Stages of Spiritual Progress and Evolution
Shri P. Rajagopalachari
Yatra
Yatra is a Sanskrit word meaning journey, a travel. So any journey is a yatra. And then in spirituality we have the inner journey of the self, whether it is a real journey or not, I do not know, but it is there, and therefore in the Sanskrit language the spiritual journey is called a spiritual yatra. So this yatra, unless it begins there is no progress, you see.
So the true yatra is the yatra of the soul from one region to the other by moving from one point to the next point, to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Inevitably, at least in modern times, you cannot possibly find anybody other than at the first point. The only person who ever came to Babuji outside of the first point was this one single case in his entire lifetime. Then he told me the secret: that to move from the first point requires the power of the Master. You may never move from that point.
So yatra may never take place, you see, except by the grace of the Master. The yatra has to be begun by a master, and then, once the yatra begins, once this motion is set into being, or has been created, you can say that now, for the first time, the soul is active.
So without movement we cannot grow. That which has become motionless, ignorant, inconscient, sunk into itself in a mire of oblivion, it becomes active. Through activity, it gains. What does it gain? Not a thing, not a state, but its position on the evolutionary path, onto which it steps for the first time after who knows how many aeons of time of blissful ignorance. So, that is the importance of the yatra.
Without cleaning there is no yatra. It is not possible. Therefore the importance of the preceptor.
Heart region
Now the heart region Babuji described as the gutter of humanity. And the cleaning is absolutely the most difficult in the heart region. Babuji once told me that he sometimes felt as if he was under the sewer systems of a big metropolis-nowhere to go, dark everywhere, stinking. And Babuji's face took on such an expression, you would have pitied him if you had seen it.
So I cannot sufficiently emphasize the importance of cleaning. It is of the utmost importance, there is nothing more important than that in Sahaj Marg. Transmission comes only after cleaning.
The heart region is spirituality, you see. Beyond it, it is…like when you leave the earth's gravitational fields, you are free. Nothing can stop you. That is why the heart region is of such utmost importance, because in it are embodied the principles of the earth, the water, the fire and the air. Strangely enough, the fifth principle of the Western mystics, the European mystics, the ether principle is missing. But in its place we have the atman, the soul. And here is embodied the known universe. And one who conquers this and goes beyond is free.
Mind region
The mind region, as Babuji has said, you know, it starts actually at point six, but we do not touch it. This is the point where, as my Master has discovered, the entire power distribution system is located. Everything that pertains to power and energy in the system, the distribution point is this.
Therefore, you find in the yogic literature of our great Eastern traditions, especially India, more especially Sahaj Marg, this suspicion of all that pertains to material existence, especially of power. Therefore, Babuji has said, "Transmission is forceless force, there is no power in it."
Babuji has said again and again, "Think of Him and He is there." Now this thought is obviously from the mind, therefore the importance given to the mind region in spirituality, what we call the cosmic region. That is why the mind region is so important, but you cannot come to it until the tendencies are cleared off.
Here comes the great position that psychology, or at least yogic psychology holds: that the mind is the first instrument of the soul. It is an instrument which is intangible, which has no physical existence, which cannot be located in space or in the body or even perhaps in time. It goes, it seems to go, with the soul. It is that which uses everything else, the senses, through the medium, perhaps, of the brain, the nervous system. So the mind is an intangible part of that intangible existence which we call the soul, the Self. And the region that it is supposed to control or regulate is what we call the mind region.
Now you, in English, you say mind region. We distinguish two halves of it, actually, the brahmanda and the parabrahmanda, you see. That is the cosmic and the super-cosmic, or the mind and the super-mind. And this (super-)mind is also important, because Babuji has said, "It is the landing ground of the gods." That means it is perhaps that neutral territory where you and the divine can meet. And all your foreplanning, forethought, everything, occurs here first before it descends down into the physical realm of physical existence, physical achievement, physical execution. Therefore, the importance of the mind region.
And because we cannot go to the mind region without cleaning the heart, because there lies the samskaras which make our tendencies, therefore the even perhaps superior importance of the heart region. Until I transform this, remove the samskaras to the necessary extent, not totally, but necessary extent, purify it, purify my tendencies, there is absolutely no use in acting upon the mind region. It cannot respond. Therefore, this sequence of heart region to mind region. In the super-mind, the super-cosmic, the parabrahmanda, is a yet further refinement. Now we have, technically speaking, gone beyond the gods.
Now if everything emanates here, the landing ground of the gods is here, divine action itself emanates from the cosmic (not from the Centre, you see, please remember this, the Centre is inoperative), if we wish to change our destiny, as we call it, our future, build it afresh, renew it, we have to work with our thought, with the mind. Therefore, raja yoga operates with the mind, through the mind. That is why we have to meditate. That is why meditation, though it is only regulation of the mind, is very necessary, very vital. Because the mind has to be under our regulatory control. Otherwise, it runs amok.
Therefore, Babuji said, "The mind is the only thing that can redeem the human being. It is also his only source of self-destruction." Like everything on earth, it has two edges, you see, a double-edged sword. Powers are always double-edged things. Therefore Babuji's greatest piece of wisdom was to avoid power totally. Absolutely, there is no power system in Sahaj Marg.
So you see, that is the immense importance of the mind region.
Central region
And then we come to the central region where, as Babuji said, we are now swimming in the ocean of bliss, the seven rings of splendour. It [the soul] is now in direct contact with the source, the Centre. Questions of progress cease, because it is an ever-swimming-it can never end. We are ever going towards the Centre, and as Babuji said on several occasions, "My Master is swimming before me, and passing on his achievements to me." There is still this question of achievement, you see, not in the sense of worldly achievement, but in some higher mystical, spiritual sense.
Does the Centre, therefore, represent our goal? It would appear from a reading of Master's books, especially this Efficacy, you know, that the Centre is our goal. Very confusing, because I have known people who are in the central region having missed their way, subsequently fallen, because they thought the Centre was the goal.
Here comes the great secret of Sahaj Marg, of our spiritual way. You can never do without the Master. What is the need for the Master? Well, to start the process, to clean the heart, the regions, the points, to give transmission, to improve their quality, the essence of their existence, put Himself into them. It is called the prana-ahuti because he is pouring his life into our life. It is an offering of his life into our life.
Here, our heart is the flaming heart, flaming with desire, flaming with lust, flaming with so many things, you see, into which, from his divine heart he pours his blessings. And I suppose he cools and puts out these fires and normalizes this heart, makes it human, then makes it begin its commencement of the divine yatra which, incidentally, is what he meant by saying, "From animal man to human man to divine man is the path." This is the secret, that starting there, even after he puts you in touch with God, he is a very necessary person. We cannot afford to forget him. Because, God again, remember, has no mind. He cannot welcome you. He cannot recognize your presence. We need the Master till the ultimate completion of the yatra. That will show you where the real goal lies.
So you see, the prayer indicates very, very clearly, very unambiguously what is the real goal of human life, and the words 'real goal' must be taken particular note of…
Now what happens here? God, as a religious symbol, is set aside. "Thou art the real goal." Of course, Babuji himself says, in all his humility, which we know very well, he says in, I think, Reality at Dawn, He [God] is the real goal, we are only His representatives on earth. But it is my direct experience, you see, I have no hesitation in saying it, I have experienced the presence of my Master as the presence of the Ultimate!
And this mistake of thinking that the Master and God are two separate things, and having got God, I could negate my Master and leave him behind, was made by several persons, many of whom do not know Sahaj Marg today.
And to my experience, my personal experience, absolutely convincing, I have no doubt about it whatsoever, the Master's heart is my goal, you see. Not the Master, because the Master is a physical form, and, as I told you yesterday, it is bound to go, but his heart is eternal. That is why Master has said, and which many have misunderstood when he says, "The heart extends from the tip to the toe." You see, he did not mean that it is the region of the heart. Why only the tip to the toe of this existence? Of the divine existence itself. The heart has to expand until the universe is within that heart. And then you can say you and I and all of us are there. In one sense we are already in that heart, his divine heart, his immense universal heart.
Then what is the journey about? Why are we struggling with spirituality and cleaning and transmission and seminars? What for? We have to realise that we are there. Therefore, the spiritual path talks of realisation, not of achievement or anything else-realisation, self-realisation. The realisation that I, who am looking for someone, have that someone within me, and that someone is Him and myself too, this realisation dawns at the end.
Merger
So we come next to the stage of realisation. Where we have realised that the Master in me, and the Master outside me, and I, we are all the same, you see. It is an act of realisation, not of becoming, not of growing into something. The ultimate veil of ignorance is removed from our consciousness, and there we are. But nevertheless we are still separate from him. See, as long as we have to say, "He and I are one," the 'He' and the 'I' are still existing. Therefore the final state is the one we call merger, in Sanskrit it is called layavastha, becoming one. The two becoming one. The grand climax of spiritual life, indeed of all life, is that merger in the Beloved.
You see, here comes the important message of the Master: that development according to the points and regions has nothing to do with the ultimate climax of spiritual existence, the merger. The merger can be today, even if you are the worst sinner in the universe, if in that instant you have this total love and the total longing to be one with him, he opens the door.
This Ultimate which transcends even realisation (realisation is a very high feature of yogic practice, yogic self-achievement, the knowledge of the self), but the Ultimate thing is this mergence in the Master. It is within our control. It is something which we can aspire for, which we can achieve.
So you see these regions have nothing to do with the actuality of the spiritual adventure, its romance, its beauty, I do not know what word to use. It is a romance, you see. Spirituality is a romance; but a romance full of misery, where the soul of the aspirant is torn with longing, love, separation. And when you do achieve the union with the beloved, you find you are lost, you are no more there to, shall we say, enjoy the union. It seems to be stupid, you know, that two people who are longing to be together, to become one, in that very act of becoming one, the yearning one has been annihilated, as it were. But you know, how can you be annihilated when you are in the Master now?
Now all that is left behind, He and I are one. You all remember that famous Persian couplet quoted in, I think, Reality at Dawn, where Babuji has written in Persian what Lalaji told him, "I have become you and you have become me." See, both are being used, it is not enough if I become him, he must become me.
So when the Master merges with his servant, his devotee, his lover, each has become the other. That is the beauty of the spiritual ultimacy, the ultimate goal of spiritual endeavour, the merger, the layavastha, that not only do I become him and become complete, he becomes me and completes that thing.
You know, that is the miracle of love. In the real love, who is the beloved? Who is the lover? And when that love is finally united together in one grand culmination, of oneness by mergence each into the other, the lover is gone, the beloved is gone, even loving is gone. Then comes that unified unity of existence which knows nothing, not even its own identity, not even its own existence. Now we are at the goal.
(Condensed from two talks given by Master at Courmettes, France, 12 and 13 July 1988, published in the revised edition (1994) of What is Sahaj Marg, chapters 4-5, p 71-132.)
