharshi
revealed to me. I cannot describe exactly what the experience was or
is because the books are right when they say that words cannot convey
it. I can only talk about peripheral things. I can say that every cell,
every atom in my body leapt to attention as they all recognised and
experienced the Self that animated and supported them, but the
experience itself I cannot describe. I knew that my spiritual quest had
definitely ended, but the source of that knowledge will always remain
indescribable.
I got up and prostrated to the Maharshi in gratitude. I had finally
understood what his teachings were and are. He had told me not to be
attached to any personal God, because all forms are perishable. He
could see that my chief impediments were God’s beautiful form and the
love I felt towards Him. He had advised me to ignore the appearances
of these ephemeral Gods and to enquire instead into the nature and
source of the one who wanted to see them. He had tried to point me
towards what was real and permanent, but stupidly and arrogantly I had
paid no attention to his advice.
With hindsight I could now see that the question ‘Who am I?’ was the
one question which I should have asked myself years before. I had had a
direct experience of the Self when I was eight and had spent the rest of
my life trying to return to it. My mother had convinced me that devotion
to Krishna would bring it back and had somehow brainwashed me into
undertaking a quest for an external God whom she said could supply me
with that one experience which I desired so much. In a lifetime of
spiritual seeking I had met hundreds of sadhus, swamis and gurus, but
none of them had told me the simple truth the way the Maharshi had done.
None of them had said, ‘God is within you. He is not apart from you.
You alone are God. If you find the source of the mind by asking yourself
“Who am I?”
you will experience Him in your Heart as the Self.’ If I had met the
Maharshi earlier in my life, listened to his teachings and put them into
practice, I could probably have saved myself years of fruitless external
searching.
I must make one other comment about the greatness of the Maharshi. In
the days that followed my vision of Rama I went all over Madras, looking
for advice on how to start my sadhana again. The swamis I saw
there gave me pious platitudes because they could not see into my Heart
and mind the way the Maharshi could. Several days later, when I came and
sat in front of the Maharshi, he didn’t tell me to keep on trying
because he could see that I had reached a state in which my sadhana
could never be resumed again. ‘You have arrived,’ he said. He knew
I was ready for realisation and through his divine look he established
me in his own state.
The
real Master looks into your mind and Heart, sees what state you are in,
and gives out advice which is always appropriate and relevant. Other
people, who are not established in the Self, can only give out advice
which is based on either their own limited experience or on what they
have heard or read. This advice is often foolish. The true teacher will
never mislead you with bad advice because he always knows what you need,
and he always knows what state you are in.
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