The Master Answers

A selection of question and answers with Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: What’s the best attitude for the disciple?
A: You have to have preliminary faith in order to practise. In order to do research in the laboratory, preliminary faith is required. Otherwise you will refuse to do research. But actual faith comes only when you are able to get satisfaction from that research. Then your faith comes, not before that. On the outside, we feel that we have a lot of faith. This is just a self-deception, I would say. We have no faith at all. Christ said that if you have even as much faith as a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains. That faith we develop only from within, by practice, by testing within. Not outside.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

Q: Master, when we have a strong thought about a situation, is there any way to eradicate that or to lessen its effect?
A: I can tell you a positive thing. Instead of worrying about eliminating that thought, attach yourself to the sound within and you will automatically rise above the thought. It’s very difficult to eliminate thoughts one by one. It’s impossible. But when we attach ourselves to the Shabd and Nam within, all these thoughts are automatically eliminated. Instead of cursing the darkness, we should light a candle.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

Q: Since masters or saints always give their grace, where does the value of effort come on the path?
A: The grace forces you to put in effort, unless you want to resist the grace. You see, you will feel the pull from within to sit in meditation, to achieve something within. That is the grace. Now grace is pushing you to make the effort, making you sit in meditation, making you awake early in the morning, and making you feel guilty the whole day if you don’t attend to your meditation. That is all grace. That is forcing you to put in effort. So saints have their own way of giving grace.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

Q: Master, there are times when the Master seems withdrawn, when he seems very distant. Is he making us run after him, as it were?
A: Well, brother, if you’re nearer to him within yourself, he will be nearer to you anywhere in the world. If you’re far away from him within yourself, he will be far away from you even if he is living next door to you. You see, nearness you will only feel from within if you are attending to your meditation. If you are in love with him within, then wherever you may be living, you’ll find him always near you. And if you are not able to build that love and devotion within yourself by meditation, then even if he’s living next door to you, he’s far away from you.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: Has the Master the power to help the disciple open the inner eye while the disciple is meditating, or is it 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.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}