The Master Answers

A selection of questions and answers with Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: Master, we seem to have high periods and low periods of spirituality. Is this a trick of the mind or is it part of the development?
A: Sister, ups and downs in meditation do come. You call them high activity or low activity. Our meditation, our spiritual practice, is never smooth. Sometimes we feel that we have gone up, we have made progress. Sometimes we feel that we have fallen down. Ups and downs always come in meditation. That is due also, sometimes, to our past karmas and so many other things pulling us which we do not consciously realize. Unconsciously they are affecting us. So, we should not worry about the ups and downs. Gradually we have to steer upward.
_{The Master Answers}

Q: Maharaj Ji, would you tell us what is love?
A: Love is losing your own identity and becoming another person. That is love. There’s no ego left. To become another being and to just lose your own identity; you don’t exist; only the other being exists. That craving to become another one and loseyour own identity, to eliminate your ego and be in the will of another being, that is love. But how far we succeed is something different.
_{Die to Live}

Q: Is it correct to say then that ultimately our meditation or remembrance of the Master really becomes a twenty-four hour job? I mean, that’s really the only way, isn’t it, to avoid running to the senses?
A: Well, for the lover, love is a twenty-four hour sickness. He doesn’t have a specific time to love or to think about the beloved. He is in love twenty-four hours. He doesn’t specifically fix the time – this is my time for love. His mind is always there, no matter what he’s doing, where he may be. So similarly, the Lord should always be there in our mind, no matter where we are,no matter what we are doing. That remembrance should reflect in our actions, our dealings. We should never forget him at any cost. That is why I say Sant Mat is a way of life. It is not closing yourself in a room for a couple of hours for meditation and then forgetting about it. The Lord should become part and parcel of your life.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

Q: Could you explain to me about doing simran with love and devotion? To me these are just words, and I don’t understand what they mean.
A: Put your whole mind in these words; you will automatically feel the love and devotion. Let no other thought come in your mind. Let the whole of yourself, the whole of your mind, be in the simran. Love comes automatically. The idea is that love creates faith, and faith helps us to practise. If we love someone, we naturally develop faith in him, and if we have faith in him, naturally we always like to follow his advice. So if we have love for the Master, love for the teachings, faith will come in us. And if we have faith that what we are doing is right, then practice will come automatically.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}