Hervinder Singh had the chance yesterday to be alone with Maharaj when he was in samadhi. He said, “It was such a beautiful spiritual sight: The color of his aura kept changing across his face.”
Now today, with Prem Swaranjit and Balwant Singh present and Hervinder Singh translating, Maharaj gave me special instructions about the aura of Truth and writing:
Truth has an aura. You will have an impact on other people only if you have God’s complete truth and love within you.
Compare a small diva with the light of the sun. In the morning, it is not that the stars vanish, but the sun’s light is so strong that that the stars disappear. At night, the light of the sun goes away and the stars reappear. [A person who lives by truth and practical spirituality is like a sun, whereas priests and would-be saints are like divas. Their small light is insignificant in the presence of the sun.]
Love and truth are not under a person’s control. They develop by God’s choice in one whom God has chosen. God creates love, enlightenment, and compassion. God has millions and millions of virtues, such as speaking truth, serving others, and loving without self-interest. If a person develops even four or five of these virtues, he becomes an unimaginably great person. Thousands of books may be written about him.
If there is a person who loves God and who has attained God-realized enlightenment, to write even one word he spoke has great importance. Nothing is more important. Why should there be any self-interest or pride in this? To have the opportunity to write such words is very great. To be sure, someone may be there translating and explaining the meaning. But in fact, God is also speaking from within him.
To record God’s words for the world is a great boon. To write books from thought—as a philosopher or scientist writes—is different. When God speaks, that has a great impact. You are writing textbooks. But when you write what comes from enlightened wisdom, that will have such a great effect. When you write and speak about what comes from enlightened wisdom, those books will never end, just as God never ends. They will always stay in the world among the people. It is God’s Voice, and God’s Voice never ends.
There are two very dangerous things. One is to write one’s own thoughts. Some scholars have written their thoughts, which were not spiritual. Others have written histories in which there was no enlightenment. Such a person’s punishment never ends. He is always the agent of Satan, for he makes people atheists. If you write about God’s person and his words, that will always benefit the world. Whoever picks up those books will be connected with God. If you read one of the other books, it will make you doubt God.
Thus, when you write, write the full truth. There is no need to hurry. Consider very carefully. Write and then reread again and again to see what impact those words will have on others. Sometimes small differences in letters or punctuation will change the whole sense. A wrong meaning will emerge.
A book writer must always be careful—first of her own feelings, her own enlightenment, her own goal. Then she should write with all the faith she has. Faith is the main thing. Write that which the Master says. Sometimes in love a person says things which are not correct. Take care to write only what your Master is actually saying.
There are two different things: One is vision. The other is very strong feeling. The first is very clear; the other is dim, as if a curtain is drawn. Enlightened vision parts the curtain. It is fine to write about your own feelings and experiences, so long as you distinguish between them and the enlightened wisdom.
I interrupted Maharaj to request him if I could write about my own struggles to follow the teachings, so that other ordinary people like me might identify with those struggles and be encouraged to persist.
Maharaj agreed but said,
No one is ordinary. How people are chosen only He knows. When Jesus chose his disciples, they were not highly developed personalities. They didn’t know anything. Peter was just casting his net for fish. Jesus said, “Follow me—I will make you a fisher for people. I won’t change your profession.” Peter left his nets and followed. What else could he do? The Master had chosen him. He became very powerful. Now the Pope sits in his place. The whole world listens to what the pope says. But what is behind that? Peter. He was nothing. Jesus had given him a great boon—that Peter is like a rock whom no one can shake. At that time, no one could imagine that the rule of Rome would end and the rule of Peter would begin. But that boon given by Jesus worked. That blessing is continuing, and no one can destroy it.
I asked Maharaj if I should write anything about the people who just come to him with their requests and then leave.
Maharaj said,
You can write that some people come who are very nervous, or very sick, or who have problems in their work. Some people change; some just get their work done and leave. This is the truth.
Balwant Singh interjected, ”Some people just come with their demands. They don’t sit in the havan; they don’t do any seva.”
Harvinder Singh observed, “Maharaj knows all these things. He knows inside more than outside. “
Maharaj responded,
Those are very dangerous people. The Guru has written that those people are shutting their eyes pretending to meditate, but they are like herons. The heron stands silently in the water, pretending to close his eyes, but if even a bubble rises from a small frog, he seizes the frog. All his concentration is focused on the frog. His goal is that when a small frog comes, he will catch and eat it, and then return to his “meditation.” People who dress in white like saints are like herons, for their intentions are bad. In such practice, this world is lost and the other world will also be lost. Here they have no pleasure because they are wasting their time on catching small frogs; their attention will not go beyond that.
Then I asked Maharaj about his puzzling description of what used to happen when he meditated: His Guru would appear, but sometimes in his own form, doing whatever he was doing. Maharaj explained:
When enlightenment comes, there is no more Isht [your most-loved manifestation of God]. There is only one. When you focus on the Isht, another form is there before you. When you eat, he is also eating.
Prem asked Maharaj if she was correct in understanding that “‘Sohang’ means ‘You and I are one. What You are, I am.’ This form and that form are the same. He is merged into you, or you are merged into Him.”
Maharaj said,
Yes. When you sit in meditation, your inner feelings end. You don’t notice the time, you don’t get tired, and you are out of your body. Your breath becomes very light. The soul goes far above the body. Just to keep the body alive, it stays very slightly in the body. People may make a lot of noise near you, but the soul pays no attention, for it has basically left the body. That is a very great state.
These are very real things that a person cannot fully explain to the world.
You begin to see your Guru in your own form. You see Him running the trees, the earth, the animals, the crops, but in your form. A person cannot describe that. A person can only say, ‘Sohang.’ These are very advanced stages that do not appear in books.
I said, “The more you see that God is doing everything, the more your faith grows.”
Maharaj remarked, “Whenever Jesus healed and blessed someone, he inevitably said, ‘Go—your faith has healed you.’”
I said, “When you get that message inside—‘Go somewhere now. Leave now. Do this. Do that.’—you don’t ask why. It is not necessary to know.”
Maharaj agreed, “As enlightenment comes to you, you get the messages through inner vision. If you are attached to the mission, those messages will be true.”