True Association...

Sat satya satya ho Govinda Radhe

sang satya satya ho to laksya dila de

You might be familiar with the word satsang. Sat means ‘Saint’ and sang means ‘association’. If sat, the Saint, is genuine and our sang, association with him, is also genuine, then we will attain our ultimate goal of God-realization and Divine Bliss. The Vedas state:

Tadvijnanartham sa gurumevabhigacchet

Samitpanih srotriyam brahmistham

(Mundakopanishad)

A true Saint is one who has complete knowledge of all the scriptures, and also practical experience of God. He should have the ability to impart theoretical knowledge of the scriptures to us and also, he should have attained the vision of God; he must possess the treasure of Divine Love Bliss. If someone has a cheque book but nothing in the bank account, what will be the use of the cheque book? If one merely talks about God without having surrendered to Him and without having attained Divine Love, then talk merely increases his pride.

Now what is ‘true association’? There seems to be some shortcoming from our side in our association with Saints. In course of innumerable lifetimes, we must have met Saints countless times. Countless times! Saints are always present on the earth and we have also been here since eternity. So all these Saints, Tulsidas, Surdas, Meera, Kabir, Nanak, Tukaram, Shankaracharya, Nimbarkacharya, Madhvacharya, Vallabhacharya – are personalities that we have seen, heard and met. We were present in their lifetimes, we went to them, and we heard their lectures, but we did not gain any spiritual benefit. We said to them, “You are not a true Saint,” and they said to us, “your association is not proper.” Now, to claim that we have not met a genuine Saint even once, is sheer madness. In our innumerable past lives, we have met uncountable Descensions of God, so how is it possible that we have not met any Saint? We did meet them but our mistake was that our association with them was not proper. What do we mean by sang or association? It can be of three kinds. We possess three things: body, mind, and soul. Amongst these three, which one must be associated with God and the Saints? The scriptures say that we must associate with all three. The surrender must be complete. Complete!

Yahi sarvatm bhaven

(Bhagavat)

God says we must offer all that we have in our possession. It is true that whatever we have is impure but we must offer it anyway. God does not expect us to offer Him Divine things from Golok (the Divine Abode of God). He saya, “Whatever you possess, offer it to Me.” Of our three possessions, the mind is the most important. This mind has two states: mind and intellect. The advaities (monoists), mention four states, but that is not important. In the Bhagavad Gita, Shri Krishna Himself has mentioned only two states of the mind:

Maiyeva man adhatsva mayi buddhim nivesaya

(Gita)

“Arjun! Surrender your mind to me, and surrender your intllect also to me.” Arjun thought, “The mind is one, then why is He asking for two things?” Shri Krishna said, Yes! Yes! There is only one mind, but it has two states. When it thinks, it is called the mind, and when it takes decisions, it is called the intellect.

God says, “I have given you a chariot. What does this chariot comprise of? First of all there is the body of the chariot. Then there are horses pulling the chariot. In the mouths of the horses are the reins. These reins are in the hands of the driver, There is also a passenger who is seated in the chariot.” God says, “Why have I given you this chariot? So that you may come to me. Come as you are. Do not be pretentious; don’t put on a show.” Amazingly, we have been traveling on this chariot since uncountable lifetimes, and yet we have not reached God. Even thought His abode is very close. All we have to do is to turn the chariot in the direction opposite to the one which we have been moving, and then we will reach Him. In this analogy of the chariot, the horses are the senses, the reins is the mind, the chariot driver is the intellect, the passenger is the soul; and the chariot is our body, the human form, which we have attained through great good fortune. Our task is to take the chariot towards God, in other words, surrender to him. Instead, we have been going in the opposite direction. It is like someone has to go to Allahabad, which is in the east, but he is going westwards to wards Lucknow.

Justam yada pasyatyanyamisamasya mahima

Namiti vitasokah

(Mundakopanishad)

The Vedas say: “Turn around. Take either a right about-turn or a left about-turn, and reverse your course. God is standing just behind you, waiting for you.” But we do not wish to turn around. We have accepted one another as mother, father, son, wife and husband and we are seeking our goal of Bliss through them. We are begging door-to-door for happiness, and the ones we are begging from are also beggars for the same happiness. All the beggars are fooling each other. Each one is promising, “Come to me. I will make you very happy.” Mother, father, wife, husband, son, everyone is saying this. They are deceiving us, and we are being kicked around everywhere in the world. At times, we do realize that these people cannot give us happiness, since they are begging for it themselves. But this knowledge does not remain for very long, and we quickly go back to the world, searching for that elusive happiness. Thus, it is mainly the mind and the intellect that must associate with the saint. And of these two, the intellect is main. The mind is a mere servant of the intellect. It simply does what the intellect tells it to do. Write this down in letters of gold! You people say time and time again, “Oh! My mind does not want to think of God. My mind is telling me to sleep. My mind is telling me to go away from here.” Granted the mind may be telling you to do all this, but you must learn to control it with the intellect that God has given you. Even a little child controls his mind with his intellect. He is going to school, and on the way he sees hot jalebis being made in a sweet shop. His mouth starts watering. He wishes to eat the sweets, but has no money with him. He thinks to himself, “Go ahead! Steal the jalebis.” Then he thinks, “No, No! If I am caught, I will get a beating. Just keep walking straight to the school.” The child looks longingly at the jalebis, and yet keeps walking. What has he done? He has controlled his mind. The mind could have instructed the hand, “Hey! Pick up the jalebis.” But it could not give this order to the hand, against the decision of the intellect. Of all the works that we do in the world, there are very few that are in accordance with the interest of the mind. We do most of our works despite the disinclination of the mind. Look at you people gathered here. You have left your homes to come here for practicing devotion. I accept that you have great devotional feelings, and have renounced a lot to be here. Yet, in the morning when the wake-up bell rings, your mind does not want you to get out of bed. Yet you do so only because you have to. You reason to yourself, “I must get up. If I don’t then I will get a scolding from Maharajji.” You get up unwillingly. It is the same in your homes; when the child is woken up by Mummy or papa, he does not like it, but gets up anyway. And Mummy and Papa do not wish to get out of bed themselves. They do it forcibly too. Papa gets out of bed because he has to go to work; Mummy gets out of bed, because she has to make breakfast.

All day long, you do many things against the interest of your mind – as a mere act, a show, a charade. You welcome someone who comes to your house, though from within you are not interested to receive him. It can be said that 99.9 percent of your acts are done merely because you have to, and not because you want to. Since the mind is your servent, it does what the intellect instructs it to do; it cannot revolt against the intellect. This intellect is a great power that God has given us, and e must use it to control the mind. But we accept defeat before the whims of the mind. We do what our mind wants instead of following the dictates of our intellect. We must make the intellect govern the mind, and not allow the mind to govern the intellect. Now let’s talk about the intellect. In every lifetime, our faulty intellect has prevented us from associating with Saints. It takes pride in our degrees, “I am a B.A.; I am a M.A.; I have a Ph.D. My hair did not turn grey in the sun; it has come from a long life of experience. How can I blindly accept Tulsidas and Surdas as Saints?” Our intellect always questioned the actions of Saints, “Why does he wear these clothes? Why does he sit like this? Why does he stand like this? Why does he talk like this? We have always done this. We even criticized God, then why should we spare the Saints. The Scriptures, God and the Saints unanimously state that when God bestows his Grace, He takes away our material possessions.

Yasyahamanugrahnami harisye tadhanam sanaih

(Bhagawat 8-22-24)

But we do not accept this truth. We think, “This cannot be. The one whom God graces becomes a billionaire. If he is childless, God gives him a child. If he doesn’t have a mother, God provides him with a mother. If he is fatherless, God gives him a legal guardian.” In other words, our personal philosophy is that when God or the Saints grace us they give us worldly possessions. But the statement of God and the Saints is the opposite of this. So a fight ensues between our intellect and God’s words. The intellect says, “I don’t accept this point.” “But the Vedas are saying it, and so does the Bhagavatam.” “They may be saying it, but I cannot agree.” I ask you, how many people are there in India who accept the philosophy that when God graces a soul, he snatches the world away from him. I ask you all, how many of you agree to this philosophy? I don’t see a single person who really does. There is not one amongst you who would say on receiving an insult, “this is good for me”, ho on becoming ill, losing wealth or on the death of loved one would say, “this is the grace of God.”Does anyone of you have the courage to say this? So your faulty intellect does not allow you to associate with the Saint. It clashes with the principles of the Scriptures, God and the Saints. It says, “I don’t accept this.” We may not explicitly say it in words, but in our heart of hearts we think, “this doesn’t sound right.” So then how are we associating with the Saints? Association means accepting their words fully from within. If the Guru scolds you, how many of you feel, “look at the grace I have received today? My Guru has personally scolded me.” Sit by yourself and reflect on this. What is the state of your intellect? You do not feel fortunate on being scolded by your Guru, on the contrary, your mood is spoilt. You may not abuse Him on His face, but within your heart you become extremely annoyed. “He scolded me in front of everyone. I would not have minded if He had scolded me in private.” How much you love self respect! You desire respect despite the fact that you are a slave of lust, anger, greed, attachment and ignorance. Yet, you are not prepared to be reprimanded for these even by your Guru. This is the condition of your intellect!

This means your intellect is not associating with the Saint. Once it surrenders, the mind will follow automatically. So you must attach the intellect to the instructions of the Guru, and upon receiving them, be overwhelmed with gratitude. You should realize His grace in His each and every instruction. Not only when He praises you, but also when He criticizes you, insults you, scolds you, or reveals your faults. You should feel overjoyed from within in each instruction of His. If you can think in this manner, it means that you are surrendering the intellect, and now your salvation is certain. When this golden day arrives, your work will be done. Until you accept this from within, you are only fooling yourself by thinking that you have surrendered to God and Guru. And even if you have, it is only one percent or ten percent. That is all! However, you feel from within, “I am fully surrendered, am I not? Yes I am.” But to whom are you asking this Question? The intellect. It is this intellect itself that is the cause of your ruin, and yet you are asking it. Do you think it would pass judgment against itself?

So if truly associate with a Saint, it ill not take you long to reach your destination. The Guru instructs, “chant mara mara (kill,kill)and you will attain Ram.” We did not accept the millions of instructions of our Guru from the Vedas and other scriptures, then how can we ever accept such instruction? But look at the surrender of Valmiki. His Guru simply instructed, “keep repeating mara mara until I return,” and the disciple said, “Yes Guruji.” He did not use his intellect to question the instruction. “What does this word mara mean? How long should I go on saying mara mara?” No questions! He enthusiastically followed his Guru’s instruction and became Valmiki the Saint. This is surrender. This is association – true association.

Your Guru gives you a flower or throws a necklace towards you. You should feel that he has given you everything. Instead you think, “hmm! I have got a small ordinary necklace. That person has got a nice one.” How wrong are these thoughts? The intellect is so distorted; it has been spoilt since eternity. That is why it is not willing to surrender. It does not take it even a second to rebel. The Guru asks, “Why are you sitting like this?” The devotee answers back immediately, “how else should I sit?” What a contradiction of thought and speech with that of your Guru! You all do this. And you do not even realize your mistake, for if you did, you would endeavor to correct it and not repeat it in future. You answer back even to your Guru. You may not say it, but even if you feel it from within, it amounts to the same thing. So if you are ever fortunate enough to associate truly with a Saint, it will not be long before you attain your goal.