Transformation of the seeker's consciousness

I wish to tell you that when you enter into the spiritual life, very often you see that the play of the vital world or your subconscious life comes to the fore and your mind becomes full of filthy, dirty thoughts and ugly ideas. Now what happens? You feel, "Oh, I was far better before I accepted the spiritual life. These thoughts did not appear in those days. I came into the spiritual life in order to have a better life, a life of joy, success and progress. How is it that instead of making progress, I have once more become miserable? Such uncomely thoughts keep coming to the fore!"

I always say that the past is dust. But if the past looms large and comes to stand in front of you with its imperfections, limitations and bondage, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of your imperfect lower nature. This is the last blow that your vital wants to offer you. You should feel that on the strength of your genuine acceptance of your Master, he has taken full responsibility for your emotional life, your vital life, your sex life.

If you have accepted your spiritual Master really and truly, then he is bound to take your imperfections, your vital and emotional turmoil from you. He has the capacity and also he has been commissioned by God to do this. He hasn't come into the world to take only your aspiration and your divine qualities. He has come to transform your undivine qualities as well as to augment your divine qualities.

Some people have accepted their Master only in name. They say, "Oh, I have a Master," and then they enter into emotional life, the life of enjoyment, with the feeling, "My Master will take the responsibility." I wish to say that this is wrong. You cannot live a double life: coming to the Master to give him your life of devotion and going home or elsewhere to enjoy animal life. The Master is helpless if a seeker cherishes the animal life. This animal life has to be thrown into the Master's transcendental Consciousness if the seeker really wants to be purified. In that Consciousness the Master is not the body; he is the supreme Self.

If you feel that your undivine qualities are not being transformed, you cannot blame your Master. It is you who are not offering your undivine qualities to your Master. You are ashamed to offer them; you want to hide them. But this is the wrong attitude. You have to think of yourself as a child. A child is dearest to his mother precisely because he is like an open book to her. His very nature may be to go out and play and become dirty, but when his hands are dirty and he has sand all over his body he comes running to his mother. Then she embraces him and cleans him so that he becomes pure again. But if the child thinks that he has to be pure in order to approach his mother, then he will never become pure.

In the spiritual life it is the same. If the seeker has a Master, he has to be fully prepared to throw his emotional world into the Master's highest Consciousness. He cannot feel that he will keep his emotional life apart from his spiritual life. He has to give what he has and what he is. If he is creating divine qualities, let us say aspiration, that is wonderful. He is offering his aspiration to his Master. But if for some time he is wanting in aspiration, this state of consciousness he has also to offer consciously to the Master. If he can't meditate well one day and if he feels miserable, then that miserable condition he has to offer to the Master. And if he is successful in his meditation, then the joy that he gets he also has to offer. When one jumps into the vast ocean, one jumps with all that one has, even if a particular limb or part of the body is full of darkness and filth. When both your success and your failure immediately come to me spiritually, you will be the happiest person on earth.

So if you want to be totally pure and if you really want to be identified inseparably with me, you have to give both your divine qualities and your undivine qualities to me. You can become one with me because I have consciously and soulfully told you that you have every right to consider me as your very own. I have given you my soulful promise that I have accepted you wholeheartedly and you also have given me your soulful promise that you have accepted me wholeheartedly. So you have to give me what you have: imperfection, ignorance and vital life. Let your possessions in the vital world, in the mental world or in any other inner world of yours be mine. You will see that where transformation is necessary, your Master will do it; where the increase of divine qualities is necessary, your Master will do it. Your Master will do everything. He will multiply the divine qualities into infinity and the undivine qualities he will transform into divine qualities. But this I can do only on the strength of your real and implicit acceptance of me.

Unfortunately, some of you have an inner fear that you may one day leave the Centre because of depression or other wrong forces. But where will your Guru be at that time? Do you think he will be snoring? No. Even at the last moment, even if you actually leave our boat, if your soul pleads with me, "Bring my body back," I can do so. And even if this doesn't happen, your soul will maintain its connection with me forever.

Sometimes, if you have been with us for, say, five years and the body is constantly revolting against the soul's decisions, the soul may become disgusted. The soul may say, "I have tried to transform you, illumine you. Now wait; wait for God's Eternity, wait indefinitely." If the soul is disgusted, then you have to wait. At that time there is no hope, although the person could have benefited from being with me. But when there is no revolt, then don't worry; there is no chance, no possibility of your leaving our Centre. And even if you go, your soul would bring you back. It depends on the soul's eagerness, the soul's need.

You may be far from God-realisation, but some of you have made twenty incarnations progress by staying with me. Even though you are still far from illumination, if you had not accepted the spiritual life, the progress you have made, I assure you, would have remained a far cry. These things will be proved by your own soul's realisation. When you get illumination, you will see what your past would have been like if you had not accepted a spiritual path, any path. My disciples feel an affinity for our boat. It is our mutual love, our feeling of mutual oneness that keeps us together.