The desert moonlit scape is a beautiful sight; every bush and rock in sharp relief, a long-legged Jackrabbit lopes through the brush, and not far away coyotes yip. Even though it is Papa’s hour, nature’s world is wide awake! (3 a.m., I call it Papa’s hour because it was his waking time for so many years at the Ashram),
One of the projects I have been immersed in is typing my diary notes from my 1998-9 pilgrimage to Anandashram. Some days I am transcribing what happened on the very same month and day exactly twenty years before. So fully have I been taken back to that world there are times when looking up I half expect to see Ashram inmates and workers walking by. Perhaps the palm trees here in the Anza-Borrego Desert adds to this associative effect. It has been wonderful to go back to that time, especially my time with Swami Satchidananda.
What an effect he has had on me, how he helped me Godward! With undiminished gratitude I bow at Swamiji’s feet. I am sure that to many, bowing at another’s feet would seem an odd thing to do, yet to me it seems the most natural response to one who exudes such a powerful presence of God—so naturally flowing through his being.
And this is the purpose of spiritual masters being in this world—to be transmitting stations for the purifying and uplifting power of Divine Consciousness. I have had professors who have stimulated my brain, waking it up new thoughts and discoveries. Then there are wonderful people I have known who have impressed me with the quality of their being, making me a better person by my just being in their presence. Without taking anything away from these remarkable people, they are like burning candles compared to the sun-like presence of Mother and Swamiji.
It is always interesting when I sit and let God write through me as I am doing now; this is not what I had thought to write about at all when I started. But I am very happy to go anywhere God takes me because then I am in His Presence, and that is the most important part of any moment throughout the day. And that brings about a most salient point; we are so used to being filled with ourselves, our thoughts, desires, fears and habits, that we have a difficult time thinking about submitting our wills to anything or anyone else. But that is really the point, God is not anything or anyone else—He is you and me in the deepest sense.
So, one might then ask, how to distinguish what is God and what is me? And here may be a very unsatisfactory answer, “You know it when you experience it.” As with so many experiences (and this spiritual state of being is even more so because it is such a tremendous transformation), you can describe something, and your word-pictures will trigger someone else’s thoughts and feelings, but they are limited by their own experience.
I started out describing the night hours here in the desert, and if you were here with me, or have had similar experiences yourself, you would be full of close approximations to what I am talking about. But, if you have had no such relevant memories of being in the night desert, then you must fill in as best you can based on whatever experiences seem close. And if you have had a negative association with night-desert, fear of coyotes or rabbits for instance, then that will definitely color your picturing of what I am describing, producing fear instead of sacred mystery.
But here—this is very true with spiritual experience—there is an additional depth to word-power. Through my descriptions of Mother and Swamiji, latent spiritual awareness can be awakened in you. Not because you have recently had such an experience, but because a great spiritual potential is sleeping in you and is awakened by such descriptions. You need not have had any semblance of that experience, yet somehow you know the truth of it because it awakens that sleeping giant of your God-self and puts you into touch with previously unknown realms. The awakened giant in Mother and Swamiji wakes up the sleeping giant in you! Isn’t that remarkable?
When I first met Mother, and then later came into Swamiji’s presence, I recognized the awakened God-Self in them, and it stirred something deep in me. Meeting Mother and Swamiji came at two very different times in my life, but there were recognizable similarities in what they awakened in me. When I met Mother I had no reference for how she affected me; my mind took years to begin to intellectually understand who and what she was. By the time I met Swamiji, I had many years with Mother so it was easier in one sense to mentally understand what I heard, saw and experienced. Yet, even though that was true, it did not take away the mystery of what God is, or how He operates through His chosen instruments. It is in the nature of these encounters that they stretch, challenge and change the aspirant in ways that are unfathomable at the time—and all for the good!
So, in humble gratitude I bow at Mother and Swamiji’s feet. In my growing awareness I stand at a distance and appreciate the mountain-like statures of these two great masters. Through their grace they have also raised me to new heights of God-perception where I can share in their panoramic vistas. Through who they are in God they have vouchsafed me entry into the Divinity they have so thoroughly made their own. From their great sacrifices and striving they invite all of us to embrace this God-vision, and make it our own.