Tender loving care: Tall trees, tornado and a blade of grass

I would like to draw your attention to certain trees. There are trees that grow tall, sturdy and strong, like mahogany, oak and acacia: you cannot cut them easily. Compare them to chikoo and mango, which are tender and their wood is not strong, yet they yield the most beautiful fruits. In nature, this tenderness is required to bring about sweetness in life. The sturdier trees with hard wood do not have praiseworthy fruits.

Observe the mighty and tall standing trees falling in the wake of a tornado, but see the humble blade of grass! It is the softness of the heart that makes it droop with reverence, and humility has a chance to sing the songs of sweetness! What can a bitter and arrogant heart sing? It can only hurt others.

At the human level, look at men and women. Study our scenario. Women are more loving and tender. It is love that makes them tender. It is arrogance and ego that makes us harsh. What do our sisters yield? They keep humanity and the race alive through their tenderness and love; come what may, they go through it all with tolerance and acceptance. It is that inherent nature given by God that is bestowed lavishly on them. If we have this love, tenderness, softness and suppleness in our heart, we can become so creative. We will be able to propagate humanity to a different level, which Pujya Babuji (as Ram Chandra of Shahjahanpur was fondly addressed) calls “The new human race in the offing.” How? By educating ourselves through intense practice with a lot of love, dedication and passion. Even when no one is around us, let the heart remain imbued with love, remain absorbed in love.

Think of a beautiful rose flower that remains drenched with its own nectar, its own fragrance, its nature which fills the air. Without this fragrance, a rose is no rose. Without love in the heart, we humans have to struggle to become true human beings. Despite having some love in the heart, we make the mistakes of investing this love in smaller projects, in smaller circles, restricted often within a narrow range, and we miss out on the broader scheme of making it universal. So, the flow of the river of love remains stagnant in our backyard. Let us ensure that this river of love reaches the Ocean. One quality stands out par excellence in this respect: humility in our interactions with others.

Humility is like a vacuum; it creates a spiritual vacuum in us. Only then are we able to imbibe transmission. If we say we are perfect, the vacuum is already full and nothing else can fill it up, so Grace will never descend. It will be like an inverted pot; Grace will fall on the pot, no doubt, but it will never be absorbed. For that pot to be empty and receive, for our heart to remain empty and receive, we must have humility, thereby attracting Grace from the Master.

In a message Babuji says, “The humblest creature, the most self-effacing one, can lead a richer life than a king.” It is time to revisit: “… If we consider ourselves great, we put up a wall to that Greatness where we have to arrive. We create bondage, so to say, that becomes an obstruction on the path. What’s the harm! When we assume greatness, we start considering others as low (insignificant). Now that path which we must trudge, also gets closed; and we are wholly lost to all intents and purposes. Somebody takes it in his mind that he excels someone else in some way. That assumes various forms, and we strengthen egoism for nothing, without getting anything in return. We blow our own trumpet in our own thoughts and lose a lot in the process. …”

We all have our individuality for which we are grateful to the Lord. But to remain egoistic is akin to insulting ourselves and, ultimately, God.

When love shines supreme in the meditating heart, whatsoever it may touch is alchemized. Inwardly remaining meditative and externally remaining focused on our mundane work, our inner loving state transforms the very nature of work we are attempting to perform. Even so-called emotional toxins are transformed when we are meditative. Greater understanding develops that can transform the vishayas, the toxins, into nectar. Heart becomes like a prism, through which anything that passes becomes nectar.

Instead of responding to revenge with revenge, or anger with anger, imagine the very instinctual nature responding to such revenge and anger with compassion and love. Imagine if we prick a cat’s tail, and instead of pouncing that very cat starts to display a different response, one of indifference or a happy meaow! We would be surprised to see such a cat! We can try to transform ourselves so as to become instinctively responsive with love and a smile, or with a little joke, instead of responding with sarcasm and insults. No doubt, the energy arising out of anger is unique, and anger cannot be destroyed, as Pujya Babuji puts it. But surely the energy can be transformed into compassion if we only allow a few seconds of pause and reflect and apply understanding with wisdom. So here, instead of instinctively responding with anger, in a state of love instinctively the response is coloured with compassion. Is this not evolution?

Is it too much of a challenge for the meditative mind to arrive at such a sublime state? Don’t you think that if we wish that, “Yes, I would like that to happen,” our beloved Master Chariji will help us achieve that? When he is there to support us, why do we think twice? Will he just remain a silent witness to our struggles to improve?

To love is to efface oneself from the glitch of ego. The lower self must be effaced, so in a way it is one kind of annihilation. Friendship must ripen into love. Love must ripen into adoration, adoration into worship, worship into surrender and then the extinction of the self, the death of the little ‘me’. Truly, when we love, we seek only the Beloved, we think only of the Beloved. Only the Beloved exists, we don’t. It is love that ennobles this bond. Love is all about giving and giving. It is never about taking. When this love dissolves into another, the other likewise dissolves into the lover. Both are dissolving into each other. This is the ideal relationship with the Lord. He, our Lord, is always loyal. We must make ourselves loyal and worthy. The entire preparation or the journey is only towards this, to become worthy of His love.