LET THE CLOUD DISPERSE

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LET THE CLOUD DISPERSE

Baba said, "There are many ways leading there; there is one way from here also.

The way is difficult" in Sri Sai Satcharitra Ch. II.

It was wet, wintry day in Calcutta. I was there away from my college, in my

room, which I loved more than words may tell. For there I sat near the house of

my Guru. The shades of evening were falling fast; and with love – how pure, how

rich – in my heart, I met my Guru, touching his feet with tears in my eyes.

That blessed evening, I had a little talk with him.

"Dada" I said to him, "what is the greatest hindrance to holy life, the greatest

obstacle to the life of the Spirit?"

He smiled and said, "My child! Two kinds of life there be:

The life of the Spirit;

The life of the flesh.

The life of the flesh is full of pleasure, of bodily sensations, of excitement

and enjoyment; it is a life dear to the lower self. Eat, drink and be merry –

is the motto of this life; Think not of the morrow; the morrow will take care

of itself.

"The life of the Spirit is the life of aspiration, of battle with appetite and

desire. And, often, he who battled thus sheds tears. Sometimes – perhaps often

– he falls, but he rises again. It is a life of tremendous difficulties. But at

every step, hope springs in the heart within. It is life of search and struggle;

it is a life of sanga, of fellowship with the pure, the holy, the divine! It is

a life in which the cry of the heart ever rises upward: "Though Thou slay me

yet will I follow Thee! Though Thou cut me into twain, yet will I trust in

Thee!"

"This is the true life: it gives us pain but makes us men. It is a life which is

full of difficulties, but it makes us heroic. And when the period of conflict is

over, it makes us beautiful, and we shine as the radiant sun: we shine as

far-off stars.

"In the life of the flesh, we have pleasure, but darkness surrounds us. In the

life of the Spirit, we struggle and often we fall: but we rise, again and

again. And, at last, we touch the divine, and our faces are radiant and, one

day, become calm and wear the beauty, the freshness, the radiance, the charm of

the dawn of the saint of God."

Then my Guru looked at me and smiled and said, "This is the life which you must

aspire to, my child! The path is often thorny, and as you will bleed, but in

your heart within bloom flowers of beauty, and your face will shine as the lily

or the lotus in the lake!"

And with tear-touched eyes, I said to him: "Tell me why we do not live this

beautiful life? What is it which is a hindrance on the path? Why is it that

though we have a longing for a life of the Spirit, we live the life of the

flesh?"

My Guru looked at me again and said: "My child! One thing only stands in the

way. The sun shines but is darkened by a cloud: let the cloud disperse and the

sun will shine again in all beauty, in the fullness of splendour. This one

cloud which hinders, obstructs, stands in the way, this one cloud which

darkness life and keeps us apart from Him of Whom we are a part – this one

cloud, this little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, is "I" and "mine".

(Written by Sri. T.L. Vaswani in Mira Jan-Feb 2004)

 

 

 

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