Master, stay in your reality-boat!19

One day a spiritual Master was answering a few questions asked by his disciples. Suddenly he paused and said to one of his stenographers, “Look, I can easily see that these questions and answers and the talks I give will be like Sri Ramakrishna’s Kathamrita, Sri Ramakrishna’s gospel.”

All of the disciples remained silent, but two or three inwardly laughed, because they felt that Ramakrishna was far superior to their own Master.

The Master immediately pointed to those unfortunate ones, and said, “You fools! If you think that Sri Ramakrishna is far superior to me, then why have you accepted my path? Go and follow Sri Ramakrishna’s path. If you think that just because he is not in the physical, you have to be satisfied with an infinitely inferior Master like me, then I want to tell you that you are making a deplorable mistake. Ramakrishna is definitely still alive; he is immortal. So go and follow him and worship him.”

The disciples who had implicit faith in their Master and who felt that he was by far the best stood up and said to those few unfortunate disciples, “Go away from here. We don’t want you. If you feel that our Master is inferior, then go and become Sri Ramakrishna’s disciples.”

Then the Master said, “I know why you think that Sri Ramakrishna is superior. Sri Ramakrishna used to enter into trance quite often, whereas I don’t go into trance. But do you think that I don’t have the capacity to enter into trance? I do have the capacity. A few days ago I showed you people my trance-capacity. The only thing is, when I enter into trance, I see more vividly your lower vital and emotional problems, and all kinds of problems. Who wants to see this? When I am in a simple, ordinary consciousness, I do not pay attention to your emotional problems and other problems. But when I enter into trance I see them very vividly, and at that time I find it more painful to have disciples like you. Therefore, deliberately, I don’t like to go into trance. But I tell you, it is not a difficult task to enter into trance.”

Some of the disciples said, “O Master, we knew it, we knew it. Who wants to see you in trance? If you are in trance, then we are totally lost. We enter into our own trance, which is all sleep. When you are in trance, you say that you are more conscious of what is happening in our lives. But we feel that this is the time for us to relax and enter into our own world, since you are not consciously seeing what is happening. That used to be our feeling, but now we see that this is not the case.”

Now the bad, unfortunate disciples said, “O Master, forgive us, forgive us. We will never compare you with anybody. You will always remain our best and highest.”

The Master said, “That should be your attitude. Even if your Master is not as high as another Master, if you accept him, then you have always to feel that he is the highest. If you accept a spiritual Master, it is because you feel that he is absolutely the highest and the best. If you do not feel this, if you have only limited faith and not implicit, one hundred per cent faith, then it is useless to accept a particular Master; for at every moment your mind will be thinking of somebody else. You will think, ‘Perhaps if I had the other Master, I would be making better progress. If I had been fortunate enough, I would have got that Master.’

“No, no! If you accept a Master, you have to accept him wholeheartedly and give him all your devotion. Otherwise, you can’t expect anything great or good, not to speak of your total transformation and complete illumination from that Master.”

All the disciples bowed down and said, “Master, we do not want your trance, we want only your wakeful consciousness. Of course, there is no difference between your trance-life and wakeful consciousness. But when you are with us, when you talk to us in our own human way, when you cut jokes with us and tell us all kinds of juicy stories, when you answer our spiritual questions, at that time you make us feel that you are one of us and that you are for us. When you are mixing with us and cutting jokes, you make us feel that we are really in your boat. We want to be in your boat, and not the other way around. We don’t want you to be in our boat where there is constant fear, anxiety, worry, doubt, insecurity and impurity. No, we want you to be in your boat.

“We wish to be in your reality-boat all the time and not in your trance-boat. When you are in your trance-boat, we are totally lost, for we do not know what you are doing. We may feel that you are acting like a stranger to us and consciously or unconsciously neglect you. Or we may feel that this is an opportunity to deceive you, or that you don’t care for us. All these things are not helpful at all. So you remain with us in a human way. If you deal with us in a human way and mix with us and show us your utmost compassion and affection, we will feel blessed. This is the only way we feel that we will be able to reach our own highest heights.”

The Master said, “You are right, you are right. Because I act like a human being with you, in most cases you are able to talk with me and mix with me. But if I remain always in a divine consciousness, a trance-consciousness, then nobody will be able to understand me or approach me; nobody will be able to have higher goals. Strange feelings and fear will always assail you.

“But I am with you and for you. I am with you and beside you. I am right among you, so you can run with me and climb with me and take me as your comrade and friend. That is the easiest and the most effective way for you to reach your highest, which is my real height.”


GIM 39. 13 January 1979