Master's Life - An Example of Balanced Existence

The Master in His life has exemplified, has illustrated - physically and perceptibly to every single one of his abhyasis - what a human being can rise to, how it can be the Ultimate itself, and even after having achieved it in the human frame, if you are worth the salt you are eating, and if you are worthy of being called an abhyasi, you have got to be prepared to face every single sorrow, every single obstruction, every single pain that the Master Himself has faced and suffered. This is the Real meaning of the two wings of the bird. I cannot look for success and avoid failure. I cannot look for pleasure and avoid pain. Am I willing to accept a life which precisely because it is life - has within it everything that life holds?

We have the twins of existence - the Dwandwas as we call them. One who wants only one half and not the other half is unfit for Sadhana. And, a dedicated abhyasi, a devoted abhyasi who wants to be like the Master in every way, must also be willing to suffer everything that the Master has suffered; undergo every torture that the Master has undergone. See, it is a very facile explanation to say that it is all maya, it is a drama that He is playing for us. I say 'nonsense.' Every second, every multi second of the Master's life was filled with Reality. His sufferings were Real, His joys were Real, His achievements were Real. How can there be unreality in Reality?

You see, happiness comes in so many ways. When you are hungry, and you get food, you are happy. But if you get too much, you are not happy. If you have not gone to the toilet for six hours, and you are able to go, it makes you happy. You can now come to a common thing in both these things - filling a need. In both cases. One, when you are hungry, by eating you satisfy a need, and the other when you have to relieve yourself, and you are not able to do it, by doing it you get relief.

What about a person who has no needs? Living, I am talking of living. He cannot have any happiness. Can you say God is happy? Not at all possible; because if He is happy there will be a time when He will be sad - opposite. So in an unchanging condition, there is neither happiness nor sorrow. Now when human beings want happiness, they are looking for something impermanent. They are fools. But in God, everything comes to a point. It is not balance. It is the disappearance of both. Therefore, in Hindu philosophy for instance, we say we must rise above both extremes - good, bad; health, sickness; light, darkness - both. Because this is this, and this is this - the two exist together. And the more this is, the more this will be. The more happy you are today, the more miserable you are going to be tomorrow. Therefore, the saint exists in the middle. He is not sad, he is not happy; he is not rich, he not poor - middle. So this is the aim of yoga - the goal is the middle.

In Sahaj Marg we are attempting this enormously grand, ultimate synthesis of existence. And if it is successful, it will not merely produce a complete person in whom you find everything in perfect balance, it will produce a saintly individual, a masterly individual. And remember, here, Babuji's oft-repeated statement that, "The Divine life is a perfectly balanced life, no exaggeration in any direction. A saint does not have to be intellectual, or rich, or powerful, or strong. He does not have to be anything." And this is, this nothingness which spirituality promises, how, by becoming that, the quality of which is nothingness, such a person becomes capable of generating, from within himself, everything in the universe. He has no form. He has no name. He has no substance. He has no qualities, in a sense. He is divinised to the highest possible extent.

Perfect balance cannot be achieved in the human existence. If perfect balance is achieved then this life will end immediately. So we must aim for proper functioning of all our faculties. This is itself a great thing. Such proper functioning of all our faculties I call saintliness. Perfect balance can exist only in Him.