The Master Answers

A selection of questions and answers with Maharaj Charan Singh

Q: Is it true that we are born alone and that we live and die alone?
A: You see, currents in a river bring together so many scattered pieces of wood, but another current comes and just scatters them again. A wave of karma comes, we all collect together; another wave of karma comes, we all scatter to our own destinations. That is why we say the world is like a stage and we are all actors. An actor never gets so attached to another actor that after getting down from the stage he starts crying. He knows he has been given a part to play – maybe of a husband or a wife or a child – but after he gets down from the stage he has no relationship with them. So the world is just like that. It is self-deception to think that the part which is given to us is real.

That is our whole problem and misery in this world. If we could only remember that we are all just playing parts on a stage. People come and go in different roles in this life. There’s no real relationship. If today we have forgotten all our friends, all our loves, our romances in each of our past lives, how are we going to remember our current relationships? We are not going to keep remembering them forever. They come and go. We will forget them also.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: You often say, “Do not analyze.” Why not analyze so much?
A: It will lead you nowhere. We just start feeling self-pity, and where does that lead you? Instead of analyzing your own self too much, attend to meditation. That will take care of the coming events in a more practical way than brooding over the past, over the present, over the future. Why not prepare yourself to face the present and face the future – by meditation.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: Master, I’d like to hear what you have to say about this line from Paltu. It says: “In the game of love I cannot lose. If I win I get you, and if I lose you get me.” Is that right?
A: If I win, naturally I’ll be in your lap. If, in my struggle, I lose, you will pull me to your level. So there are no failures if I am doing my best. One only loses a battle if one fights it. You can’t lose a battle sitting at home. When you are fighting, either you win or you lose. But you are fighting. As Maharaj Ji (Maharaj Sawan Singh) used to say, in Sant Mat there are no failures, because you are trying to follow it. A child who is learning to run, well, he falls, he gets bruises, he gets up again, he tries again, tries again and starts running. If he is always frightened of falling, he will never even learn to walk. So even if we lose in this battle of love, we win.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: It’s a very strange battle in that Master pulls us first, then we come towards him, and then he seems to go away.
A: He doesn’t go away. We come and go, come and go. He is always pulling, but we are not always receptive to his pull. Christ gave the parable of the sowing of the seed. The seed falls on marshy ground. It grows, but along with the weeds. One is attending to meditation and is receptive to the pull, but is also a victim of his weaknesses. The pull is always there, but we are not 100 percent receptive to it.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}

Q: How much capacity do we have in planning our future, Master? Is it set for us when we’re born?
A: We have only one future: to go back to the Father. There’s no other future.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III}