How can A Guru Operate Through You?

You need to adapt yourself to the level where the Guru can work through you. We cling to our personality, our character, our constitution. That is destroyed. Then the Master enters; the consciousness of the Guru comes in. Absolute surrender is needed for Guru to operate through you.

Q: A lot of people are chosen at a very young age by the gurus to do their work. Why some and why not the others?

Mohanji: The answer is spiritual maturity. One’s physical age has no value. You continue in this life, wherever you stopped in your previous life. Many people attain enlightenment at a very early age. Why? Not because of their practice of this life, but because they had been practicing in another life and they brought it forward. When you are coming to the fold of a guru, into the close circle, in other words, those who are deeply connected, that is where the tests are more rigorous.

Like Baba says: “When people are close to me, there is a lot of heat. You should have the tolerance for it.  It is easy to stay afar, looking from a distance. You will then think that everything is fine. But, the moment you come close, it is like being close to the sun. It is not easy. It is very, very hot. 

What hot here refers to is firstly – unpredictability, the gurus move as per the cosmic order not as per the individual’s order of personality. Their expressions are also based on purpose, not on emotion. A normal person who operates on emotion will not understand this. So, there is always a conflict – the man, the personality and the guru.  

Hence many run away from a living master, but choose a master who is no longer alive and in the body. It is easier to connect. It is not that masters with the stature of Baba, ever leave because to begin with, they never existed in the body. They used the body just as a reference point. Even if they leave, the show continues.

People who were with Baba would be able to tell you how difficult it was to be with him. Today we say: ’Oh, Mhalsapathi, Shama, how lucky they were.’ But it was difficult for them to stay because you need to adapt yourself to the level where the guru can work through you. That’s not easy. First of all, you should dissolve your personality.

If you have a personality, I cannot impose my personality on you. Your personality will be predominant. So the first requirement is to dissolve the personality. That could scare us.

Fears such, “What will I now do?” will arise. We cling to our personality, our character, our constitution. That is destroyed. Then the master enters; the consciousness of the guru comes in. It is then that the guru works through you. For this absolute surrender is needed.

That’s why there is a story which I have written in the blog Strip before you enter:

About 200 years ago, in the current Pakistan region lived a saint who observed silence most of his life. He lived in a small hut, along with his wife. They had no children. He had a long beard and was partially blind. His house only had three rooms. But, the land in front of his house was open, and he paved the floor with cow dung, which is a natural disinfectant. There used to be a line of planted shrubs which served as the fence and there was a small gate which always remained open.

The shrubs grew so tall that from the gate, one could not see the inside of the compound. And the ground was nine steps high from the gate. At the gate, instead of “remove your footwear here”, which is common in front of all ashrams and temples, there was a distinct signboard “STRIP before you enter”.

The saint always sat in the front of his house, stark naked, looking at the gate. And he spoke nothing. All the visitors would come in silently, sit on the floor in the open yard of the house, clothed, looking at the saint and spoke nothing. The only message that the saint ever conveyed was that of nakedness and silence.

The difference between the visitors and the saint was just physical nakedness. The saint was naked inside and outside; the visitors in various degree of clothing inside and outside.

Even though there was no word uttered, everyone left for home happy and fulfilled. None felt hungry or thirsty. None felt cold. Even though there was no discourse, everyone’s questions were answered. The only offering or “dakshina” the saint asked for was “nakedness” or the state of emptiness and non-pretension. 

By stripping he meant that all those who enter should strip their ego, anger, hatred, jealousy, pretensions, fears, insecurities etc. outside his gate and enter naked. His only teaching was silence. Since his aura spread all over the place, people automatically got healed in his presence. He never traveled outside his compound. Mostly he remained still and silent.

It so happened that many who read the board were quite distracted and did not enter the premises. They were quite afraid to be naked!

There was one rich woman in the neighboring city. She had lost her son and was under tremendous sorrow. One of her friends heard about this silent saint and suggested that she visit him. She decided to travel. It took her a day to reach the abode of the saint. But, when she read the sign board “Strip before you enter”, she was so distracted that she left without entering.

This is the case with most of us. We are not ready to “STRIP”. We are not ready to leave anything. Yet, we expect the “saint” or GOD to give everything. When the inner vessel is filled and overflowing with insecurities, ego and similar negativities, how can “the saint”, the silent God, deliver anything at all? We support ourselves and justify our insecurities! We miss the “saints” of our time!

We all are essentially naked. But, we learned to clothe ourselves layer by layer and the clothes started to control and restrict our movements.

We started to become immobile and stagnant. And in many cases, we are proud of our immobility and stagnancy, which we even call as stability! Real stability is flexibility. Real stability is fluidity, motion. The most rigid tree is the one most ready for the axe!

Hence, what the guru meant was that when you leave your slippers outside, leave your constitution outside too! Come naked inside; it is then that you are one with me. But, people do not understand. They only understand physical stripping. So, how can a guru operate through them?

Q: But even to get to the stage of being eligible…

Mohanji: Fundamentally, the only eligibility is that of receptivity or emptiness. Stop being YOU. When you are predominantly yourself, you can only serve so much. But, when you become totally empty and the guru’s energy operates through you, you have no limits. You will be a living example of his teachings, such as compassion and kindness.

If you look at all the gurus, all of them echoed the same message be compassionate, kind, express kindness and unconditional love. If you consistently do that, you are loved by the masters and the guru comes to you, not that you have to go to the guru.

Transcribed by Stasa Misic

Proof read by Vidya Rajagopalan