Me: Who am I?
Master: That is a good question. Can I ask you first who do you think you are?
Me: Well I am a father, I work as a project manager, I am a husband, a son, brother, a friend.
Master: Is this really you, have you been the same person in the last 40 years of your life?
Me: No I don’t believe so; it seems I seem to change based on the role I am in during that stage of my life.
Master: So how can this be you?
I sat there thinking he has got a point, there is one part of me which has not really changed, if I could pin it down to it, it is that silent voice inside of me that speaks occasionally.
Me: This may be strange, but there is a soft voice inside of me that speaks to me softly and guides me that has always been there.
Master: Excellent answer my friend! Do you listen to this soft voice of yours?
Me: Sometimes, I find when I do, it has always been the right decision, and when I don’t I have to pay severe consequences? What is this voice? why don’t I hear it all the time? it seems it comes and it goes.
Master: The soft voice is the real you, it’s your soul, it has infinite knowledge, it is pure light, it is immortal, it cannot die, it can merely be transformed into different life forms according to your deeds and desires. It itself is a drop of the divine, but yet separated from the divine, yearning for its way home, trying to communicate to you at all time.
Wow!!! I had to take a step back and ask him to repeat what he just said and break it down for me, so I can absorb the wisdom in each one of those words.
Me: Hang on can you break that down for me. I have a soul that I did not even know existed, it has infinite knowledge and pure light, and then why can’t I access this knowledge and see this light.
Master smiled and said: To access that infinite knowledge, and see yourself as light you have to raise your level of awareness.
Me: Why am I not aware of my soul, how do I do that?
Master: Well how do you learn anything in the world, by raising your level of awareness about it (understanding the theory), putting it in practice (applying the theory), from the practice you get the real understanding of the subject, you then teach others to further increase your understanding and help others learn.
It is no different here. At first we know not, and then we know that we don’t know, and then we know that we know, and then don’t know that we know. At the end our awareness has changed, we are aware of something through our experience and understanding that we were not before.
This awareness separates a professional from a novice.
Me saying impatiently: So I do I get awareness of my soul then?
You cannot get awareness of your sole with your normal facilities of thinking, feeling, intuition and the senses. To experience the soul you have to cut away everything else, including thoughts, emotion, and senses and use your spiritual eyes and ears.
Me: I did not know I had spiritual eyes and ears.
Master: Yes this privilege of being in human form. Even angels yearn for a human form.
Buddha says the following from the Pali scripture: “Suppose a blind turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think - Would that blind turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole? It would be a sheer coincidence, Lord, that the blind turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state”
Me: How do I use these spiritual eyes and ears?
Master: Well your soul cannot operate in this world without a few layers, since it is not of this world, it needs these layers to function in this world.
The soul has a causal layer, a mental layer, a emotional layer and then a physical layer. To use the soul's spiritual eyes and ears one has to strip away each one of these layers and experience the soul directly, all these external layers has to be disabled.
Me: How do I disable these layers?
Master: Disabling of these layers is done through meditation.
Meditation is nothing but control of your thought patterns. The goal of meditation is to still the mind and body so to experience the soul.
You can only see your face in still and clean water.
The mind has to be still like the water, and your daily actions must be pure like the clean water. Without a strong foundation of non-violence, truthful living, and compassion to other living beings one cannot pursue a spiritual path.
One cannot build truth on falsehood or suffering inflicted to others directly or indirectly. If you go around cheating others, hurting any living creatures for your own palette, you will not be able to make any ground in searching for yourself and the truth.
Me: It seems both go hand in hand. How do I start then?
Master: Excellent question! the first step is that you must have a desire for self-discovery and set your daily intentions on this goal everyday and give this goal priority.
Me: Is that all?
Master: That is the most important of it all, because that sets the course to sail the seas. Everything else follows naturally, based on the intensity of that desire and intent. It basically comes down to how much you want it. This should be complemented with truthful living, and a desire for the company of others who are enlightened.
Me: How do I find those enlightened people?
Master: They will find you, the universe will lead you to them. Life is a mirror, it presents you want you continually dwell on. More importantly you have to have the desire for truth above all other desires, this means that you should dwell on it more than anything else. If you dwell on it long enough, a result will surely eventuate. In this age of internet one can expand his knowledge into any area, and be able to find out the right path for himself only if he has the will. Don't take anything for face value, accept only a teacher who is flawless in character.
Me: Why do I need a teacher, and what do you mean by flawless?
Master: My friend, like any complex profession, why do you not learn medicine from a book, or engineering from a book? All the information is available, syllabus, text book, even free on the internet? How do you know which profession to choose, so many available?
Me: Well, it would be difficult, you don't have any motivation for one, you don't have any exams, no map, and lastly no one would recognize you once you finished. I would probably ask some people already in the profession what they thought about it and where to the course.
Master: No different here, you are dealing with the world's most complicated subject. A teacher accelerates your learning, clarifies your doubts, corrects you when you are wrong, provides a role model to copy, and has the authority to teach and instruct from a recognized body (his lineage of gurus)
Master after pausing and reflecting: A teacher is flawless, when he or she flawlessly executed whatever he or she teachers every day without fail. A real teacher never takes a single cent for his or her spiritual teaching, for spiritual teachings should be given free and is the birth right of all human beings. Most importantly a teacher who teaches about self mastery must display characteristics of self mastery by his or her actions and not by his or her words.
To Be Continued...
Let me know what questions should be asked of the master next?
This work by Kirpal Chauhan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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