A Russian official, Mr. “Z,” wrote to Maharaj earlier and received Maharaj’s reply, but I don’t know what that was. Now Mr. Z has come to see him. He explains at length, “I worked here 6 years and met Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, but most of my impressions were in holy places here. I travelled often to Hardwar, Rishikesh, and Benares. Only here in India I started to understand the meaning of ‘Almighty.’ I lived once with a Sikh family. I’m curious. I tried to understand what kinds of religion you have here in India.
My grandfather was a very religious Orthodox Christian. 70 years our Soviet society lived without God, but also with God. We had churches, and officially religion was not forbidden, but it was not encouraged by the government and the Party. Now our society is opened, but although we may have many temples, churches, and priests, it doesn’t mean we have religion. I personally believe that God should be inside us.
Our country is overcoming a difficult time. Our people previously believed we would get a change for the better. But promises of politicians and government were not fulfilled. There were only words, not deeds.
So for me and my colleagues it was very interesting to receive your letter. You expressed very good and clever ideas. In the history of mankind, usually people know what to do but they don’t do it.
Our society is divided now—by money, by power—in many spheres of life. So we agreed with you that one of the main aims of any party or government is to unite people. But my opinion is that to unite and fight for a better life, we should not have political or religious leaders. We don’t need to be influenced by such by force of various kinds. When I read some of the ideas you wrote, I can agree with them. For me, it’s the basis for going forward. Krishnamurti, your Indian philosopher—I have read a lot of his books. He expressed approximately the same: not the Church, not the party, no political party can lead the whole society. People should be clean from inside.”
After listening to Mr. Z, Maharaj says,
What I call religion means love, work, and sharing with others. It means to be best in your job—the best farmer, a very loving doctor, and so forth. But always think, “How can my neighbor, my city, my country be happy?” Never think of becoming rich yourself, but rather, “How can my country progress?”
Religious places don’t necessarily practice what they preach. Whatever holy people have come sacrificed their whole families to make other good, to teach love, to give strength to the weak. Religion’s actual role is to give encouragement to the helpless by work and blessings.
Blessing is not a theory. In my life, we went to places of very poor, very weak people. There were no doctors. We started work there. The feeling they had was, “Are these humans or angels working through them?” We told them, “The same angels are working through you. Whatever energy you are wasting being angry at others, spend it on progress.”
Nobody needs to stay poor. Everyone should stand up. Whatever skill and knowledge a person has, he should use it. Then his physical and mental progress will develop day by day. If a person stays idle and speaks of God, how can he be good? He is not even a normally good human being.
How can there be poverty in Africa or Russia? You are able to achieve everything. Why not? In worldly terms, the richest mineral wealth in the world is in Russia. It is waiting for you to start exploiting that treasure.
Guru Nanak spoke of God, but he worked with his hands, worked even more than others. He improved barren lands and gave strength to the weak people, and then shared what he earned with everyone. People praised him, but he said, “It is all God’s blessings.” He said this only after working hard.
Similarly, Guru Gobind Singh saw frightened, idle people wasting all their energy. He went to them and explained, and they became strong and stood on their own feet. He said, “The same Power working in me is also in you.”
When I work for 12 hours, I thank God, “It is with Your blessing.” With His blessing, I didn’t tire, I had no fear. I never noticed whether it was day or night.
Why are we doubting religion today? Those working in religious places are not religious. They are sitting talking about God and eating charity, wearing clothes in the name of God. They are not giving a good examples.
Create a team, open your country, work, set up a tax system. Tell people to work and share from their earnings with the country. You will see in your homes: If you keep one thing in common and one thing for individuals, the former will be short-lived. The other will be taken care of and used for oneself and others. When you say, “Work, and everything belongs to the country,” people will not work and the country will become poor.
Change some of your policies. We can talk about God later. If you are allergic to God, we won’t talk about that. First create good food, clothes. Then after achieving all this, we will talk about whether God exists. This is more important now.
Time is short in our lives. If you speak of religious places, I am the first to be against them—against idleness. But a hardworking person who knows good management, who can spread love in society and motivate people to work should be given medals.
Never say that all people are equal. Such talk is castles in the air. There is a lot of difference from one person to another, even in one family.
Therefore in Russia, give first priority to meeting to decide how to remove poverty, how to spread love. This is the work of government—to worry about the people every minute. Wherever you find weakness, supply them—give them strength to improve. You won’t need to take anything from any other country. Your country is very wealthy and you have great strength in your minds. But love each other as one family.
There are a few words that create hatred. “Communist” became such a poisonous term and took such a poisonous color. Someone thought it mean to finish the community; another thought it meant to stop progress. That policy was to work and everything belongs to the government. The United States gained with the policy to work and share some tax with the government and whatever you earn is yours. Because of the difference in these policies, they have become strong and the whole world is trying to be like them, whereas you have failed.
In 1989 when I was in Moscow, I said on national TV, “You are talking of freedom. People haven’t understood what you mean by freedom.” I told them the speed of change was too great, and no one could explain it to the people. First make a policy, then explain down to the village level, and then bring the changes. People came to the table and found nothing on it. What freedom is this? Freedom means to work hard, then free yourself and the country. It doesn’t mean sitting idle and hoping something will come on the table.
I told them, “You want peace, but tanks will come on your streets and the Iron Curtain will fall—it will all split.” I guarantee you that any country who will use this policy will fail. This policy is very dangerous. The policy in Russia should have been explained. The written idea of working and sharing was just in the air. The world had the impression that all are rich in Russia, but there was no development in the villages. I saw people just sitting idle. If anyone brought anything, they stood in queues.
After a long private conversation about history and politics in Russia, Mr. Z says, “I will try to inform as many people in the Parliament as possible. Now there is a new Parliament and Presidential elections. It is very important to have such information. I am very happy that my deputy agreed on my visiting here. These problems are endless.”
Maharaj tells him, “We should try to reduce them. It is not that after an accident we should abandon the car.”
Mr. Z says, “My teachers were old generation. They said, ‘We can’t teach you everything, but we will try to show you how to teach yourself after us.’ I have met such a teacher here.”
Maharaj says,
Just stand up. Don’t look for a majority. The majority are sheep. When a tiger comes, they all run.
Meeting you I feel great love. Your idea is, “How did our country come to this point?” Perhaps other good people will join you, and a good team will develop.
Mr. Z leaves with his great blessings.