Soeur Kasturi

Voici encore un discours de Soeur Kasturi, récemment publié sur le blog http://kasturibhenji.blogspot.com/
Celui-ci date de 1993, mais une nouvelle fois, toutes les références vont vers Babuji. La Shri Ram Chandra Mission et Chariji ne sont jamais évoqués.

Elodie

TALK DELIVERED
By Rev.Sister Kasturi Chaturvedi
On 03 –02 –93.

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the pursuit of our Goal of life viz. “Realization of the Ultimate” and in the process of strengthening our ties of love and devotion to Shri Babuji Maharaj, we are once again meeting this evening – of course, after a long time interval. I am however, confident that during this interval, you have progressed much on the path of spirituality under the able guidance and care of my brother here.

Whenever abhyasis come to me during weekly satsang or utsav or at any other time, they generally have one common complaint that they are not able to do meditation properly. It is disturbed by a flow of chain of thoughts. Every time I explain the method, its requirements and also emphasize the need to do it correctly as prescribed by Shri Babuji Maharaj. Today again, I would like to explain to you all one fundamental aspect of our Sahaj Marg sadhana – which forms its base. I am confident that once you are able to understand as to what is the base of our sadhana, you would definitely have a much clearer view of your goal and type and degree of cooperation, which Shri Babuji Maharaj expects from you.

Meditation really means a constant effort to remember the “Divine”. In the words of Shri Babuji Maharaj, “only keep this in your mind that God id within you”. To elaborate: Shri Babuji Maharaj said, “God is within you but you are not in Him”. This simple, apparently minor, but fundamental lapse on our part has, in fact, created the need for spirituality and hence the proliferation of various sadhanas. If anyone asks me – why and how humanity will need spirituality my one sentence answer will be – “so long as we do not start living in Him”.

God knows that He is within every creature – every human being. The inner of all living beings - - big or small, rich or poor, pious or sinner, who worship Him and also those who reject and hate Him – is illuminated only by His presence. As far as His presence is concerned He has only one-state of being, as Omni present without distinction and discrimination of any kind. It is the divine law. It is the manifestation of THAT, HIS creation. It is when we, the human beings – forget this ETERNAL TRUTH that ‘HE is within us’, we get separated from HIM – the base of our being. As a result – instead of remembering that we are within HIM – we direct our total energy and effort towards our material welfare – completely neglecting the spiritual goal and thereby create a sphere of our own and thus unknowingly and inevitably a gap between HIM and ourselves. It is just to bridge this gap that we need spirituality and a method – a sadhana.

It is in fact Dame Nature in all Her mercy and sympathy blessed the entire creation and the humanity in particular, with the presence of the Divine Personality, Shri Babuji Maharaj and with the unique and unparallel means viz. Sahaj Marg sadhana for clearing the opaque film of materialism or the cataract of the mind and guiding them to retrace their steps back Home. But as the saying goes ‘to err is human’ we again commit the same mistake in course of our practice of meditation. In the practice of meditation we again forget the fundamental base that ‘Divine is within our inner’ and get our mind involved only in the means (sadhana) to the goal. This only results in multiplying the thoughts and the means, the very desire to Realization of the Ultimate, could not be inculcated, what to say of an intense craving. This happens so because we fail to establish any inner attachment with the goal and waste all our love and devotion with the means – the sadhana – a reflection of the mechanical or physical approach, the externalized worship.
When Shri Babuji Maharaj expects the abhyasis to keep in their mind that God is within their hearts and that they should learn to remain connected with HIM, it simply means that He has given that basis of Reality to our Sahaj Marg sadhana. Hence, dear brothers and sisters, we have first to give only this molding to our thought-power that Divinity is within our hearts and we have to live in THAT. When this thought is infused and imbibed, may be through repeated but constant efforts, then the first and instant effect, will be that our thoughts which have a wandering tendency will gradually get settled and in course of time, get connected with the main SOURCE.

Secondly, when we take Divinity or Reality as the base of our sadhana then in the process, the Divine Power will also help us in our efforts, though we may not be aware of it. But I may tell you that a circle is then formed which throws away all unwanted thoughts outside, saving you from disturbance in meditation.

The first beneficial effect, which we then begin to feel, is purity of thought accompanied by the firmness that ‘Divinity is really within our heart’. Subsequently as speedily, we could harness the celestial energy and develop the feeling of Reality; with the touching of the Divine Power, the simple thought that ‘Divine is within our inner’ gets transformed into a sankalp.

Our mind and thoughts both then get a natural attachment with that sankalp and this enables the abhyasi to sustain the remembrance that ‘HE is within his inner’. Gradually, even our involvement in our worldly duties also does not disturb our feeling of nearness to the Divine. Now you will feel that your mind (manas) remains drowned in the feeling of the blissful state of nearness (samipyatha), which, as you all know, is the first stage of Liberation, which is a very high condition in our sadhana.

You may put a question here that Shri Babuji Maharaj has said to begin the meditation with the supposition of the Divine Light being present in our inner, then why the above process?
Dear brothers and sisters, I can very well recollect even today that I wrote to Shri Babuji Maharaj, that I was able to feel the presence of Divine Light in my inner only for two days after I began the meditation. After that I was getting more inner happiness in sustaining only this thought that Divine was in my inner. Shri Babuji Maharaj then wrote to me: “ I tell to start meditation with the supposition of the presence of Divine Light, when there was darkness. And darkness was there because you had separated yourself from the naturally enlightened light of the Divine Power and created a long gap. Now when you have begun to have the feeling of His presence in your inner, you should, then aspire to keep your inner drowned in the pleasant feeling of His nearness. You have been bestowed with this gift as a result of your practice of meditation and that is why the base of your meditation should now be the feeling of inner happiness, for being nearer to Him”.

Now onwards the fomentation of the feeling of nearness to Him (Shri Babuji Maharaj) gradually starts melting of all the grossness, which creates obstacles between ourselves and the Divine. Thus, you will notice that the two processes namely, first the process of melting and cleaning of the obstacles and second, the process of development of devotion – which is inculcated in us as a result of our feeling of ’nearness’ go on simultaneously. With the evolution of devotion, the abhyasi is further blessed with the requisite Divine Power, which not only inculcates a mere desire for Realization of the Ultimate, but also strengthens and intensifies it into an incessant intense craving to have the Realization.

Now at this stage the practice of meditation loses its characteristic of merely being a technique (sadhana) of realizing the goal and acquires the attribute of a ‘Real Sadhana’. To understand the real meaning of the word ‘Sadhana’ we can bifurcate it into ‘Sadh’ and ‘na’. ‘Sadh’ means an exclusive and intense craving for Realization and ‘na’ means nothing besides that – no other desire remains.

Dear brothers and sisters, in this way by giving a proper direction to your mind and by providing a real base to your thought power – you can very easily get rid of your complaint that you are not able to do meditation or that you are disturbed in that process by your wandering mind and thoughts, your complaint will then turn into another, that now mind and thought are completely engrossed in the goal and you are unable to direct them to any other side, other than Shri Babuji Maharaj.

I would therefore, request you all to do your constant practice of meditation keeping the Reality in its base. Shri Babuji Maharaj has revealed to the humanity that the whole system of ‘Sahaj Marg Sadhana’ has descended from ABOVE as the gift from NATURE. We also know that our system of Sahaj Marg is refinement of ‘Raja Yoga’, which also implies that the Raja i.e. the Divine King is in our heart and just to get ‘yog’ i.e. union with HIM. Hence, once again I would like to impress upon you the need to correctly understand the implications of Shri Babuji’s saying that ‘Divine is within you but you are not in HIM.’ In meditation, you should try again and again to ‘keep in mind that Divine is in your inner and you have to remain in THAT’.

One more point I would like to emphasize here is that when one reaches this stage of spiritual advancement one feels a natural change in the base of our sadhana. This change is that in place of feeling the presence of Divinity in your inner, you experience the presence of Shri Babuji Maharaj (Divinty in Human form) not only in our inner but all around us. Now again you just see the beauty of the system that although you feel His presence your mind does not get involved in having His Darshan. It only gets a drowning condition in that feeling and that is why when I wrote to Shri Babuji: ‘Babuji with the fomentation of the feeling of nearness to you – whatever inner happiness I feel – the mind is deeply drowned in it and it is difficult to get out of it’. He wrote to me ‘this is the beginning of Laya –avastha’.

This also proves the saying of Shri Babuji Maharaj that ‘to see Master is not our aim, instead we should draw something from His darshan and presence – when He appears in our inner – during or after meditation.

When Shri Babuji Maharaj finds His abhyasi children at this stage of spiritual advancement, He smiles naturally and we can have glimpse of it in our inner.

I earnestly pray to Shri Babuji Maharaj that He may bless you all with such advancement and that you all should aspire for intense craving to have a glimpse of His Divine Smile.

With blessings, and best wishes.