Helpless to Look
Extracts from Spiritual Perspectives, Vol.III
Q: Master can you speak to us of darshan, please?
A: You see, darshan for a disciple is nothing but his helplessness to look at the Master because he’s in love with the Master. Love compels him to look at his loving face – that is darshan.…Why do we lookat the face of people whom we love? We always like to gaze at them, talk about them, because we love them, and a lover never thinks what advantage he gains by looking at his beloved’s face and by talking to her. His advantage is that he has been able to express his love or experience his love – that is the advantage.
Q: How important is it for the Master to look at the disciple?
A: Our gazing at the Master is more essential. Master is already gazing at us because he is pulling us from within – that is why webecome helpless to look at the Master. So he has already done his duty; otherwise no disciple would fall in love with the Master – unless the Master wants him to fall in love with him. He sows the seed, then it sprouts, then it grows; so he is the one who is already pulling us from within. He is the one who is creating his love in our heart, strengthen-ing it, and helping us to grow it. He’s doing everything from within.
Whether he looks at you from the outside or not doesn’t make any difference at all.
Q: Master, can satsangis get darshan from their Master’s successor?
A: You see, it will always remind him of his own Master. No matter how much he looks at his Master’s successor, it always strengthens his faith in his own Master. There is no betrayal of love. This is just reminding you or reviving your love for your own Master.
Q: In the big satsang in Chattarpur, there are so many people who are sitting very far away from you who have your darshan from a video screen. Someone asked me if the benefit of that darshan is different from the benefit people receive when they are sitting nearer you.
A: Love doesn’t diminish if you are far away. Probably the people who are trying to sit very near the dais are trying to count my wrinkles or count the hairs in my beard and nothing else. Otherwise it makes no difference. Darshan means the helplessness of the lover to look at the beloved. It is the pull which is within every one of us. That is darshan. Whether you are sitting near or whether you are sitting far away, it comes to the same thing.
Q: Sometimes during darshan, we’re lucky enough to get eye contact with the Master, and we feel very special inside. When you are looking at us in darshan, are you thinking of the person that you are looking at, or is that feeling often in the heart of the disciple?
A: The master always looks at every disciple, wherever they may be. He is right within every one of us, and he is always looking at us. Sometimes we are not very happy that he is looking at us.
Q: Master, when does darshan help to clear karma?
A: You see, mere darshan doesn’t clear karmas. The intention, the faith with which you look at the Master – that helps you to build your meditation. The faith, the intensity of love which provokes you, pulls you to look at the Master – that helps you.
Q: Well, I’ve been told that a moment’s darshan of the Master will wipe away twenty-one lives. Is that inner darshan that they’re talking about?
A: But darshan of what intensity? Darshan doesn’t mean just looking at the Master. Just merely looking at the Master is not darshan. The helplessness of a disciple – he cannot help but look at the Master, thinking him to be God – that is darshan. Guru Nanak has written somewhere that if you look at your Master with faith that he is God -and it is very difficult for us humans to put that faith in anybody, no matter how much we may convince ourselves intellectually – that darshan washes away all your karmas. But it is impossible to be in the flesh and to look at another human and believe him to be God. Intellectually we may be convinced, but the faith which comes from the heart doesn’t accept this at all. But darshan helps us to attend to our meditation, to do better dhyan, to hold our attention within; and it strengthens our faith, our love, which is very helpful for meditation.
Q: What is the difference between outer and inner darshan?
A: Inner darshan is permanent. It can stay with you forever. Outer darshan can’t. Outer darshan should lead you to reach to that level of consciousness where you can get the inner darshan which is your constant companion. Outer darshan only fills us with love and devotion so that we can reach to that level where darshan can always be with us. Outer darshan can’t remain with us always.