The most natural Way

V

What did Jesus say?

Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.

This is what all the Masters say. I am not going to quote you references from the various scriptures, but am only giving references from the Bible because you are so conversant with it.

The Master-Power never leaves you. It is not the human body but the power working through it that remains forever. Christ-Power has been working through the ages and shall continue to work; but through different Divine Instruments and according to the needs of the times. The body alone perishes, but that Power remains. Those Who have really seen the Truth within can open your Inner eye and make you see it. If They give you some Inner Experience, however little it may be, you can develop it.

One of Christ’s parables illustrates this beautifully:

A rich man going out on a journey distributed among his servants some talents – twenty to one, ten to another, five to the third. When he came back, the man who had had twenty talents had made them thirty, the one with ten had made fifteen of them, and the last who had gotten only five had never touched them but had kept them safe buried underground. As no use was made of them, the Master thought it prudent to withdraw them. 

What I mean to say is, that when you are given some experience, you have to develop it as you do your learning in a school. Initiation does not mean observance of any ceremony, or ritual, or anything of the sort. It is just a practical experience of the Science Spiritual. The theory is explained first, and then the experience is given, and that is to be developed from day to day. That Master-Power overhead which gives the experience protects both within and without, and keeps a constant watch over the disciples.

You will find that such people have been coming to the Masters and asking them as Philip asked Jesus:

Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us.

And what did He reply? He grew indignant and said,

Have I been so long time with you, and yet thou hast not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.

Christ was a Conscious Co-Worker with the Father or Divine Power within Him. Only he who is conscious of the Power working through Him can bring you in contact with the Power within. That contact is possible only when you rise above body consciousness and not otherwise.

It is something quite apart from intellectual activity. Intellectual attainments may serve as an additional aid to a practical man, for then he can explain to you the same thing in so many ways, very graphically. But the man who is only intellectual with no practical Inner Experience is, as Sheikh Saadi, a Muslim Saint, rather strongly puts it, 

an ass carrying a heavy load of books, quite ignorant of their value.

A Sikh Master has said the same thing in a milder way. He says, 

The ladle moves briskly in the pudding but never tastes its sweetness; even so you revel in an intellectual knowledge of the scriptures, but have never experienced what they describe.

This does not mean that you should not read the scriptures. Reading is a help. Those who have entered the field of the intellect and are determined to know the why and wherefore of things, ultimately find the way. But the way that they have to follow is the same that the unlearned follow. The Path is the same for all mankind and it begins when you rise above the physical plane and that, as said so often, is a practical subject.

To have intellectual attainments is also a blessing.

Once it so happened that Keshab Chandra Sen, the learned head of the Brahmo Samaj in India, went to Ramakrishna, a man of realisation. He went to him just for the sake of understanding things, and Ramakrishna told him,

If you are ready to learn by a few words, then come to me. And if many, go to my disciple Vivekananda.

Intellectual knowledge is a good thing in itself. It is a feather in the cap of a practical adept, but with some people it becomes an obsession and they not only deceive themselves but they also deceive others, for they have no access inside.

When the Masters come, They tell us of God and the God-way. They remind us of the Reality within. Man is the teacher of man. Can past Masters help us? Yes, we do need them. They are helpful in Their own way. We have respect for Them, because They gave out the Truth and Their experiences of it. Those who came in contact with Them were put on the Way, and they also realised the same Truth. The scriptures are the treasures of the experiences that They had with Their own Selves and with God and we are fortunate to have them with us today.

If we had come two thousand years earlier, we would not have the New Testament with us and I would not have given you these beautiful quotations from it. All scriptures deal with the same Truth. But we are familiar with one or another scripture only. When I quote the Bible to you, you have no difficulty. So it is with people of other faiths. They follow easily what is said, when I offer quotations to them from their respective scriptures. All these scriptures make my task easier, as well as that of my listeners. The Sacred Books are just handy aids in the hands of a man of realisation for they all deal with the selfsame subject, viz., God-Realisation.

What we need is Someone Who has the experience within Himself of what is spoken of in the scriptures, and Who is competent to give us some taste of that experience right now. Call such a man what you will – pir, murshid, Saint or Master – that is immaterial.

We have respect for all such persons Who came in the past or Who are here now in the present age. Those Who have seen the Reality can put us on the Path and give us a first-hand experience of it. The need of such a Godman has been felt ever since the world began.