THE TOUCHSTONE OF DISCIPLESHIP

THE TOUCHSTONE OF DISCIPLESHIP: The Master once had occasion to dismiss an aspirant from the Ashram.

Addressing the secretary of the Ashram and a few other disciples shortly after he had removed the aspirant, the Master said, “Moral turpitude is unworthy of an aspirant and disgraceful in a Sannyasin. I would let off with a warning the man who succumbs to lust, for instance, and give the person a chance to improve. But I take even more serious notice of any attempt to disrupt the harmony of the Ashram, to foil the mission of the Lord, and to drive a wedge between workers here. You should be on the lookout for such mischief-mongers, who are a deadly canker to the institution, and remove them then and there. In their case I adopt the thundering method and without even so much as a previous warning, I suddenly remove them.

“I feel very much for him,” the Master went on to say. “I do not like to see anyone who has taken to the path of Sadhana and renunciation denied the safe refuge that the Ashram affords from the onslaughts of Maya. I feel grateful, too, to Sri X, for the service he has rendered to the Ashram during his stay here. But nothing, no personal feelings that may well up in my heart, can stand in the way of my all-consuming desire to see that the Lord’s work is carried on smoothly and unhampered by discordant elements here. When the weeds have to be pulled out, we should not be afraid of doing so, for it is our duty.

“What is lacking in these individuals is the spirit of dedication. If you sincerely and whole-heartedly dedicate yourself to the divine cause, such situations as these will never arise. It is this half-hearted service that gives ample room for the old vicious impressions to assume great proportions and lead you astray.

“You may work day and night, but unless this spirit of dedication is fully aroused in your heart, you will still be wavering in your faith, in your adherence to the divine life, and pitfalls will always crowd your path. It is dedication and dedication alone that will enable you to crush and destroy your self-assertive ego and enable you to progress rapidly on the path of Sadhana. When this spirit has been fully developed in you, then you will understand clearly the meaning of true humility.

“Obedience, dedication and spiritual contact are all interlinked. Only if you dedicate yourself whole-heartedly to the cause will you be able to establish the inner contact with me. Otherwise you may remain here for a number of years and work like a bull, but you will not derive much spiritual benefit

“Petty personal desires and ambitions, feelings of like and dislike, and your own notions about spiritual life, stand in your way of establishing this contact. You must introspect daily and find out your defects. You must pray every morning to Mother Ganges: ‘It is by your supreme Grace that I am here on your banks, while millions all over the world long to have a glimpse of you and have a sip of your holy waters. Mother, bless me that I may be pure at heart, that I may stick to this path of renunciation and Sadhana, that I may be free from all faults and dedicate myself whole-heartedly to the divine cause.’

“Think, for what reason have you all come here? Is it for quarrelling over an extra cup of milk or a couple of fruit? Is it to fight for position and power in the Society? You have come here to attain Self-realisation. Fix your whole mind on this great goal of life. Do not let anything distract your attention

“Even if you do not aim at Self-realisation, even if you have come here merely for enjoying peace of mind, it is your foremost duty to develop some divine virtues while you are here. Virtues only will give you peace of mind. Instead, if you spend all your time in idle gossiping and scandal-mongering, how can you enjoy peace of mind? You will disturb the peace of others, too.

“Dissolve all these ‘Vedantic clubs’ here immediately, this very moment. When three idlers, whether they are Sannyasins or householders meet in a tea-shop, what do they talk about? Will it be about God and Sadhana, about service to humanity or Self-realisation? No. It will always be about someone or other. It may be about their brother disciples and the secretary of the Ashram, or about Stalin or Churchill. They will begin criticising everyone in the world except themselves. And when this group breaks up and the members join other clubs, then the new group will criticise the old group. Disgraceful!

“You must be ever busy in selfless service. Work, work and work—there is nothing so potent as work to keep the devilish mind ever engaged and to prevent it from doing its mischief. You must surround yourself on all sides with work. You must always have a month’s work pending on you. You should never have a chance to feel that you have finished all work, for, at that very instant you give the mind a licence to run riot. There is no dearth of work here. I can give you this very moment enough work that can keep you busily engaged twenty-four hours of the day for two years to come.

“But you do not want to come closer to me. You hide yourself from me. It is difficult for me to see many of the inmates here. Like an English gentleman you lock yourself inside your room and I have to wait at your door to give you some work. You do not want to undertake two or three types of work at the same time. You feel that you will then be overworked and will have a breakdown. Work will never weaken you. Work will infuse new energy in you. It is when your hands are idle that your evil mind gets busy. When you think you have finished the work on hand, you run to the Ram Ashram to read newspapers or join the Vedantic club to talk ill of others.

“You think I do not know anything. I know everything. I know every bit of every inmate here, even the newcomers. You cannot hide anything from me. But it is my nature to give a long rope. I do not make much of silly mistakes committed by anybody. I know it is human to err. I keep a close watch to see if the person reforms himself or goes his own way. Silently I give him every opportunity of transforming himself. I give him the right kind of work and the best opportunities of studying the scriptures and engaging himself in Japa and meditation. I excuse a man’s faults almost indefinitely. The knowledge of a man’s evil doings goes on accumulating in me; and when the limit has been reached I just do away with him.

“You think I am all kindness and love; you think that I am fond of work and of making others work. Yes, so I am. But you are not aware of my Rudra-aspect. When by cramming a few phrases you get puffed up with the pride of knowledge, when you imagine that you have become indispensable to the mission, then I show a little bit of my Rudra-aspect. It was one Gandhi and not any institution that brought independence to India. One saint can bring spiritual upliftment to the whole world. The institution is only an instrument in his hands, and it provides scope for others to evolve. I can carry on my work without any kind of institution. Even today I can dissolve this Society, go and take alms, live in a cave and work wonders. I am not enamoured of B.A.’s or M. A.’s. If B.A.’s leave the Society, some M. A.’s will be waiting to join it. If second-class writers leave the Ashram, first-class writers will join it tomorrow. It is only one spiritual personality that counts in the world, not thousands of half-baked aspirants.

“Even now I can set you an example in renunciation. I can live on two dry rotis and Ganges water. Overwork, financial worries and, above all, diabetes, compel me to allow the body a few comforts. You have no idea how much energy I spend daily in so many channels. I must give that energy back to the body and keep it in a fit condition to serve. With all this I fast completely on Ekadasi and take saltless diet on several days of the week. Does anyone here do this?

“On the contrary, you are quarrelling over an extra cup of milk. You are fighting for fruit. If at this young age, when you are full of radiant energy, you do not practise self-denial, renunciation and austerity, then when will you do so?

“You have no contentment. That is why there is no spiritual lustre in your face. If you have contentment, there will be lustre in your face, sparkle in your eyes and you will radiate peace and bliss. But when your heart is torn to shreds by cravings and desires, when you are ceaselessly craving for the petty things of the world, what spiritual progress can you achieve? It is then better for such people to go out into the world, marry and lead a proper householder’s life. Otherwise they would miss both. They would deny themselves the pleasures of a worldly life and would achieve nothing in the spiritual field either. There is no use vegetating here. You must be dynamic. You must be full of spirit, vigour and enthusiasm.

“Suppose you were leading a householder’s life, would you be taking milk and fruit daily? Ask yourself. If you were earning Rs. 150 a month and were the head of a family of five members, would you enjoy the luxury of a banana even once a month? Never. You would, on the other hand, think that it was a waste of money. Your mind would not even think of such things. Why? Because you would feel that you were responsible for the family maintenance, that you should save money in order that your children may have their education. But here you do not feel any such responsibility. You have no feeling at all for the progress of the institution. If you had this feeling there will be no problems at all.

“All your efforts should be to further the cause, to find out ways and means of utilising the income of the Ashram in the best possible manner so that the maximum good can be done to the world. You should identify yourself fully with the cause; then and then alone will you understand what Karma Yoga means.

“But you are not interested in the Ashram. You think that you can deceive the authorities here and further your own selfish ends. You are fond of keeping a private purse. You have your own bank accounts. A private purse and a cheque book are the greatest curse to a real aspirant. They throw you into the abysmal depths of worldliness. When you are in an institution that nourishes you and looks after you, providing you with all that you need, where is the necessity of keeping a private purse? If you are serving the institution selflessly and if you have no private outside contact, from where do you get money for your private purse? The desire for private money intoxicates you. It drives you to adopt all kinds of vicious methods for getting money for your private account. You serve the visitors as an inmate of the Ashram, show all your teeth in front of them, complain about the Ashram, and then trade on their sympathy for getting a few rupees from them.

“All your necessities are provided by the Ashram. Why do you need money? Through money you cultivate several evil habits. Your old suppressed, vicious impressions get the upper hand. You get a downfall. You try to drag others, too, with you. You form a party of your own. You do not care for your Guru and even criticise him. The little money creates in you a craving for more. You try to drive a wedge between the important workers in the Ashram and disturb the atmosphere in an attempt to get power and money. You become a dangerous, destructive element. Lust for power and wealth turns your head. You create disharmony. You even go to the extent of turning against your Guru and ruining his mission.

“Such people do not realise the grave consequences of their actions. Guru-Droha (antagonism to the Guru), is the vilest crime, the greatest sin. He who indulges in Guru-Droha will suffer terribly in old age. Afflicted with some fell disease like leprosy, with mouth full of ulcers, without food, without clothes, uncared for, suffering intolerably the pangs of hunger and thirst, harassed by the ravages of bitter weather, he will die a slow death in agony and pain.

“What to speak of service of the Guru! You should whole-heartedly serve an Ashram or institution that has given you food and shelter for some time. Gratitude is a golden virtue. If you do not possess this fundamental virtue which even animals possess, how can you hope to attain God-realisation?

“From the very beginning you have adopted the wrong attitude to life. Only if you had served your parents would you know what obedience is, what the spirit of service is. When an opportunity for service is offered to you here, you think, ‘I did not serve even my parents, why should I serve these people?’ That is the granite state of your ego. It can only melt through repeated knocks and blows and through the Lord’s Grace.

“Ceaselessly remember the Lord. Repeat His Name constantly. Serve, serve and serve. Work, work and work. If you are not working you should be engaged in fruitful study. When you are doing neither, you should be doing Japa and meditation. I have provided all facilities for these within the Ashram itself—plenty of scope for work and service, books and journals for study, and the Bhajan hall, temple and rooms for meditation. And by God’s Grace you have food and clothing without any difficulty at all. Is there any need for you to go beyond the Ashram area? It is only the upsurge of your own wrong impressions that takes you beyond the bounds, that prompts you to make parties and indulge in loose talks and scandal-mongering. Get rid of these impressions by means of service, meditation and study, by looking into the good of others and never even thinking of their faults. Mind your own business! Mend your own mind! Evolve, evolve, evolve!

“What I have said today is enough to keep you vigilant for three years to come. I have great love for you all. I pray to God day and night to bless you all with discrimination, dispassion and wisdom. That is why I am telling you all this. I do not impose any hard discipline on you because I know that there are people here who are in different stages of evolution, and I wish to allow each aspirant to grow of his own accord without let or hindrance. I wish that every aspirant should awaken his latent faculties. I allow him ample scope for the development of his talents and growth.

“This does not mean that I am too lenient. I carefully watch every one of your actions. I can judge your heart from the way you look, from the way you talk, from the smallest details of your behaviour. I can point out your faults then and there and shape your future. But I do not want you to be afraid of me. I do not want that you should obey me through fear. Obedience should spring from love and dedication. Obedience should spring from a genuine desire to evolve and grow spiritually. Obedience compelled by fear and dread will not last; it will not be sincere and whole-hearted. You will only be waiting for an opportunity of running away from discipline. Therefore, I adopt this loving method of guiding you on the path.

“Live here and work in harmony. Do not criticise others. Do not try to disrupt the atmosphere of the Ashram. If you free the secretaries from problems and worries, how much good work they will be able to do! Now all their time is taken up in settling disputes and attending to the petty desires of Ashramites. If all of you work harmoniously you can work wonders.

“May God bless you all with wisdom and inner spiritual strength!”

.. Swami Sivananda ...