I’ve gone to a tea party hosted by another spiritual organization, with leaders from their New York office. It was strange to discover that as one of those leaders gave a little talk about their activities, the energy in the room dropped lower and lower, as though someone were sucking all the life force out of us. He talked about places and people and programs in very secular terms, albeit rather sweetly.
When I returned to Gobind Sadan, Maharaj asked me how it was. “The people were nice, but it was boring,” I replied. Then he said,
Spiritual teachers are often afraid that their disciples will leave them for someone else, so they tell them not to go to see other teachers. But we have no fear that people will find something better elsewhere. We have never placed any restrictions on going to any place of any religion. You went there to speak of God, and you were bored because there was nothing of God. Here you are never bored: Akhand Paath of Guru Granth Sahib is always going on, there are divas all around, havan is going on, water is splashing, talks are being given to visitors, etc.
Mansur Al-Hallaj (a great Sufi saint) had an outer wrap full of worms who bit him. Eventually the worms started leaving. Mansur was distressed. He said to the worms, even though they had been biting him, “Why are you leaving? Have I done something to disturb you?”
When you love someone, when you are away from them you are always still thinking of them. When you are in the marketplace, you are always seeing things they might like and bringing them back for them. The physical separation is not an inner separation.