Don’t Despair

Whether an initiate of one year or an initiate of fifty, there are times when we all need a bit of encouragement.

We may be trying our best, and yet things still go wrong. We may despair when we realize that unintentionally we’ve broken our vows… again. Perhaps we’ve neglected our meditation, or even strayed from the path. It’s not uncommon to hear a satsangi confess: “I feel unworthy – how could I ever have deserved initiation?”

We love our Master and yet we constantly seem to fail him. We may wonder then whether it’s worth it to keep trying – when the path seems so difficult at times and we remain under the sway of the mind and the five passions.

But giving up is never and has never been an option. When we’ve been given the enormous blessing of initiation, that membership is for life – for all eternity. No matter what the initiate does, or doesn’t do, the Master will not let him unsubscribe from this club.

All through the good and the not so good times, the ups and downs of our meditation, times when we are full of hope and zeal and times when we despair, the love of the Master never leaves us. He tells us that once he has initiated a soul, he never leaves that soul. The person may think he has resigned, but sooner or later the Master will bring him back.

In Thus Saith the Master Maharaj Charan Singh says:

The Master initiates so many people. Some will go off the path, or will be led astray, but the Master does not leave them at all. He is responsible for taking the initiated soul back to the Father … Once Master initiates a person, he never leaves that disciple.

And a little further:

Initiation is never wasted. Even if the disciple goes astray, ultimately he will again come back to the path and will again be led by the Master. The Master will not leave the disciple. He is responsible to take that soul back to the Father.

The Masters tell us that generally once we have been initiated, there’ll be no more than four lives – and possibly only the rest of this present life – before we leave this material plane forever. But they also tell us that no soul gets initiated unless it has the capacity to reach the ultimate goal in that very lifetime.

Baba Ji keeps telling us we just have to ‘channelise’. We have the capacity, he says, we have the strength and the power. We just have to channelise it. And we have to persevere.

So why wait? Why do we want to prolong the agony of living in an alien place where the soul will never be happy, will never feel at home?

Why do we keep seeking fulfilment in worldly pursuits, which are always only temporary? Why do we listen to the mind when it whispers false inducements of what might be achieved – when we know this whole creation is an illusion? Why do it in two, three or four lives when it can be done in one?

We are going to do it. It is guaranteed. What does it matter if we feel that by now we could have done so much more, should have been so much more devoted? It is never too late to start over. The Master is waiting for us to make that decision. He has never left us. His love has been there all along.

There is no turning back – and let us thank him for that. For we are weak, struggling souls, battling to turn the inclination of our mind and senses around, away from the direction they’ve followed since we came down into this creation. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. It’s no easy task, but he says we can do it. He has shown us the way. He has given us the method, and he is with us always – even when we slip and fall.

In Light on Sant Mat Maharaj Charan Singh makes this very clear:

Once a Master has accepted a disciple he never leaves him, but is ever ready to guide him on the path. He does much more for us than the human mind can comprehend.

Come, come, whoever you are,
  wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It doesn’t matter that you’ve
  broken your vow a thousand times.
Still come, and yet again, come.
_{Rumi: The Inner Treasure, rendered by Jonathan Star}