7 August 2015
Imagine if suddenly God comes in front of you one day and asks you what do you want to do? What would your mind think? Maybe a million dollars, maybe a big kingdom, maybe great power? And so on, of the worldly things the mind would like to ask. “God has come, we must try to ask the best thing that is possible”. But this boy, who sat for Tapas at the age of fourteen, my Master Shivabalayogi, after twelve years of Tapas He had lost all desires. Total contentment was there and peace had descended, Supreme Peace had descended.
Earlier at the age of fourteen, before He sat He had the idea of doing business, He wanted to develop His family. “I must earn good money and make my mother comfortable, but that must happen with hard work and honesty.” That is how He thought. So the Divine must have thought, “This is the right person for My work. So many families will be waiting for Him in this world. So many are miserable and are suffering. Maybe He will be able to find the light at the end of the tunnel. So We shall make Him to find that light within Himself first.” So that is how for twelve rigorous years He sat for Tapas. Eighteen to twenty hours He used to remain in one posture by closing the eyes and also His mind used to be quiet. Not simply the body quiet, not simply the eyes are closed – mind also remained quiet. That does not happen easily for people when we try to sit with closed eyes – the mind is working, it is running, it does not stop. Try if you can stop your minds. Try that it does not go out and roam on the streets and into the shopping complexes. So that are the tricks of the mind.
Guru means ‘the one who can dispel the darkness of ignorance’. Very often you would have heard that ‘ignorance is bliss’. But ignorance can very often lead us to wrong path, wrong things. Out of ignorance we might behave immaturely. When we are unable to consider about other beings in this world, that is because of ignorance that we are unable to see that oneness, that one Divinity everywhere, that one God is everywhere, that one brotherhood. One is unable to see. So that is because of ignorance. When we gain the knowledge, my Master insisted, it should be always first-hand knowledge.
When I am talking to you, when you listen to me, a certain knowledge and wisdom works, when you are able to understand. Still it is second-hand knowledge. When you, yourself, are able to experience the Truth, that is the first hand knowledge. My Master insisted, “Practice meditation and know the Truth to yourself. Do not succumb to the prejudicial definitions feeding to the mind unnecessarily”, He said. In the name of God, if anybody tries to feed you with the wrong definitions don’t get fed. Practice it and know the Truth to yourself.
So that is the practice of meditation, that is what the Guru means. So when God appeared before Him, the Divine asked Him, “Your twelve years Tapas is over. You don’t need to do anything. Your mind has totally stopped into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. You can go back home and you can do anything you like in this world. And I can give you any boon that you want. What do you want?”
He had no wishes left. “I don’t feel like doing anything just now. I don’t think anything is needed for me. I am feeling so contented and so
much of peace. This was what we were looking for. This was what I wanted – this happiness – when I wanted to do business. Now I am at peace.”
So He asked God, “Do You have anything to ask me to do? Then I am ready to do it.” So that was the status He had achieved through meditation, such beautiful contentment.
The one who has become a Yogi is equivalent to God because He has no individual imagination. His mind has become one with the Divinity. He sees the same Divinity everywhere. That’s when He becomes the ‘Awakened One’. He has realised that reality that the same Divinity lives. That doesn’t mean that a Yogi is going to claim that, “I am the only incarnation of God and not all of you.” A Yogi does not consider like that. “All of you are also incarnation of God,” He says. This Kingdom of God is within your heart. Look for that within you, when your mind can go introverted. So that is the greatness of a Yogi.
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