The Pilgrim & Spiritual Progress

These are all extraneous questions. You need not worry about the Guru’s realizations but you feel three things. One is, that he is completely unselfish. You can see that in your relationship with him, in a give and take you constantly see him, talk to him. In this relationship you see tangibly the Guru is unselfish. On his part there is not the least selfish motive to get anything from you but he gives. He gives you. See that he gives you. That is one of the qualities and here I must mention that this same thing called unselfishness is what we call in the world love.

What is love? Unselfishness love is the positive word. Unselfishness is the negative way of saying the same thing. Every time you are unselfish, take away a little selfishness and put aside. You have to be loving, there is no other way and the Guru is extremely loving, extremely. And I know personally how even the direct disciples used to do this of Ramakrishna men. Who were God men, you know, and to us. They were like the generals of the army and we like the privates, the ordinary soldiers. Such a vast difference in spiritual status.

The Pilgrim Spiritual Progress Vedanta Swami Vandanananda

We knew it but still the love they could show was of such type as I am going to relate just one minor incident.

In India, particularly in the north of India, you know we always have to protect ourselves from mosquitoes, particularly in Bengal. They call them Royal Bengal Mosquitoes. You have to be able to sleep in a mosquito net and at night, you know, the net can be disturbed by your own pitching on the bed. And it so happens very, very often that mosquitoes do enter through a hole in the curtain because it is not well tucked in. Now these direct disciples of Shri Ramakrisna, when they were living, they used to meditate long hours during the night. The younger monks naturally slept and they had their hours of meditation.

They used to get up and take a walk around the monastery, you know, all the rooms, and tuck these mosquito nets in proper shape. If any boy was in danger of getting these mosquitoes into his curtain and then getting disturbed they would come and do it.

This was not one or two days, it was a regular thing on the part of some of these direct disciples. Constantly looking after the disciple how can he sleep well. And if he can’t sleep well he will be disturbed in the morning and the meditation is disturbed. And finally if he is disturbed by too many mosquitoes, he will leave the monastery, you will go away and leave spiritual life probably.

You see they took every little care to see that one who has come to spiritual life with that desire is tied down and held with their love because that is the next problem. One who has taken to it his attitude seems to be a little more subtle, sensitive. Any little problem the first and biggest casualty – give up, give up meditation and after several days a bigger problem – give up monastery and finally give up all about meditation and Vedanta and everything.

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