In a Nutshell

Our mind on this material plane is forever asking questions. On the one hand this is its natural inclination, and on the other hand, it has been encouraged to do so by our parents and teachers. “Try to figure out how things work,” they told us as they taught us that two and two makes four and c-a-t spells cat. And so our mental development continued to grow through whatever schooling and training we had. From that simple beginning more complicated and difficult things were explained to us as our understanding grew.

So when we are presented with something that sounds very much like a fairy tale, the mind wants it explained. However, when we first came into contact with the Master’s teachings the soul instantly recognized it as the truth and could not resist the pull. We read the books, we listened to discourses and we were elated because at last we were being given answers to questions that had been troubling us.

We heard about the eye focus, the higher regions and the wonders waiting for us within. We learned that we could experience all this at no financial cost. In this life where nothing is free, that really sounded almost too good to be true. And because we had the astounding good fortune, grace and mercy to have been chosen for discipleship, the Master drew us to him and we were initiated. Joy of joys! Miracle of miracles!

But all too soon the mind decided that it was not going to accept this at face value. The mind is arrogant enough to query the words of a saint, a true Master. Instead of happily listening to what the Master tells it, it wants to know more. With its finite intellect it wants to understand something from the infinite – the highest plane of consciousness, far above the material, astral and even causal planes. Suddenly it wants the fairy tale explained. How does it all work, it starts to wonder. Why did it all happen, it asks over and over.

The result is that we start paying attention to these questions because, at this stage, the mind still has a strong hold over us. But no blame can be attached to the mind, which is merely doing what is in its nature to do, because the mind is used to this creation, and will not easily agree to leave it. So when a soul is initiated an alarm bell rings in the mind, and it does everything in its power to create confusion and doubt, as it desperately tries to waylay the soul.

The question we must ask ourselves is: are we going to listen to the mind and continue analyzing, or are we going to listen to our Master? In Divine Light Hazur Maharaj Ji tells us that if we spend all our life in hair-splitting and analyzing we will get nowhere. He says that our time for research and theorizing is past. Now is the time for practice and meditation.

But the mind agitates. It wants to know how far we have progressed and why we are here – question after question. And again the Masters explain that by trying to analyze things that are beyond our human understanding, we are attaching ourselves to those thoughts, and creating grooves in the mind that we could well do without.

We should leave all that to the Master who knows every answer and will reveal it to us as we progress on the path. In the meantime, let us try to simplify not only our lives but our thoughts as well. The whole of the path and everything we have to do is put in a nutshell in this quotation from Maharaj Charan Singh:

Just change your way of life according to the teachings and attend to meditation. That is all that is required. From meditation, love will come, submission will come, humility will come. Everything will come.
_{Die to Live}

Why do we continue questioning and analyzing? What could be simpler and easier to understand than these words from the Master? “Everything will come,” he tells us, because all the answers we want will come through meditation. When a Master says everything he means everything. This is not an ordinary human being speaking.

In the Call of the Great Master, Hazur Maharaj Sawan Singh says:

Outwardly, the Guru looks like an ordinary man, but inside, his position and power are beyond estimate.

And Guru Arjan said:

The Lord and his servant are one and the same,
Make no distinction because of human form.
_{As quoted in Die to Live}

Are we really going to allow our mind to question so great a Being? Or are we going to try to overcome this natural tendency?