The White Brilliance

A reminiscence by Shirley Tassencourt
transcribed from a tape letter sent by the author in January 1974, just after her return from India

I’ve been Home in my mansion a day or so now. I look out on the palace grounds around my house, all sparkle in sun and ice, and I wonder if it’s real. And then I wonder if India was real. And finally the only reality I can settle for is Master’s eyes. But when His eyes are closed, where is the real? Ok, then that thing that goes somewhere, when His eyes are closed, that’s it. When India is gone and the United States has fallen into the ocean, I’m going to be holding on to that thing that goes somewhere when Master’s eyes are closed. You know what Master said the other day?

God is omnipotent. He can do anything – except one thing – bring a man to Him who doesn’t want to come.

Would you believe that Master came to the gate to say goodbye? You know, when the taxi’s late, and somebody forgets something, and the Governor has to be escorted to the gate – when there is a convergence of incidents like this, you know that Master has His finger in the pie. And you know from the waves of Love that follow that taxi, thick as pudding, that Master wanted to say goodbye. It’s not special in that it happened to me, but it’s special in that it happened to me who disobeyed Master.

The beginning of the last week Master told me not to do Simran for a week, to break the habits of my Buddhistic practice, and do only Bhajan. Well, I did mostly Bhajan, but from time to time He would put us into meditation, which was Simran, where I couldn’t do that other position all the time, and I couldn’t bear to stop meditating. So I kept trying to follow His directions for Simran exactly. I was determined I would. I sat all day January 3^rd in Master’s House. Usually we sit from 7 to 10 in the morning and 4 to 7 or 8 at night. That morning I just turned around, faced the wall, threw a blanket over me completely so that I looked like furniture, and no one bothered me all day. I came out of Bhajan once, to hear Master having a private interview with someone on the other side of the porch partition.

He was saying to a girl,

Mind your own business,

and I figured that was for me. And as I was there feeling truly humble, and not wanting to intrude even a body’s worth, the fingers went right back in my ears. After a while being with Master, there is such proof that He knows everything about everyone, what you are thinking moment by moment, that you become very alert as to what He might want of you.

Well, later on the Bhajan I was doing became Simran, and I was picking up all the sounds of the House with my refined hearing. It was like wearing an invisible cloak and being in the centre of the Godman’s earth-family. Tai Ji would go by, her great frame moving on no-nonsense feet; the doctor, the secretaries, the gatekeepers, the chauffeur Ram Sarup. In Baroda, Ram Sarup Ji came out on the lawn after initiation was long over. I was seated under some bushes, still in a bliss daze, although it was now late afternoon. He squatted beside me and took my hand and kissed it.

Good meditations?

he asked.

All I could do was grin from ear to ear. At the moment neither of us spoke English. He just sat there and held my hand, and I felt it was from Master.

And he said,

I am Ram Sarup, eighteen years with Master.

Then he looked at the lines in my hands, and got up and walked away.

Dear Giani Ji in his exquisite voice I would hear answering the phone in the room next to me; and the tall narrow Sikh who walks on cat feet, I am sure passed back and forth many times, but I never heard him. I smelled the food cooking – just to smell it was to eat it. And then I heard Master’s footsteps walking across the room behind me. Everything in my body was pulled up as He walked by, and after He passed it receded. I could just hear Him saying in His abrupt way, Cement. And I could hear Master in the kitchen with His people. From now on He wouldn’t live in my mind in some cloud or in some hotel room, but I could remember Him now with His people in His home. I felt like a small child drowsing in the family room at a too-late hour, not seeing or active, but lying awash and aware of the warm currents of friendly family activity.

There were three cautions in the meditation instructions: not to stay in the body, not to try to go out of the body, look in front of the forehead but have no tension in the forehead. I tried all day, but there was no way. I had to transgress one or the other. What a Zen koan!

Finally in total fatigue I said,

Ok, God, You’ll have to do it – I can’t. I quit.

And I just sat there like a stone. I had tried as hard as I could, with every hair follicle as the Zens say. There was nothing more I could do, which I guess is what God was waiting for. Anyhow, things went well after that. Then I had to work to keep abreast of God. Besides giving you a flavour of Master’s house, what I’m wanting to tell you is that even though you disobey Master, if you disobey Him just because you’re trying, in the only way you know how, to be with God, if you can’t stand not trying to be with God, He honours it, and He comes to the gate when you leave. I’m not advising disobedience; if I had been able to follow His way step by step I would have been the winner. But if you do the very best you can with all your might, He secretly hangs diamonds in your eyes.

Well, I was leaving at 10 o’clock at night. My plane didn’t leave till five the next morning; I had been planning to take a taxi at 3 a.m. A German woman was leaving at 10 p.m. and somehow hadn’t made arrangements, so I was asked to go with her to straighten things out since she didn’t speak English. I was so intoxicated by this time I would have said yes to anything. The taxi which always comes to the gate of Master’s house was late. The German woman forgot something. I stood at the gate waiting, alone. Master’s house was lit up and there were many shoes outside the door, so I knew He was taking care of the Indians now. He is like a Father with a babe on each knee, His Indian babe and His foreign babe, and He bounces us and laughs with us alternately.

Edna Shinerock from Toronto, who had just returned to India to help the Westerners – incidently, she spent six years here before – asked the gatekeeper to let me just go to the door for a last peek at Master. He looked very solemn, so we both said,

Just a little peek.

He opened the gate and took me to the door of Master’s living room, where a conference was going on in one corner.

My eyes searched there for Master but didn’t find Him. A little clump of Indian ladies parted, and there was the Satguru in a chair opposite the door. I dropped to my knees wanting to make myself small, feeling an intruder.

The gateman said,

Go on in.

I said,

Oh, no,

feeling I had no right. Again the clump parted. Master looked right at me, and He gestured the ladies aside, and said,

Come here, come here.

In an instant I was at His knee, and on mine. I looked into that Heaven above me. Certainly there were those eyes that had become the centre of my world, and that beard.

But at that moment there were no parts, just a total Heaven above me. There was no coming or going; there was no room and no people. The weight of His wonderfully large hand patted me twice on the shoulder, and my head rested on His chair.

And He said,

All right now, all right, go jolly.

It was a father saying,

There, there, little one,

and I didn’t know this body could contain such gratefulness.

And then He said,

Are you the only one leaving?

and I said,

No, there’s another lady,

and He said something else, all twinkly of eyes, which I intuited as the door by which I should leave. I backed across the room, watching God as long as I could. I went to pick up my shoes on the porch, and collapsed to my knees beside them, overcome. The gateman looked on compassionately. I pulled myself together and went outside the gate, dropped into the shadow by the wall, and wept and moaned with open mouth like an animal. The German lady reappeared, and Edna came out of the dark court. The taxi drove up. And at that very moment the gate light turned on. Edna, who knows all the clues, said,

Master’s coming out.

And there He was in the misty light, escorting a local dignitary to the gate. The man disappeared into a car. Master turned to us. The delicate light fell on His face, and twinkled and sparkled in His eyes.

He was laughing,

Now you’re going, now you’re going … but don’t you go,

He joked with Edna. He put His hands together to each of us. And Stuart was there, Stuart was blessed, too. He was escorting us to the airport.

Master, still smiling, said,

Help them,

as He gathered up our luggage in one of those quick gestures of His. Immediately twenty people fell on our little pile and instantaneously the bags were in the car. In the same spirit we jumped in. I leaned across my friend in the back seat, my face out the window to watch the brilliant white crown of His turban, the brilliant white crown, the Brilliance …

Go.

As the taxi pulled away, I turned to look out the back window, my mind reaching out to touch what was receding, like a three-year-old. And then the sobbing began. No outer crying. The ‘I’ was ready to go, it was time, and I was filled to the brim. There had been no flavour of self-pity, only joy. But deep within, the soul was being torn from its source, and the crying was all of the body, like the deep trauma of childbirth when mother and child are pulled apart. The spasms stopped after a bit, and I sat up and was full of smile. Stuart was holding one hand, the German lady was rubbing my cheek.

It’s ok now, it’s ok, really.

I laughed.

Let’s go jolly now.

And I leaned back in the cab and fell into a deep, dark, almost like sleep, and it seemed minutes later we were at the airport. The German lady got off ok. Stuart stayed till midnight. We had some delicious American food at the airport, a cheese sandwich and french fries. You should have seen us glowing over this remarkable food. In this western atmosphere I drank some water, the first I’d done that in India, outside the Ashram. And all we could do was smile like idiots, thinking of this day that had just passed, and of our Satguru, who had been pouring buckets of Love over our heads.

You see, at Darshan that evening, Master had given us the Darshan of all Darshans – a half hour in which He spoke not, but just sat with open eyes, feeding us and feeding us. I was right at His knees, since it was my very last Darshan. There was nothing between us. I fell into His eyes and stayed and stayed. We were like puppies at the teats of the mother, and He let us drink and drink. I would say inside, Oh please, Master, a little more; my wish, in truth, meaning a little forever. And He just sat, turning His lion head from side to side slowly, with those great luminous orbs that swallow the soul and take the body’s consciousness into the Land of Light.

Once He asked,

What is it meant in the Scriptures when Christ says, ‘Eat of me and drink of me’?

and someone started into a lengthy explanation. In a small, burning voice it said, this voice from me,

Master’s eyes.

And then He began,

Eyes are the windows of the soul …

and talked about drinking Spirituality from the Master. A little later He looked at me and said something I didn’t hear. Afterwards one of His Indian staff came over to me and said,

Do you know what Master said to you, about you? ‘When the pitcher is full, it makes no noise.’

All I would say in thinking about His eyes – if you can in any way arrange it, please go and study what is what at the feet of the Living Master. Find out about what is your self and what is the world in the orbit of His eye-sweep. Reading His books refines and informs the mind, but to come to Him mindless is the only way to the secrets of God or the self. We have these preconceptions about our lives, what we can do and what we can’t do; we build these little prisons about and then have to work within them.

Master often said,

Impossible is only in the dictionary of fools.

Impossible is one of the mind-jails we put ourselves into.

Master said many times we must come to God alone. He often quoted from the Scriptures where Jesus says,

I have come to separate mother from child, husband from wife …

I’m not quoting exactly, but you know the reference, I hope. He cautions the young couples who come together,

Please don’t know what each other is doing. You can only be with God if you are with God alone. There can be nothing between you and God, not husband, not family, not body, not mind. When you come here you must polish and polish to get everything off the wall, and then you must polish so fine, to clear the self of everything that stands between you and the Master, so that the wall becomes a mirror. Only then, when you can reflect perfectly, when there is not a speck of dust between you and the Master, can you really be with God.

I remember one girl who was having a lot of trouble with the meditation practice. and was really pressing Master for help. She asked Master how she could keep her mind focused.

He said,

Just look at the area in front of your forehead as you look at me now.

And she said,

Oh, but it’s so easy to focus on You.

And Master answered,

If you could really focus on me, you’d see nothing but Light.

My plane was several hours late arriving in Delhi, so I spent about six hours, half-awake, half asleep on the floor that night in the Delhi Airport. The benches were all occupied with sleeping people. In India, one gets used to the idea that the floor is the bed and wherever you are is home. So I put down my poncho and my pillow and sprawled across my baggage and slept with one ear open to pick up information about my flight. The plane was luxurious after a month of cold nights and unadorned quarters. I found, however, that very shortly the super-hot dry air was swelling the membranes of my nose, and the super-comfort of the seat was arching my back in a most uncomfortable position. By the time we got to Germany, I had a case of dysentery in full swing – it might have been that water I drank at the airport – and I looked back longingly at the recent trip I had taken with Master on tour to Bombay, in the old Indian bus. At the time I thought I was putting up with a lot, and rather well, I commended myself from time to time.

Indian buses are something else. Seat space per individual is about two-thirds American buses. The seats are straight up. At my seat there was no room under the seat in front for feet, and besides, I had to put my stuff, like sleeping bag and coat – which I found I needed in the cold night –, I put that where the feet go, so actually I sat cross-legged on the narrow seat, my knees resting on my baggage in front of me, most of the way. The Indian buses create their passageway by constant use of the horn. This is not only for other cars, but perhaps mostly to deflect the sacred cows, who wander down the middle of the road.

The Indians are a lung people. They have voices of wonderful proportion, and they all can project naturally in the way only the finest actors know. The tour bus was all satsangis, half Indian and half western. It was one of Master’s gifts to put us in this living situation where we would come to know each other in a real and loving way. It was beautiful to watch this grow from our initial strangeness with each other. Well, at any rate our Indian friends would do bhajans and chants and songs, and the horn would blow, and the bus would rattle, and you would try to faithfully meditate, as you swayed first against your partner on the right and then your partner on the left, or as you stayed alert to catch the little old lady Indian friend in the aisle seat who kept nodding off her seat into the aisle and sleep.

Knowing that everything you do with Master is a lesson, all I could figure, since Master has said over and over again,

Your only purpose in being here is to meditate,

is that this was my chance to learn how to meditate in the midst of chaos. It’s interesting, as the disciple becomes stronger in his practice, the ante goes up. The stronger you get, the more is asked of you spiritually. It’s an exciting equation. Anyhow, I was truly amazed that after a while, with Master’s Great Grace and constant presence, I began to have blissful meditations in the middle of this circus. My companions were kind and didn’t speak much. One couldn’t, not knowing English, and one didn’t. That’s the hardest burden of all, friendliness. It will take you away from the Master when nothing else will. Our bus trip required endurance and looseness. We got off to a late start; we were to leave at 10 a.m. and we left at 5 p.m. The Westerners were in their seats more or less from noon on, expecting to go any minute, while the Indians had a lovely social life around the bus all afternoon, knowing full well that you don’t go until you go, so enjoy yourself wherever you are. And this is the looseness required.

Since we left seven hours late, we couldn’t stop that night for sleep, only for supper, a beautiful supper-feast at four a.m. at a satsangi’s hotel, and a half-hour rest before we again resumed our thirty-hour uninterrupted drive. In those bus seats, this is where the endurance was required. A great rejuvenation came to save us that night, however, when Master appeared for a short Darshan. Usually the westerners were give a preferential place right in front of the Master.

We came from the bus into a not-large room filled with Indian satsangis, who were seated from the Master’s chair back. The little space in the back of the room was for us. Master appeared and the whole tired body became alive again. The Indian people, as usual folded up into their smallness to make room for many, accentuated the contrast between man-size and God-man size. Master sat over them and among them like a mother hen with her chickens. I’ve never seen such a beautiful view of Master. What I was watching was ravishing. I was so happy to be in the back, seeing it. Master got up and the way parted between the bodies that were also rising for darshan. As I struggled to get my stiff body up, I rose to stand only a few inches from Master’s face. He paused there to say something to the crowd, and what I drank there at that moment kept me going the next day.

Looseness is required by the westerner when we stop by the road for rest stops. Rest stops mean: the women eliminate on one side of the bus, and the men on the other. Central India is quite stark, so don’t expect we went behind a bush. Most of us assumed a looseness of act, but not in truth, so constipation prevailed. Endurance was required as we pressed on into the second night sitting bolt upright. Some people were familiar enough to sort of lie on top of each other. Joan could double up enough to sleep in my lap, and my little Indian grandmother, Nani as I called her, would nod asleep on my large shoulder until the bus careened the wrong way and she’d go flying toward the aisle and I’d grab her.

Speaking about careening, somewhere along the route, I don’t remember where, we came around a bend and there was a wagon drawn by oxen directly in front of us. The bus driver, not a satsangi but hired with the bus, swerved wildly to avoid it. The bus teetered and tottered, and then came back up to upright, and we went on. He turned around about ten minutes afterwards and said something to one of the Indian satsangis by his seat,

When I swerved around that cart, I saw that Master of yours.

Our bus driver was endurance personified; but after thirty hours of driving, he said he had to rest. We had been travelling throughout in very desolate country. We were wondering where we would go. One satsangi knew of a Jain temple nearby, so we arrived at the great two-storey door and then went into the huge interior court and were led to one end, where an attendant began unlocking doors into the monks’ cells. The cells were completely bare, whitewashed small rooms with slate floors. We gratefully put our blanket or bag on the hard floor, and slept like rocks on the rocks. I was so happy in that little room, I don’t know why. It was one of the high points of the trip for me.

We were up at four and off again. In the great black of the courtyard, tea-makers were boiling the tea, while showers of sparks flew from a fancy charcoal apparatus. Ginger tea, in the black black before dawn. It was too early even for the dogs who lay curled like doughnuts about the tea place. The gear was retied on top of the bus, and the people went in and off we went.

When the road went through villages, we would find the eaves of stone and thatch houses almost touching the bus. If the gates were open, we could glimpse the living courts of the homes. There was much charm and wholesomeness, in spite of our cultural aversion to the dirt and poverty. In one remote hill village, evidently we were the spectacle of the year. All the children turned out, surrounding our exit from the bus, and watched from head to toe. Even after twenty minutes, while we had tea, they stood unmoving – all those black eyes and motionless faces, just watching and watching. Our travelling Indian friends were great elder brothers. They helped us in many kind, sensitive ways. They helped us manage all these ways of doing things. My neighbour, Nani, would even massage my legs when she knew I was getting stiff. The men always helped us with our purchases so we wouldn’t be overcharged. In some of the more sophisticated villages, if there was any smartness towards foreigners, they would stand between us, or tell the villagers to go away. They would point out the best walls to unload behind in the villages, or show us where clean water was to be found. The land became so picturesque from the hill country to the coast that I had to forcibly limit my looking to wide-spaced intervals, so that meditation could go on. There was such beauty in the stark use of this stark land, and even in the poorest bodies in the country was the brilliant turban or skirt or blouse that sang among the tans and browns of the land. Always one or two brilliant notes moving across each hill of many acres, sometimes with goats or cattle, water-buffalo or camel, natural movement under the sun. The open spaces were truly open, no fences between neighbours.

In the midst of nowhere, we came to the village of the Temple of Rama. A white marble courtyard was the cleanest place I had seen in India. In the centre was a Temple, of Rama, a Hindu deity.

The Temple itself was a total gesture. I would say a stone sculpture of the rising out of the body into the Light. It was completely carved in small six-inch friezes, all the way to its slender pinacle. The carving was exquisite, truly a museum temple. The interior light was mysterious and beautiful. In the centre was a box, or home of the deity, Black Rama, a more than lifesize figure dressed in silken clothes, with shiny black lacquer skin and white, white eyeballs. Continuous chanting was going on, to the front and left. On the right a priest offered the guest a dole of milk, to be taken in the cupped hands, sipped and the remnants pressed over their forehead. How different this dramatic ritual from our meeting with the living Deity.

We arrived in Baroda at the large guest house where Master was staying, and where the satsangs were held outdoors on the large lawn. It was a lovely clean, clean place. We tumbled into a little anteroom, hot, dirty and exhausted. We could hear Master in the next room. Just that begins to make things change inside. The door opened, and there He was, so large and so living and so loving.

So you came!

He said, with that strong abruptness and twinkly eye. And all our tiredness and heat and filth were taken from us, and we sat in the cool shadow of our Deity; and all about us there was profound calmness and repose.

And Master said,

I’m sorry you were inconvenienced. This is your choice. I’m always being tossed about – that is my fate; but you don’t have to do it.

If Master hadn’t sent us off to our quarters to clean and rest our bodies, I don’t think anyone would have thought of moving. For when the soul is cleansed and rested, who thinks of the body? We were staying in Baroda for several days, so Master could officiate at the opening of Manav Kendra, and also give initiation. We were staying at a hotel about five blocks from Master’s place. Every day we’d walk back and forth several times. The first time I almost stepped on a body wrapped in burlap, sleeping on the sidewalk. I withdrew in culture shock. Wow, it’s really true, people do live on the sidewalks. By the time our stay in Baroda was over, the burlap body became the most potent symbol for my Spiritual Ambition. To become so nameless, so homeless, so much a part of the ground that you are not even seen – if only this could happen to me, not in the physical, but in the realm of self. This was my greatest wish.

We were so lovingly cared for by the Baroda satsangis. One particular family held langar by their house. It was such a rare, beautiful example of total selfless service by each member of the family, each in their own way, and by many others who also helped. Langar was for several hundred people. Long strips of burlap were laid on the earth, and leaf plates and bowls were set in front of each guest. Loving initiates served us, urging us to have more, more. The effect of being served with love is a special blessing. Between the gifts of Master and His loving initiates, we were just bursting with love ourselves.

From the beginning, Bombay held an ominous presence. The drive through the heat of the city, and the gritty dark gray of the pup-tent districts, where families live in what and on what only God knows, set the stage. Our residence, a health clinic building, was possible, but hardly a place you rush to return to. Even the clues from Master that first night’s Satsang made me feel alert about Bombay. To me it seemed as if He, too, was enduring in Satsang that night.

The next day there was a bus strike. There was political unrest as well, and we were not allowed to go out at all. By six that evening the strike was settled. We hoped to go to Satsang by our bus that night, but our driver wouldn’t chance it, for fear the bus would be overturned. One of our Indian friends spoke with Master, who was staying about a mile away, and permission was given for us to walk over for Darshan. No traffic was moving yet, so we walked down the middle of the road, all thirty-some of us. The atmosphere was very tense. People watched us carefully. Probably Westerners aren’t often seen in this part of town, let alone walking. We came to a block of dismal pup-tents that housed the poorest of the poor. Children came as if out of the ground, and soon there was a flock of over a hundred children, at first begging, and then taunting, and then screaming at the tops of their lungs. They were all the same colour of dark grey, clothes, skin, hair, all – all the same colour. It was like a grotesque surrealistic scene. The screaming was high-pitched and grew to fantastic proportions. If we weren’t going under Master’s invitation to come, I should have been totally unnerved, but knowing we were in Master’s hands, it was just a powerful phenomenon to be observed. It reminds me now of a conversation Master had with someone, asking about how things were in America. 

The American described the energy shortage, and how people were beginning to hoard, and Master said,

It’s a very good time and a very bad time. Spiritually, things are getting better.

And Master said He had heard some people were going to the hills. He said,

Satsangis need not go to the hills. Master-Power will take care of them even in bad situations.

Well, here we were in a bad situation; I was thinking how lucky we were to be in Master’s protection, as the children began to grab at people’s clothing. And just then a police car drove up and the hundred children were swallowed up in the pavement. In seconds, not one was to be seen.

We arrived at Master’s quarters. He kept right on with His work as if He were totally alone, until all of us found a little place to sit in His room, sort of giving us an example of how you do one thing wholly and solely. And then when we were all settled, He looked up and gave us wholly and solely of His Love and His good humour. The unspoken story of our walk over remained, as it always does with Master, carefully unspoken. We were all glad to leave Bombay, and with another day’s drive reach Kalyan. We arrived after Satsang began, but our places in front of Master’s dais were roped off and reserved. Master looked so happy here. We knew we were at a place where He is much loved. Even though the Satsangs were in Hindi, it didn’t matter. After being with Master a while, the soul realises that Master is the Mantra, the mandala, the meditation and the Satsang; and then one’s whole attention becomes stuck to the Master, like Brer Rabbit stuck to the tar-baby. When you first arrive, you are painfully separate. Pretty soon, one paw gets stuck, then a foot, and then an elbow, and after a while you’re stuck all over to Master. Your eyes follow every motion, every expression; your ear follows every sound – for expression, not caring for meaning. If you’re close enough, your eyes move as His eyes move, never separating. Those twin beads of heaven are your salvation, and you hold on to those sparkling orbs with a desperate tenacity. And one day the eyes turn to you, and because of it you will have strength to face squarely something you haven’t faced, or it will deepen your love, as it must be deepened if one is to move at all in one’s practice, or it will still the mind and pull the attention into fine focus. And slowly you begin to realise, to really understand why the Saints of old would do anything for just one glance from their Master.

For me there was a very interesting and educational prelude to this trip. It happened on the third morning I was in India, at the morning Darshan. Master went right around the room, asking how many hours each had put in in meditation. He was as gruff as I’ve ever seen Master. There seems to be a tendency for Westerners to visit and socialise in this freed-from-worldly-obligation environment, and many answered two to four hours.

He very firmly inquired,

What did you do the rest of the time? You are here for the primary purpose of meditating, that is all. Why do you only put in two or four hours?

And then He came to me. Now, for months I had been deeply attached to the idea of long meditations at the Ashram. The day before, my second day in India, I went out of the Ashram, a few blocks to get some fruit, and to see what was this place India I had come to. I was totally overwhelmed by the sights and smells and sounds, and my mind couldn’t comprehend this subtle survival situation. That night as I sat for meditation, the images rose again and again. I had heard we were going to be allowed to go with Master on tour to Bombay soon, and I thought,

How can I go on tour and meditate, if I can’t even go to the market place for half an hour without being utterly distracted? I must stay here and meditate,

and I began to bask in the idea. It would be quiet, no interruptions. I could probably avoid the dysentery that many people were having just then.

And I rationalised my giving up of Master’s Darshan for my creature comforts and undisturbed meditations by concluding,

When Master gets back, I will be truly receptive after ten days of meditating, not gross, as I am now.

I pushed out of mind the hypocritical statement I had made to Master in my plea to come to India –

Even one day with Master would be worth the trip.

And here I was giving up ten days with Master for ten days of comfortable meditation. I tell you all this in detail, so you can see how precisely Master is correcting us, when often to others He seems as if He has misunderstood, or has not answered the question.

So, how is your meditation?

He asked me, and I described the Light I had seen in the first two days, and suddenly I saw a way to ask about the tour trip, and settle my intention not to go.

After a trip across the bridge yesterday,

I went on,

I couldn’t meditate at all.

– How long did you shop?

He asked.

I have a question, Master,

I interrupted very assertively and rudely.

How long did you meditate yesterday?

He asked.

I meditated ten hours, and I shopped for half an hour, but I have a question.

And very very forcibly He said,

If you will please listen to what I have to say to you first, then I will answer your question.

I should have been crushed, but a big fat ego merely dents.

You went shopping for ten hours,

He said in gruff amazement,

and meditated for half an hour?!

Even as I began to correct the statement, I knew He was taking away my pride in sitting long hours, and I was grateful and quiet. He was also putting out the fact that, though the body sat for long hours, the mind was across the bridge. Others tried to correct His apparent misunderstanding. He ignored them and talked to me about being wholly and solely where you were, or taking Master with you to the marketplace.

And then He said,

Now, what is your question?

– I understand, Master, we may be allowed to accompany You on Your tour. If I can’t hold my meditation after a trip to the market, how shall I sustain meditation on a ten-day tour of India?

Surely this excellent logic would secure a reprieve from the trip, I thought. Master, still in a gruff way, said, – everything I was saying sounded virtuous and logical on the outside, but on the inside every motive needed correction –

I never encourage these tours. It’s hard to meditate, and very distracting. I do not ask anyone to come.

And then in a tone of utter humility,

Some people find it useful to be with me, but others …

and He didn’t finish the sentence.

I was cut from my head to my toes as He said this. My heart lay open finally. There was no question, no hesitation, of course I was going on the tour. Oh Beloved Master, thank You for Your strong and kind teaching.

Well, the trip was, as you know by now, a vital experience for me, not only in my meditation practice, but in my self-introspection. I mean, when you are in America, it’s very easy to be unselfish and give of your much to the needy, but when you have only one coat, or a few dysentery pills, and someone else is cold or needs the same medication you may need tomorrow, you see very soon where you stand. But more than both of these, it was ten days to fall down to the ground in Love with the Godman, for which I am eternally grateful.

At our first morning Darshan after returning, I raised my hand.

I was the one who wondered if I should go on tour. I want to thank You for the gift of the tour.

… How do you give thanks? Where is it? You can give me money or straw, but how can you give me thanks? Thank God; that’s all. You are the ones who were inconvenienced. Travel is travail. I am used to being tossed about, day and night, but you people …

and then He paused,

… Love knows no burden.

And then He gave me such a look of Love, I couldn’t begin to tell you.

Oddly enough, that day I had to go into Delhi. Someone was taking me to do the family-presents thing, and by this time I was just following what had to be done next. We got in the cab and someone complained about the terrible horn, but I didn’t hear it. We went to a store of Indian crafts, which should have blown my craftsman’s mind, and I could hardly bear to be there. I only wanted to stay with that look of Love Master had given me. I’ll take this and this, and this and this – and almost where my hand fell made the decision. Stuart had to pick out my gift to Andy and help me with Jesse’s. I took the Master to the market, not because it was good practice, but because He had fallen me in Love with Him. Amazingly enough, the gifts were correct, I find now that I am home and have given them out.

When you are with Master, He teaches all the Scriptures through the living situations He puts you through. He communicates clearly and precisely with few or no outer words.

You know how I admire Zen. Well, Master is by far the greatest Zen Master of all times. Talk about the wordless doctrine. Such proof I have had this month that Master knows everything that is happening to His dear children. One this week asked Master if He ever withheld experience from His disciples.

No, it’s you that withholds the experiences, your lack of attention.

On New Year’s Eve I sat on the roof of the Guest House at the Ashram, too happy to go to bed. The moon sat in the sky, untipped, a perfect cup, holding all the gold of the sun in crescent light. I wished upon a star this body here could become a simple moon vessel, to hold the golden liquor of Kirpal.

Even Master says,

lmpossible is only in the dictionary of fools.