The Master Answers

A selection of questions and answers with Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: Is not God’s grace the power to shape all that we are destined to become?
A: God’s grace is always there, but brother, we have to become receptive to his grace. If it is raining very heavily and your cup is upside down, not a drop of water will get into it. You have to put that cup with the right side up, then it will be filled with rain water. So God’s grace is always there, within everyone of us, but we have to be receptive to that grace, and by receptive I mean we have to withdraw our consciousness to that point where his grace is coming day and night. Unless we attach ourselves to that and unless we are filled with that love and devotion to the Lord, naturally these desires and attachments of the world will not go out of us. There is no limit to his grace, which is everywhere, but we have to be receptive.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: Master, we know that this is the right path and we have the faith and yet there is no love in our heart, how shall we go about it?
A: Sister, if you are attending to your meditation, love will come automatically. You do not have to work for love. It comes when it comes. Even in worldly love, you know, if you analyze yourself, you do not work for it. God gives this gift, and it just comes.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: Has the Master been pleased or displeased with our behaviour?
A: You see, the professor loves all the students in the class, but some students are not attentive; some students don’t work hard at all, and unless they are given seats in the front, they won’t be attentive. It doesn’t mean that the Master doesn’t love the students sitting on the back benches and is only considerate of the students who are sitting in the front. He wants them to be attentive. Because he loves all the students, he wants everybody to pass. So this is a wrong way of judging things. The professor does not discriminate among his students; he only wants to teach and see that every student passes.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: Has the Master the power to help the disciple open the inner eye, while the disciple is meditating, or it is just that we have to be purified so much until it automatically opens of its own accord and then the Master helps us to open it?
A: Brother, it takes both. We have to put in the effort, and the grace of the Master is always there. My Master used to tell us that if a disciple goes one step forward, the Master comes ten steps to receive him. If we go ten steps, he comes a hundred steps to receive us. If we are sincere and honest in our devotion, in our efforts, he never withholds his grace. It is always there.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: If it is decided at the time of death that we should take another birth, how do we find another Master?
A: You don’t have to find any Master at all. The Master will find you himself. We never find any Master; we are just pulled to a Master.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}