Web Content Display Sahaj Sandesh No: 2011.36 Thursday, 20 October 20111. Report on Rev. Master's visit to DubaiRevered Master arrived in Dubai on the 13th of October at 1:15 PM and was in excellent spirits even though his travel had been arduous. He was accompanied by 25 other abhyasis traveling with him from Delhi. Several hundreds joined him from all over the world and by the 14th of October, there were a total of 1050 abhyasis gathered for morning Satsangh in the meditation hall. Revered Master inaugurated the seminar on the morning of the 14th with a satsangh. Thereafter, he formally introduced his successor brother Kamlesh D. Patel to the abhyasis of the Middle East. The theme chosen for the seminar was "Pray for Change, Be the Change." On the 15th morning after satsangh, Revered Master addressed a Prefects' meeting and introduced the Global Service Team (GST) as a body, which has been put in place for the service of abhyasis worldwide. He patiently explained the genesis of the GST and how the Mission has grown leaps and bounds from Babuji's times. Excerpts from his talk are given below. "Just a preliminary introduction because as the head of the organization, Sahaj Marg Spirituality Foundation, I want to explain what this is all about. The organization has had two arms, the organizational and the statutory. The statutory bodies are the working committee, which reports to the Government, and the administrative are the administrators, centers-in-charge, accountants, auditors, and all those people. And the service arm of our Foundation, of this organization did not have anything to give it a coherence that was necessary." "When I went to Babuji Maharaj in 1964 you know, there were only twelve preceptors altogether. Of course there was nothing outside India, there was nothing much outside Uttar Pradesh, and these twelve preceptors were also members of the working committee, but also part of administration, so that administrative and statutory functions, the President, everything was included in one single body of 12-13 people including Babuji. Then after I joined the number of preceptors became 23, 24, 25, it was too much to have all preceptors as members of the working committee. So like an amoeba splits into two by itself, it happened naturally that the statutory part became the working committee and the rest became Babuji Maharaj and the prefects. It took another 15 years for an administration to emerge because where there was only one prefect at the time there was hardly any need for a preceptor-in-charge, so the one man was in-charge, he was out-of-charge, he was everything, he was lazy, he was active, he did, he did not do, everything was that one person. But then as there was need for more prefects in each center, really administration came into effect with the centre-in-charge. So: administration, statutory function, and the Boss." "Now Mr. Ichak Adizes (an internationally renowned management consultant and now a Prefect of the Mission) came with a suggestion. He said, “Brother," he calls me brother, “we must have organization”. Then he said two very profound things, thoughts that impressed me very much. He said, “All managements are structured on what needs to be done. I prefer to say why should it be done?” So the Ichak system as he calls it, the Adizes method, is why should this be done? Only later we come to who should be doing it, what should be done, and so forth. So why should anything be done? Why should there be an accountant? Because we have money. If you have no money it’s foolish to have an accountant just because you have an administration. So to make it a short story, I was so impressed I agreed that he should come to Bangalore for an 8 or 9-day program, and offhand I selected about 50 people I think, all the GST members you see here are products of that choice.The second profound thing that he said is that only two things are necessary, mutual respect and trust. We don’t need anything else to make us brothers and sisters. These are lacking. We don’t have mutual trust, and of course we don’t respect each other." "So we have this program and this is an effort to have administration, statutory functions and a service body. The service body being us, prefects who are there to assist people in developing spirituality, in going up to the highest. That is our only function as prefects. There are some of us who have to be also involved in administration, which to my mind is a pity. But it doesn’t matter, we can do both. Because if you concentrate on the spiritual function, I have found that the administrative part of it becomes less and less. When we become really brothers and sisters, when we really trust each other and have mutual respect, what administrative function is left? Nothing." "So by doing our duty as service providers, you must remember here what Babuji Maharaj said: we give service but we are not servants. Because many people think, “Oh I don’t want to give service, I would like to be served.” In Sahaj Marg, we don’t sit and wait or stand and wait, we do and wait. We do what? What we are asked to do: do the cleaning, do the transmission and wait to see what is happening." "So brothers and sisters, when we concentrate on this service part, which is our only responsibility to the master, remember-we serve not human beings. We serve the master who asks us to serve people. So our real service is to him. The moment that we think that we re serving people we fall into the biggest error, that we become arrogant, we become egoistic, “I am serving so many people, I am helping so many people," that becomes something that can lead to our own spiritual downfall. It is a very grave error. I serve him and him alone. It is like a soldier you know, my government tells me to go and do things, I go and do things, isn’t it?" "Now many of you have had, or will have or perhaps are having right now, reservations about how this is going to work. Like everything else it will work only if you make it work. If you don’t make it work you will fail, not the system. Remember that no system fails by itself, systems fail because the people who operate them fail. This is where I come to you and request you, please listen to what is going to be said without reservation, don’t start criticizing the food before they even cut the vegetables; wait till everything is cooked, eat, and then criticize. We require your patience, your forbearance and your cooperation. You must listen carefully, you must put into effect what is told to you here and then you judge. Otherwise its like judging Sahaj Marg without doing any meditation, without doing any cleaning." "Remember that spirituality is not based on religion, it is based on what the Indians first called it… rooh, roohaniyat. It is the soul, the science of the soul and what we do with that. That is spirituality. There need be no barriers of religion, of language, of culture, of race, nothing, because everybody has a soul, nobody can deny it. Our nationalities may differ, the languages we speak may differ, but the soul in every one of us is the same. If anybody can challenge that, I’m prepared to be challenged." "So once again I say to all of you, my only duty to you is to sort of light the lamp, to keep it burning, to feed it with oil or whatever, to trim the wick-that is your job. I pray you will all cooperate 100 percent not only today but for the future, and that our service group — that is why they are called the global service team. They are not here to dictate to you, they are not here to teach you, they are here to exchange with you over what problems you may have if any. How to solve, what to do, what is my experience in India, what is your experience in Timbuktu, you see. So it’s purely an exchange facility here, to exchange our work, our experiences arising out of that work and to wee what we can do in the future to improve everything. So I pray for you all, thank you very much." Some pictures from Master’s trip can be seen by clicking on the link below: |