Natural Growth – In Gita Verse 18.68 For one who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, pure devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me.
Krishna says that to find a true spiritual teacher is a very unique phenomenon.
There is a well known Sufi saying: “When the disciple is ready, the Master arrives.” An earnest desire to grow and a sense of deep commitment are the hallmarks of one who aspires to be a disciple. When at the core of one’s being a person comes to realize he/she needs to seek a path for coming out of one’s unconscious and conditioned life, mysteriously a person appears to guide and show the way.
There is a progressive evolution from the point when one begins to ask and enquire. There are three stages: the first is that of a student, the second is that of a disciple, the third is that of a devotee. The student learns only intellectually, he relates only on the plane of intellect – but that is the beginning. If he can relate intellectually, he may start feeling a trust in the guru. Then he can relate emotionally; that makes him a disciple. And when he is able to relate emotionally, trusting the guru, the person turns into a devotee. A deep communion is established between the disciple and guru.
When he is a student, he sees guru as a teacher. When he becomes a disciple, he recognizes the guru as a Master. Now a communion begins to take place; now at the emotional level of contact, a unique kind of love arises. The seeker is now on the path. The student is not aware that he is a student. He may think he is a disciple, he may think he is a devotee; but his functioning is absolutely unconscious. The student acts through logic. The disciple operates through love. The devotee moves through trust. Trust is the culmination of love.
And the third and the highest state is that of a devotee. In that state the Master and the disciple are no more separate: union happens – not only communion but union, a kind of unity. That has been our way in the East. The seeker comes as a student, falls in love with the Master, becomes a disciple; and one day the love has matured, the Master and the disciple have met, really met. In that meeting, the devotee is born.
Then the Master is no more a human being: the Master is thought to be a God. That’s why we have called Buddha ‘Bhagwan’. It is not in the Christian sense of the word ‘God’. It is in the sense that the devotee has come to a point where he can see that his Master only lives in the body but is not the body. Now he can see the transcendental energy of the Master. The Master represents God on the earth. The Master is a penetration of the beyond, of the unknown, into the known.
Sufi stories may help you. Sufis have such beautiful stories, unparalleled, that each story opens a new vision.
Junnaid was himself once a seeker. He used to tell his disciples, “When I met my master, the master never looked at me for three years. I was sitting from morning till evening. So many people were coming and going and he was talking to people and he did not look at me, as if I did not exist for him yet. But I was persistent because I had felt the presence of the master and I had tasted the sweetness of his surroundings. I remained – in fact the more he ignored me, the more I became certain that there is some secret in his ignoring me.”
After three years the master looked at him for the first time. That was the recognition that he was not a student, but a disciple. A student would have gotten lost in three years; no student can stay that long waiting just for a look. Then another three years passed and he never looked again.
After three years the master looked again and smiled too, and his smile went almost like a sharp sword into the heart of Junnaid. Why had he smiled? – But the master did not give him a chance to ask. He started talking to other disciples.
Three years passed again, and one day he called him close and kissed his forehead and said, “My son, now you are ready. Now you can go and spread the message.”
But no message had been given to him.
For nine years he had been there. The only message was that once he was looked at, once he was smiled at, and once he had been kissed on his forehead.
But if the master is saying you are ready, it must be so. Touching the feet of the master in gratitude he left.
He used to tell his disciples, “I met a very strange man. In nine years he prepared me without even looking at me – but on each change he made the indication. When he became certain that I was a disciple and whatever happened I was going to stay there, he looked at me. But his look was such a shower of love… I could have waited for it for three lives; three years were nothing. The way he looked at me, with such deep love and compassion, I was immensely glad. I was bathed almost in a new experience.
Without telling me anything… In those three years my mind had stopped functioning. I just went on looking at the master, his every gesture, and slowly, slowly there was nothing to think about. I even forgot for what purpose I was sitting there – and that was the day he looked at me. I knew the purpose and I was fulfilled immensely.
But then three years again passed, and when he smiled the whole existence smiled. Every fiber of my being felt his smile – such a soft touch, but it went deep into my heart. I knew something had happened, but I was not aware at that time what had happened. I had passed from disciple hood into devotee hood.
The day he kissed my forehead, he sealed my certificate as a master. His kiss on my forehead was his only final message. It took me years to figure out slowly what he had meant.”
The kiss of the master to the disciple, to the devotee, is a declaration that the merger has happened, the melting has happened and now you are ready to spread all around the fragrance that you are filled with.
Krishna says the student is unconscious. The disciple starts becoming conscious. The devotee is so conscious that he cannot be conscious of his consciousness. It has to be a recognition from the master, because from the devotee the distance between himself and the master is absolutely nil. From the devotee one grows into a master, but it is a spontaneous and natural growth.
Tags: Natural Growth
