Did Shri Mataji subject us to any of these demands, donations and discipline?

[Guest guest]

sccultinfo

Mon Oct 18, 2004 5:45 pm

repost: something to think about from moretothinkabout

 

Message 4792 of 7274

 

 

" moretothinkabout " <moretothinkabout>

Sat Mar 8, 2003 9:05 am

Re Dronacharya's 'True Spirituality'

 

 

Esteemed Dronacharya,

 

What you say, and what Oko says is absolutely true. True

spirituality, true meditation takes us to a place of oneness, love

and forgiveness. This is what we all wanted, this is why we came to a

master, this is why we tried to grow in love and surrender.

 

The central theme of most postings is, however, the perversion of

this ideal by a false master. When you see so many people who are on

the path so far away from this ideal, despite their sincerity, and

when you see so many people off the path who feel they have been hurt

and abused, there is naturally a need to understand and then to re-

balance. That is what the discussion is about here.

 

Something which Sri Ramana Maharshi said struck me when I was under

the control of CKG. He says that the spiritual life is not meant to

add responsibilities to your life, but to relieve you of all

responsibilities. I used to think of this when I was faced with the

agenda that CKG imposed on all his disciples : a) get up at 6 am

with not enough sleep; b) say endless prayers and sing endless songs;

c) feel that there was not enough time to really meditate after doing

what obedience demanded (ie, these endless prayers and songs) d) try

to put in a half hour reading master's books e) get out and run at

least two miles and then, if able, get busy with classes to

indoctrinate new seekers, do selfless service, organize races and

runs, work to save money to visit NY, work to save money to send to

master, memorize more Bengali songs, etc, etc.

 

When you reach the point that the Divine is the doer of every action

in your life, then you can take on responsibility, because your mind

and ego have indeed been relieved of it. But this is not the case

with the disciples. The added responsibilities, demanded by obedience

to the master, simply eat up time and energy. The inspiration of

singing, for example, is completely swallowed up by having to learn

and sing 100 songs in a language you do not understand in a very

short space of time, to please your guru in his own way. Still, I

know that trying to do it in the right spirit brings grace; we have

all experienced the action of grace when we were sincere.

 

I came to the path with genuine aspiration, and I truly wanted deep

meditation. What I got was something else. It was bait and switch, a

classic case. The meditation classes seemed to promise growth in

meditation, and the teacher claimed, " My only fee is aspiration " . The

books seemed to say all the right things. Then, the reality of the

path was : endless responsibility and expense and additional stress.

If I did everything the master wanted, I would have been a pauper.

What is in the books, and the way the path really works are two

different things. You come to the path thinking that the carrot will

be delicious, and after a few sunny months of happiness, or a few

years, you find yourself under the stick. And then in a noose which

tightens around your neck. And then you are made to feel guilty for

not recruiting enough new bodies, or doing enough postering, or going

to NY often enough, or giving enough money to the master, or the

centre of Mikael Gorbachev, or whoever, or doing enough running, or

not organizing races, or not running the NY Marathon,

or singing, or whatever (the list is endless) And the ideal of peace

in the heart which Sri Ramana exemplifies, just fades into the

background, and all around you, you see disciples who cannot or do

not meditate any more at all. They think that the master will take

care of everything. They hope to graduate into the inner circle in

the hierarchy. Some of these people start doing unspiritual things to

please the master in his own way, like spying on others, smuggling,

falsifying information, lying to Alo, attacking targets named by the

master, again, the list is endless. They think they will rise in the

hierarchy this way. But it never happens, they just keep slaving away

in enterprises and getting poorer as they get older, understanding

that the master has said : to even think about planning for your old

age is an insult to your soul. And so life goes on. Many good people

are caught in this pattern, and their sincerity copes with the

confusion of wanting the ideal, and being trapped in a bizarre

alternative dreamed up by a false master.

 

True spirituality, as you say, Drona, takes us to the heart of peace

and oneness where there are no causualties. But the increasing

demands of an asuric guru for obedience to this relentless round of

activities is totally at odds with the true ideal as expressed by Sri

Ramana, or Sri Aurobindo. If you go to Ramana's ashram or Sri

Aurobindo's, you see and feel the difference. Otherwise, you might

never know.

 

Naturally, one who develops inner strength will untimately

grow into a wider range of service to the world, that is not a

problem. But when you look around at all the burn-out in the faces of

the CKG disciples, this is not what you see. You see people whose

spiritual lives have been pre-empted by the agenda of a " master " who

wants above all to achieve fame and riches. They become oriented to

pleasing him in his own way with the idea that they will be taken

care of by him in the inner worlds, and that his light will make up

for their inability to meditate, as long as they try to be obedient

to his wishes, which as we see, often include letting him have sex

with you, marrying someone you have nothing in common with, working

at a job that you do not like for wages you cannot live on,

taking lots of your money, most of your time, your freedom, and even

the pure space in your heart where the true divine should be

enshrined.

 

The fact that some people survive, and even make progress on this

path is a testimony to the reality of Grace and the fact that true

Divine Compassion finds a way to bless the sincere even if they are

ruthlessly exploited by a false master. Being deprived of the

conditions which would help one to enter the Divine Consciousness is

the worst of the abuses perpetrated on the sincere seekers who come

to the path. That is what makes the false master's deceitful agenda

so perverse and dangerous.

 

Below, is your original letter, which can be read over and over as a

reminder of what we all wanted to find when we unfortunately came

under the shadow of a false master. You say it very eloquently.

 

> Hey, thanks Oko for the reminder. From time to time we all need to

> be redirected or reminded of the higher realm of True Spirituality

> in the HEART, in the SILENCE , in the ONENNES. Only in this realm

> is our permanent peace.No casualties here, no enemies.

>

> Probably, one of the the first duties of the Swamis, as carriers of

> the Upanishads, is to POINT to that Truth or Spirituality inside

> us all. Now, I also understand that most of the time we abide in

> lower realms,in the regular truth, or intellectual perspectives,

> like the religious persp.,the legal persp.,the psychological

> persp., the economic persp., and it is the individuals path

> through the so called ordinary experiences of his small mind.

>

> But it is refreshing event ot think or concentrate on this Higher

> Mind, Higher Consciousness or Silence, where True Spirituality

> abides, where we are truly spiritual. I wish I could be there more

> often, but thats my aspiration. Thanks Oko.

>

> Peace and Love. Dronajorge

>

 

Sri_Chinmoy_Information/message/7275