AUM — Vol. 8, No. 3, October 1972

Maitreyi —- a play

Y: Katyayani, I am now an old man.

K: My Lord, there comes a time when every human being becomes old. You are no exception.

Y: Yes, you are right, Katyayani. Katyayani, I wish to make a simple suggestion to you. Can I?

K: Certainly, by all means.

Y: As you know, I have now reached the ripe old age. According to our tradition, at that stage of life one must enter into the forest and offer one’s life to God in prayer and meditation. It is high time for me to do that.

K: Who stands in your way, my Lord? Certainly I am not the one who will ever prevent you from doing the right thing.

Y: Thank you, thank you, my dear Katyayani. Now here is the problem.

K: There is no problem; what is it? Tell me, my Lord.

Y: Before I leave, I wish to offer you one half of my wealth, property and possessions and the other half to my other wife, Maitreyi.

K: That is fine with me, although it is I who have been taking care of you most of the time. Maitreyi only wastes her time in fruitless meditation.

Y: Katyayani, my dear, Maitreyi’s meditation is not fruitless. She does not waste time in meditation either.

K: It is simply useless to tell you anything about Maitreyi. What I have said is not at all against her. I have just brought to your attention a mere fact, rather an undeniable fact. Anyway, since she too has the claim to have you as her own, you may as well divide all your possessions between your darling Maitreyi and your maidservant Katyayani. I hate Maitreyi, I literally hate her. I do everything for you and she takes away all the credit. I have never seen such an irresponsible, careless and callous woman. Yet you love her dearly, more dearly than your very life. I tell you once and for all that I hate Maitreyi with all the hatred of the world at my command.

Enter Maitreyi

K: Just think of the devil and the devil appears! Maitreyi, you have appeared unexpectedly and I disappear deliberately!

Exit Katyayani

M: My Lord, I wish to meditate for a few minutes. Will you kindly join me?

Y: Certainly I will.

Both Yagnyavalka and Maitreyi meditate together. Meditation over, Yagnyavalka blesses Maitreyi.

M: thrilled and overjoyed My Lord, o matchless sage, I have seen, I have seen!

Y: What have you seen, Maitreyi?

M: I have seen your third Eye wide open. Fathomless is its beauty. Measureless is its power.

Y: I am proud of you. I am proud of your aspiration. Maitreyi, I have something quite important to discuss with you. Do you have the time?

M: Of course, for you, my Lord, I have always the time. I am always at your disposal. This life of mine is always at your express command.

Y: I knew it. I knew it. Now Maitreyi, I have already discussed the matter with Katyayani. She has fully agreed.

M: First let me know what it is all about.

Y: Ah, you are right. I am awfully sorry. The time has at last come for me to enter into the forest and spend my remaining days in meditating on the Absolute, offering my existence, inner and outer, to my inner Pilot.

M: My Lord, indeed, that’s a splendid idea.

Y: But listen, my divine wife. I have already told you that I have discussed the matter with Katyayani and that she has fully consented. I want you to have full half of my wealth, property and possessions and the other half, needless to say, goes to Katyayani.

M: My Lord, do listen to me first, before I accept or reject your kind offer. You have always taught me that material wealth is of no avail. It is nothing in comparison to the inner wealth. Why, then, do you bind me with material wealth? Tell me one thing, my Lord, will this material wealth in any way add to my heart’s mounting cry?

Y: Unfortunately, no.

M: Then why do you impose on me the things that will take me away from the path of truth, from the path of divinity, from the path of immortality? My Lord, my heart pines only for the immortal, Transcendental Self. I want nothing but Immortality’s Life. Yenaham namrta... “What shall I do with the things that will not make me immortal?” Let Katyayani have all your material wealth. Let her cherish your earthly possessions and I shall treasure your heavenly possession — your loftiest realisation, your total oneness with the Absolute.

Y: while blessing Maitreyi: Maitreyi, you are my heart’s pride. You are my soul’s pride. You are the pride of the absolute Supreme. Your footprints on the sands of time are indelible. Maitreyi, here is my last request. Please sing a few soul-stirring songs for me.

M: sings

Yenaham namrta syam, kim aham tena kuryam.

tat tvam, pusan apavrnu, satya-dharmaya drstaye.

What shall I do with the things that cannot make me immortal?

Remove it, O Sun, so that I who am devoted to the Truth may behold the Truth.

Vedaham etam purusam mahantam

I have known this Great Being, effulgent as the sun beyond the boundaries of tenebrous gloom.

Anandadd hy eva khalv imani bhutani jayante.

anandam prayantyabhisam-visanti.

From Delight we came into existence. In Delight we grow.

The cosmic gods — Surya

Surya, the Sun-God, is extremely important and significant in our spiritual life, although there are very few hymns to him. Only ten hymns are offered to the Sun-God, in comparison to more than two hundred and fifty hymns offered to Indra.

The sun is far, very far from our planet, the earth. When we observe the sun from here, we see a tiny disc, but we know how vast it really is. Similarly, the inner sun, the sun that we have deep within us, is far, very far from us. But when we approach our inner sun we are illumined, we are transformed, and we enter into the effulgence of transcendental Light.

The physical sun, the sun that we actually see, is the eye of the Gods Agni, Varuna, and Mitra. I shall not speak today on Varuna and Mitra except to say that the physical sun, the great star whom we call the sun is the physical embodiment of the spiritual light of Agni and the two other cosmic gods. Surya is the eye of the gods.

Dawn is the harbinger of Surya, the Sun-God. In Sanskrit the dawn is called Usha or Ahana. Usha is the goddess of dawn. She invokes the presence of the Sun-God and when Surya appears, he seems to be following her. The Sun-God has boundless divine love for the Goddess Usha and he wants to offer all his inner divinity to her. She receives it joyfully from him.

The sun is the creator and from the sun our creation came into existence. Unlike the outer sun, the inner sun moves; that is why the inner light moves and illumines. Again, the inner sun can remain silent. When the inner sun is silent, we are also silent. That is why in the Isha Upanishad, one of the most famous Upanishads, we have a description of something that moves and at the same time moves not:

Tad ejati tan naijati...

That moves and that moves not. That is far and that is near. That is within and that is without.

Each of us, each human being, has an inner sun. The physical sun we observe every day, but the inner sun, the sun of divinity that we have inside us, unfortunately we do not see, in most cases, even once during our lifetime. Again, if I say that each individual is blessed with only one inner sun, then I am mistaken. The spiritual seekers who are advanced in the field of spirituality have more than one spiritual sun. And the spiritual Master, in his highest transcendental Consciousness, is the possessor of the entire universe. He possesses the outer sun and countless inner suns.

I assure you, if you are on the path to spirituality, you are bound to see your inner sun. Some of you have already had a glimpse of it. Some of you have seen it for a fleeting second, but have not been able to realise it as the inner sun. A day will dawn when you will see your inner sun face to face, and as you grow in the spiritual life you are bound to develop more than one inner sun. Every day you will see your inner sun fully in all its transcendental glory. You will be inundated with celestial Light.

The Sun-God also is the God of Flight and he performs his task like a beautiful bird. Time and space are covered by the wings of the Sun-God. In the Rig Veda there is a significant hymn which runs thus: “The stars are acting like thieves. When they see the sun, they act like thieves; they run away, for they are afraid of the infinite effulgence of the sun.” There is another hymn, the invitation of the evening. Evening invites the sun to set, saying, “Brother, you have worked very hard during the whole day. Now you take rest.” In that way night commences, when evening makes a fervent request to the Sun-God to take rest.

The sun is the creator who has created something without beginning or end. A great Master once said, “If the beginning comes from anything, then it cannot be a beginning. Beginning cannot come from anything.” It is true. But in the spiritual life we know two significant words: Purusha and Prakriti. Prakriti and Purusha are always birthless and endless. In the thirteenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna makes it very clear that Prakriti and Purusha are both without beginning. Purusha the transcendental Being, the primordial Being and Prakriti the absolute Energy, created both the eternal and the temporal.

In the Rig Veda we learn that existence came from nonexistence. Now what does nonexistence mean? If we think that non-existence means nothing then we are mistaken. Nonexistence is something which we cannot see with our naked eye, something which is beyond our earthly ken. Non-existence is something which is right now beyond the capacity of our earthly eye. It is not something that never existed. When our third eye is at our constant command, we will see the nonexistence as something which has not yet taken proper form and substance in the outer world. When it takes proper shape and form it becomes possible and practicable for us to see it and use it in our day-to-day life.

We all want to bathe in the sea of sunlight. The outer sunlight will give us purification; the inner sunlight will give us illumination. When we want to bathe in the sea or the river, we need soap, towel and so forth. But when we have a sun bath, we don’t need either soap or water or towel. And when we have an inner sun bath, we need only one thing. The only thing we need to satisfy all our inner needs is our soul’s tearful gratitude. When we offer our soul’s tearful gratitude to the Supreme, or when we enter into our soul’s tearful gratitude, we can in no time bathe in the sea of inner light.

The sun that we see in the sky is always beautiful. The day dawns; we see beauty all around. We look at the sun and we get inspiration. God the Beauty, the Sun-God, comes to us in the form of inspiration. The poet is inspired to write soulful poems, the musician is inspired to compose most beautiful pieces. The men going to work in their different walks of life are getting abundant inspiration to fulfil their daily duties from the sun. Here the Sun-God comes to us as inspiration. We have to perform the tasks of the day. We have to fulfil our outer demands as well as our inner demands. The inner Sun comes to us with his fiery flames, giving us powerful, soulful, dynamic inner will which will hasten our inner evolution and outer manifestation.

The Sun-God comes to us as realisation in the evening. Evening comes, the sun sets, purity reigns supreme all around. Nature is strengthening, mother earth aspiring, all peace and love within and without. When realisation dawns, the roles of inspiration and aspiration end. With evening comes realisation, as the Sun-God offers us the consummation of his wealth.

In the Vedas there are thousands of mantras. Mantra means incantation. It is a Sanskrit word. A mantra can be a syllable, a word, a name or a sentence or two, and when we utter it soulfully we are transported into the seventh heaven of celestial delight. There are thousands of mantras, but there is one mantra that is known as the mother of all mantras and that mantra is the Gayatri mantra. This mantra we find in the three Vedas; the Rig Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda. Also this mantra is in one of our ragas — a most sublime raga called Gayatri. I am offering you this particular mantra right now. Why? There is a special reason. First I would like to chant it, then I will tell you its significance.

```

tat savitur varenyam

dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

This is the Gayatri mantra. Many composers have set tune to it. Its meaning is: “We contemplate on the most brilliant light of the Creator-Deity, the Sun-God, for inner understanding, to illumine our intelligence, to stimulate our understanding, to transform our earthbound consciousness into the boundless light of the inner Sun, the Sun-God."

In India, in the small hours of the morning, the Brahmins and the seekers of the highest Truth, with folded hands, look up into the sky as the sun comes up over the horizon and offer this prayer to the Sun-God. They chant it most soulfully. They repeat this mantra hundreds of times for inner illumination. You can imagine how it looks when you walk along the Ganges and see the Indian Brahmins who are conversant with the Vedic lore and the seekers of the Infinite with folded hands, praying to the sun for inner illumination. By repeating this mantra, hundreds and hundreds of seekers have attained to spiritual perfection. This mantra is the mother of all mantras. If you can repeat it soulfully thousands of times at a stretch, you are bound to get at least an iota of inner illumination. But it has to be done most soulfully and not like a child learning something by rote.

The sun is the soul of the universe. The soul has neither birth nor death. This is what we know of the soul.

Na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin...

"The soul is never born and it never dies. It has no beginning, it has no end, no past, no present, no future."

This is the soul. Again, you know that I very often sing here:

Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya...

"Fire cannot burn it, water cannot drench it, wind cannot dry it, weapons cannot cleave it..."

This is the soul.

The Sun-God gives us knowledge, wisdom. The Sun-God frees us from ignorance, teeming ignorance, impenetrable darkness. Therefore we have to invoke the Sun-God. Avidya means ignorance. Vidya means knowledge. Vidya and avidya go together.

What is ignorance? Let us take ignorance as a thorn. One thorn has entered into our foot. Now let us take another thorn, Knowledge, to remove the previous thorn. Once we have taken out the thorn, when both thorns are out, we do not need the thorn that has entered into our foot and we do not need the thorn that helped us to remove it. When we took out the first thorn with the help of the second thorn we can say that we entered into the realm of death and conquered it. We go beyond both Knowledge and ignorance and enter into the domain of wisdom’s ecstasy.

There are two types of knowledge; outer knowledge and inner knowledge. Outer knowledge can tell us about spiritual life, inner life. But this outer knowledge is not the same as inner knowledge. Outer knowledge tells us that there is God, that if we follow the spiritual life we will realise God and that if we meditate on God we will have peace, bliss, power, delight and so forth. This is outer knowledge. It cannot go further. But from the information that we have gathered together as outer knowledge, if we try to go deep within, when we enter into the inmost recesses of our heart, the inner knowledge dawns. When inner knowledge dawns, automatically, spontaneously we taste the divine nectar, Amrita and this divine nectar is immortality.

The sunlight and the Sun-God cannot be separated. As God the Creator and God the Creation cannot be separated, so the Sun-God and the sunlight cannot be separated. Thus in The Vedas it is said:

Surya jyotir jyotir surya...

"The Sun-God is light, light is the Sun-God..."

Meditations

1.

2.

3.

Must needs always say,

4.

Introduction

Mockery returns home

The Muslim said, “I am eating rice and I am eating your second Avatar.”

According to Hindu tradition, the second Avatar was the Lord in the form of a fish. So, instead of saying, “I am eating rice and fish,” the Muslim said, “I am eating your second Avatar,” in order to insult the minister who was a Hindu.

The minister, who was not to be defeated, immediately replied, “Oh, do you think it is our second Avatar? No, you are wrong. I see clearly that you are eating our third Avatar.”

Now, the third Avatar was the Lord in the form of a boar and Muslims never eat the meat of the boar.

The Muslim said, “No, no, no! I don’t eat it! I don’t eat it!” He was so disgusted at the very idea, that he threw all his food away, he simply threw it. He said, “You have insulted me!”

The minister replied, “You have insulted me. You told me that you were eating our second Avatar, so I told you that you were eating our third Avatar.”

What do we learn from this story? We learn that when we criticise any religion, consciously, unconsciously, or just to make fun, immediately God will inspire the followers of the other religion to make us conscious of our stupidity. God wants us to see and feel His living Presence in all religions. One man was a Muslim and the other was a Hindu. Followers of these two religions are always at daggers’ drawn. When the Muslim attacked the Hindu, the Hindu immediately retaliated. No matter what the topic may be, if you attack someone unnecessarily, at that time there will be divine Power to take his side and challenge you.

In the spiritual life we always see that if you just want to find fault with somebody else, if you want to criticise someone and make fun of someone, God will immediately give the other person the necessary capacity to make fun of you. If the Muslim had said the right thing, then the question of making fun, the question of insulting and abusing might not have arisen. If he had said “rice and fish,” then who knows what the minister would have said. But instead, the Muslim had to make fun of Hinduism by saying, “I am eating your second Avatar.” That is why the minister gave him a reply which contradicted his own religious beliefs and made him lose his appetite.

The marriage of courage and fear

“Please don’t be angry, your Majesty.” said the minister. “You wanted to see both the qualities. If I can show them to you in one person, will you not be satisfied?”

“Certainly I will,” said the King. “But it is impossible for one person to be at the same time the bravest and the most cowardly.”

“No, it is not,” said the minister, “and I will prove it to you.” With that he presented to the King a young and beautiful woman.

“You are cutting jokes with me!” exclaimed the King. “I can see that this woman may be the most timid person on earth, but how can she be the bravest?”

“I will tell you in what way she is very brave and in what way she is very timid. This girl will walk miles through a thunderstorm and pouring rain on a deserted road at midnight in order to visit her boyfriend. No man would dare to go where she goes alone at that time of night without a thought for her own safety. But when this girl is at home with her husband, if a tiny mouse makes a noise, or a little cockroach crawls by, she will be frightened to death. She will stand on a chair and scream until someone chases it away. So you can see that she is both the bravest and the most cowardly person in one.”

The King was satisfied with his minister’s choice.

Spiritual comments

Necessity makes the person strong or weak. It was her necessity to go to visit her boyfriend. Necessity will make even the weakest person strong. But when there is no necessity, immediately one becomes weak. You know that in competition Mangal throws the javelin very far. But if his wife asks him to take out the garbage, he has no strength. If she asks him to bring her a piece of bread from the kitchen, he can’t bring it. He’s tired; he’s exhausted. Strength comes only when the feeling of necessity is there.

In the spiritual life also, where do we get strength from? It is from faith. If you have faith in me, in your spiritual Master, immediately you become the strongest man. If you have faith in me, then you can do anything I ask you. But when you don’t have faith, then you are helpless.

With a strong faith you can climb the Himalayas. And without faith even if you see an ant you will be afraid. The ant will not necessarily bite you, but just because you know that it can bite, you are half dead with fear.

Look at the strength of faith. In India it happened that a child heard many times from his mother that tigers kill people and devour them. Then, when he saw a picture of a tiger on the wall, he immediately fainted. He had great faith in his mother and she had instilled tremendous fear in him. If a spiritual child can have this kind of faith in his spiritual Mother and Father, he will make the fastest progress. If you are told that you will realise God if you pray to a picture of Krishna and if you have tremendous faith and you look at a picture of Krishna and pray, you will realise God.

Love is this; also love is that

Love is the road that leads;

Love is the passion-storm

Love’s child is emotion-flame.

Love’s heart is breath or death.

"Existence, non-existence and the source"

Sat is existence. This existence is cherished by the aspiring consciousness and by God’s own highest Reality. Reality and existence have to go together. Reality without existence is an impossibility and existence without reality is an absurdity. Divine Reality and Divine Existence always go together.

Existence expresses itself only through Truth. This Truth conquers everything that is untruth. India’s motto, Satya meva jayate means “Truth alone conquers.” What is this Truth? This Truth is at once the Depth of God’s Heart and the Height of God’s Head.

Truth is our inner promise. Our inner promise, soul’s promise, is that in this incarnation we will realise God, not by hook or by crook, but under the able guidance of our spiritual Master, because we feel that this is what the Supreme within us wants. What for? To serve Him in His own way. But the highest way of feeling the Truth is this: If He does not want me to realise Him in this incarnation, but in some future incarnation, I am fully prepared to abide by His decision. I must have a dynamic feeling. If the seeker in me just says, “Oh, let me play my role. Let me be nice, sincere, truthful, obedient and when the time comes, He will do it all, then some relaxation comes in. Very often when one says, “Let me play my role and God will take care of my realisation,” God does take care of his realisation. But if he feels that if he becomes fully realised as soon as possible, then he can be of real help to Him; if he has Peace, Light, Bliss, then only can he be of real service to mankind. The idea of God-realisation at God’s choice hour must come from the very depth of one’s heart and not from one’s mental knowledge. Unfortunately, it usually does not come from the heart, it comes only from the clever mind which says, “I have read in books and I have heard from the Master that if I do not want anything from God, then God will give me everything,” But no, pray to God to give you peace of mind so that you can see the Truth in totality. To ask God for peace of mind is not a crime. If you do not have peace of mind, wherever you are, whether in the subway, or in the country, or in Times Square, then there is no God there. God has given us some intelligence. In the morning if you say, “God, it is up to You whether I eat or not. I will just stay here in bed,” God is not going to put food into your mouth. No, God has given you the necessary intelligence to know that you have to put forth some effort. You have to leave the bed and take a shower and eat by your own effort. In the inner life, if you want purity, humility, peace of mind and other divine qualities, then you have to make an effort to get them. It is true that if you don’t pray to God for anything, then He will give you everything, but this truth has to be understood and accepted in its highest form. If you don’t pray to God, or aspire for God-realisation, or even think of God, then how do you expect God to give you everything? He will give you everything only when you sincerely aspire for the highest spiritual Truth. He will give you everything on the strength of your absolute faith in Him combined with your sincere inner cry.

Here we are dealing with The Upanishadic ideas. The Upanishads come from the Vedas. Now what is the difference between the gifts which we get from the Vedas and the gifts which we get from the Upanishads? The Vedas are like a storehouse; everything is there, but it is not kept in proper order or shape, or in its proper place. Also, in it there are quite a few things which are unimportant for the present day life, for evolved human beings, for the modern world, for the intelligent or developed mind. The Upanishads come to our rescue. They take the inspiration and aspiration from the Vedas, but they have their own originality. All that is good in the Vedas, the Upanishads gladly take and offer in a special manner. Without the Vedas, the Upanishads do not exist. The Vedas are the source, but the wealth of the Vedas can be offered to mankind properly only through the Upanishads. The Upanishads have the capacity to enter into the source and the capacity to offer illumining, fulfilling wealth of the source in a way that can be accepted and understood by humanity at large. They are the end or cream of the Vedas; they are called Vedanta. On the mental plane, on the spiritual plane, on the psychic plane, on the moral plane, all of India’s achievements come from the polished, developed, aspiring and illumining consciousness of the Upanishads.

Buddhism is a form of Vedanta philosophy. But Buddha’s philosophy emphasises a special aspect of Vedanta. We speak of Buddha as the Lord of Compassion. We speak of Buddha’s moral ethics. Where did all this come from? From Vedanta. But while expressing the Vedantic or Upanishadic truth, Buddha offered his own inner light in a specific way. That is why ordinary human beings find it difficult to believe that Vedanta was the original source of Buddha’s teachings.

In the Western world we have Pythagoras and Plato, two great philosophers. You can see that the philosophy of both of them, and especially Plato, has been greatly inspired by Upanishadic thought. Unfortunately, people believe that the Western world did not accept anything from an Eastern source, but it is not true. Sufism, this emotional or psychic mysticism of the West, where does it come from? Again, from the Upanishads, the same source.

The world has received many significant things from the Upanishads, but unfortunately the world does not want to offer credit to the source. No harm.

Music section

_Antare esho_

/Antare esho neme rudra debata mangala moy antare esho neme/

/karuna moitryi niye antare esho neme rudra debata/

/pralaye achal rudra antare esho shiba shankar/

/mangala moy antare esho neme anadi deber charan parashe/

/amar maran nashi antare esho neme rudra debata/

_Swalpe tushta_

/Salpe tushta brihate shanka khudra gandi manaba danka/

/swalpe tushta brihate shanka khudra gandi manaba danka/

/klanta byathita tushti pushti swapne tripta/

/khudra gandi manaba danka mauni mukta tapasa siddha/

/dipti dibya jagye labhuk tripti swalpe tushta/