VIII / (iii)

Qualifications of a Godman

A True Master cannot be known all at once. He is a Godman. A Godman alone can truly know a Godman. He may be described as one who is brimming over with Spirituality far above the life of the senses. He has freed Himself from the various sheaths of grosser and finer matter, and has seen the All-Truthful with His eyes, within and without. He is competent to unfold the Spiritual Possibilities lying dormant in man. All are provided with the same stuff inside them, like the stuff of a battery already charged. But He is the one Who has connected Himself with the great Magnetic Battery of the Lord, and receives direct messages from Him. He is the mouthpiece of the Eternal. We, each one of us, have the same stuff in us, but our batteries are disconnected. We need reconnection so that we may also serve as live batteries and be able to receive message of the Lord. We need such a one Who is Himself connected, and Who can also connect our batteries with the Lord. He has in Him the Refulgent Light of the Infinite, and is competent to relight our extinguished lamps. An unlighted lamp is incompetent to light other lamps. All are spiritually blind, when they come to the feet of a Master.

He opens their Inner Eyes which are latent, and enables them to see the Light of God. He opens their Inner Ears and makes them hear the sweet melody of the Divine Music of the Word or Naam.

Be ye perfect as thy Father in Heaven is perfect,

said Christ.

All are destined to be perfect and in the end they will attain the state of perfection. Whatever we are now is the result of our past acts and thoughts. Our future is being moulded and determined by what we now think and do, but this shaping of our future does not preclude us from receiving help from outside. A fruit tree that ordinarily if left to itself bears fruit in five or six years, would, when treated scientifically with fertilizers, etc., bear forth fruit in abundance and more quickly by two or three years. Similarly, the unfoldment of the Spiritual Life is quickened by the help of a Master.

This help is of immense value. Such outside help quickens the Inner Possibilities of the soul. It awakens the Spiritual Life in us and leads us to the highest goal in the end.