A true disciple

I have about nine hundred people whom I call disciples, but of these only fifty or sixty I can call my real disciples. I will not be one hundred percent responsible for all nine hundred, but only for those fifty or sixty who are my very own. And again, among these real disciples there are first-class, second-class, third-class, fourth-class, fifth-class disciples and so on. After that there are devotees, followers and admirers, or you can call them flatterers. It is with great pain I say this. There are spiritual Masters who have hundreds and thousands of disciples. If I wanted to have that many, in two months I could get them, but the Supreme does not want this. If I get forty real disciples or even four, or two or one, that is enough. And if I don't get even one real disciple, that will be my fate. What can I do?

If you are already a true disciple, you don't have to worry; but if you are not, then how can you become one? You have to know who comes first in your life: you or the Supreme. Needless to say, neither your parents nor your brothers and sisters nor any other members of your family can come first. Not only that, you yourself cannot come first. Only the Supreme comes first. If the Supreme comes first, you are one step ahead of many so-called aspiring people. Again, if you really feel that God is your dearest, inside your parents, inside your brothers and sisters, inside your wife and children you are bound to feel the presence of God. The wife has to feel that the husband is dearest precisely because God is inside the husband. The husband has to feel that the wife is dearest precisely because God abides in her, because God is the very breath of her life.

If anybody wants to be my true disciple, then that person has to feel the necessity of sacrifice. Again, I have said many times that from the spiritual point of view, there is no such thing as sacrifice. We don't make any real sacrifice; we only become aware of our own larger part. When I do something for you it is not my sacrifice. I know that you are part and parcel of my consciousness. In our everyday human life, we do use the term "sacrifice"; but in the spiritual life let us use it to mean: "I am consciously offering this moment to my Guru or to the Supreme in my spiritual father."

I wish to say that in order to be a real disciple, one has to prove everything in action. Proving in action does not mean that only on weekends you will come here and work most sincerely. No, action is taking place at every moment of each day. How you utilise each moment is significant. Each thought is itself an action.

A real disciple is my great pride. It is only a real disciple who will carry the banner of our mission. After I leave the body many will leave, many will get married and many will get divorced. Even now, while I am in the body, there are many who will soon leave me. I am most grateful to them because they don't want to add to my suffering. Again, there are many who stay with me just because their dearest ones love me more than them. With some couples, one individual feels that if he doesn't stay here, he will lose his other half; that is why he stays. It is not for me, not for spirituality, not for realisation that these people stay, no. And this is true not only with couples. Some members of a family will stay with me because they don't want to break up the family. Also, some stay because they have left their parents or their dear ones for us, and they feel that if they leave us they will be embarrassed. They know that if they go back to their parents, the mother or the father will say, "We knew that Indian only came to exploit you people. Before you believed him, but now you see the truth. Better late than never. You have come back and we are very happy, very pleased, very proud. Now continue with your natural, normal life."

There are a few disciples with whom I cannot deal either on the inner plane or on the outer plane. I am really afraid of them. They are not afraid of me but I am afraid of them. Why? I know that they have come to a stage where, if I don't handle them properly, they will just fall down and break. It is just as though I were holding a glass: if I drop it, it will crack. I say, "Oh God, the progress they have made will go." So I try to help them keep the progress they have made in the six months or the few years they have been with me. But there comes a time when I find that some of these disciples are constantly violating the cosmic law, the Will of the Supreme. At that time the Supreme says, "Throw them out." Recently eleven or twelve persons were asked to leave this Centre and one or two are temporarily not allowed to come here. Why? Because they have been constantly violating the cosmic law.

If anyone thinks he is really aspiring and doing everything he can do, then I am afraid he is openly deceiving himself. Everybody can do much, much, much more than he or she does for me, not only in the physical world but also in the inner world. How can you do things for me in the inner world and be a real disciple? By having good thoughts, divine thoughts, fulfilling thoughts. And in the outer world you can do much for me through obedience. Obedience is absolutely necessary in the outer life. If there is no obedience, if somebody does not obey me, then I cannot expect anything from that person. He is a real failure. He may stay with me for twenty years but he has really failed. Both of us have failed. Again, obedience must be cheerful. Just to stay in the Centre some of you obey me. I say, "Do this!" and you do it; or I say "Behave this way!" and you do it. But if you do it with reluctance, if you do it out of fear that you will otherwise be thrown out of the Centre, then that, obedience is no obedience. That kind of obedience is only deception; you are trying to deceive me, which you cannot, and you are trying to deceive your soul, which you cannot. Real obedience is conscious oneness, cheerful oneness, with the Master's will. Your Master has said this, so immediately you try to identify yourself cheerfully and unhesitatingly with his will because this is the right thing, because this is what you have to do. To behave with that attitude is called real obedience.