A talk given in Washington DC, September 1963. Tai Ji has just sung a hymn by Kabir
God is an Ocean of All-Intoxication, Bliss and Joy, and our souls are of the same essence as that of God: our souls are also of the same nature — the reflection of the same intoxication, bliss and joy is in us, too. But our souls are expressed in the form of attention, and that has been drawn out or distributed in so many ways. If the attention is withdrawn from the outside and concentrated at one place, then you will find the same intoxication in you. And if you become the mouthpiece of God, then the same waves of intoxication will go out to the world through you as well. When the Masters come, They are the mouthpiece of God. Whenever They speak, the very air is charged; and if you are receptive, you will feel rest, peace, and joy; and you will become more receptive — so much so that you will forget yourself and you will feel a sort of intoxication.
It is spoken of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a great Saint who lived in the Bengal, that He used to just utter the name of God. (Every Master has His own Name for God. There are so many Names of God; and we are concerned with this. But They utter the Names; and because They are one with the Nameless, any words They utter are charged with intoxication.) He went to a place where many washermen together were washing clothes. He used to repeat the Name of God in the words, “Hari bole” — “Say God’s Name.” A man speaks out of the abundance of his His heart. As His heart, I mean His soul, was intoxicated, those very words were charged with that intoxication. And He stood by one of the washermen and said to him, “Hari bole!“—”Say God’s Name!” The washerman thought that perhaps He was a mendicant and wanted money. So he kept quiet; he would not utter the words. He said, “I won’t utter the name you say.” And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told him, “You will have to … you must.” And the washerman thought, “Now He won’t leave me alone; let me utter the name and finish it off, so that He will go away.” As soon as he uttered the words (the very words were charged), he got intoxicated and stopped working and began to utter loudly, “Hari bole, Hari bole, Hari bole!” When he began to do that, the other washermen asked, “What has become of our fellow brother? What is he doing?” They came to him and asked, “What is the matter?” He said, “Hari bole!” And whoever uttered those words also became intoxicated. So it happened that all the washermen in the entire place began to leave their work and dance in ecstasy.
This is what we do not get from books, mind that. This is what you can have from the presence of a Master Who is God-intoxicated. Of course, He will not give you an overdose. He will give you only as much as your receptacle can receive. First He will make the vessel fit for it, and then put it in.
And that intoxication comes where? It is in the soul. And the eyes are the windows of the soul. When a man is very angry, his eyes grow in redness. You feel a repulsion like that through the eyes. And when you are in great love, your eyes give a similar reflection. So, in whatever color the soul is dyed, that is radiated through the eyes. That is why it is said that whenever you go to your Master you should look into His eyes, His forehead. It is color it is already dyed, it will radiate the same thing.
She was just singing Kabir’s hymn:
My Master is very competent:
He will dye any cloth that is given to Him.
But what will He do? When a cloth is dirty, even giving it a color won’t make it look nice. He first tries to wash the dirt out of the cloth, and this makes it lighter in coloring: this looks very beautiful. So, in the hymn, Kabir was saying:
My Master is a very competent Person
Who can dye us in the color of God.
He is Love Personified;
He is the intoxication of Bliss Personified.
Through His eyes He cleanses whoever goes to Him.
If you continue looking at another man’s eyes, you will have the same feeling that he radiates. So the eyes are very important, mind that. But don’t look into the eyes of everyone, because you will have the same color that they have.
So it gives wonderful results to be in the company of a Saint or a Master whatever you may call Him — Who is attuned with God, Who is the mouthpiece of God, Who has withdrawn Himself from all the entanglements of mind and outgoing faculties, Who is withdrawn within His own Self and has come in contact with God. When fragrant flowers are put in a room, the whole room is full of fragrance. If you put the same flowers in a cloth, the cloth becomes fragrant. Similarly, if you put them in the earth, in the dust, the very dust becomes fragrant. This is likewise a sort of radiation, which you find in the field or area in which the personal aura of the Master is working.
Each man has his own aura. If you would like to verify this, stand in the open sunlight, let your back be towards the sun, and look at your shadow. You’ll find a little radiation coming from your body. The color of the radiation you find is according to the state of one’s inner self.
If a man is full of sins, the color will be black — lurid. If a man is loving, then you’ll find a bluish color.
If he is spiritual, then you’ll find that the color of the personal aura will be golden.
The more strongly a soul is in tune with God, the longer is the radiation of the personal aura. Generally everybody has it about six to eight inches long. And those who have yogic eyes can see from that what the man is like. Our Master used to say that whenever any man comes to Him, the Master sees what he is; but He does not broadcast anything: He tries to wash the negative qualities away, and then make him fit and give him the color of God-intoxication. You’ll find that is why all Masters have spoken very highly about the meeting of a Master or sitting in the field of action of a Master. Master has a longer field of action. And even when Master souls leave the body, Their radiation goes for miles. So, to sit in the presence of a Master gives you that radiation. That is why it is said, “Spirituality cannot be taught, but caught — like an infection.” Life comes from life.
The only thing that remains is to be receptive to some person who has some higher possibility in him. That is why Maulana Rumi said,
If you have the chance to sit quite receptive,
quite cut off from all of the outside for, say, a little while,
the effect that you have in that radiation is more
than you could have even if you sat
for one hundred years in true devotion.
So radiation is the most important thing. And for that we have to be receptive.
You remember that Swami Vivekananda came from India to Chicago to represent Hindus at a large meeting long ago. To speak at home among ourselves is a very easy thing to do. When selected people from all over the world are there, however, it means something else. He began to talk. After a few minutes he felt a little puzzled as to what to say further. And then he asked for a glass of water — for that period of time a speaker can stop. Then he thought of his Master, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Who had lived in India. As he was receptive, he got the radiation. And he began to talk, even before getting the glass of water, and continued talking, talking, talking, for six, seven, eight hours. And the people were afraid that if he continued, all other religions would subside.
That is the work of the radiation of a true Master. He is not a man; He has a man-body. It is God in Him: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.” This is spoken of very wonderfully in all scriptures.
The company of such People is had only with the Grace Of God. If you simply sit receptive — so much so that you forget everything — you will feel it. And that radiation will have a cleansing effect, through and through. If you continue in that, first all dirtiness will be cleansed; and in due course you’ll be dyed in whatever radiation He has in His soul.
So the hymn of Kabir she was just singing said,
My Master is a very competent dyer.
When I came to Him,
He took this cloth I am wearing —
the body is the cloth —
and purified it and dyed it in a very wonderful color.
And that wonderful color was of the intoxication of God.
So Kabir was saying that not only the man himself is dyed in that color, but others also get the same infection, such as the case I told you about of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. This is the wonderful effect that you can get from a real Master, a real Saint. This is the outward effect. And the inner is that He will give you a meditation sitting and give you a contact within by raising you up from the control of mind and matter for a while — give you an impetus to go within. These are the things that you get from a Master, truly speaking. Your outward observances of the various rites and rituals, life-long devotion and other things are, of course, good actions: they have prepared the ground. But the seed comes only from Someone Who is dyed in that color. That is why the company of Saints has been given great importance: because whether you are learned or unlearned, when you are receptive, you are dyed in the very color in which He is dyed. And that is done through radiation when you become receptive.
In that radiation you sometimes feel that you are in Him and He is in you. Do you see? That is what St. Paul said: “It is I, not now I, but Christ lives in me.” All Masters Who are on the Way say the same thing. Hafiz said,
My body is so filled with my Master,
I have forgotten whether I exist or not.
That is, of course, written in the Persian language. Then He said,
I am now so full of the radiation of my Master that,
although my name is still the same, inside He exists;
I am not — I am no more.
In various scriptures you will find parallel thoughts to what St. Paul and Hafiz said; the fifth Guru of the Sikhs said the same thing. You can have that sort of radiation only from a competent Master.
You can also have radiation from others. What sort of radiation? That of whatever color he is already dyed in. Suppose someone is a lusty man; excuse me — if you look into his eyes you will have the same impulse; because it is the eyes through which these things attack us. The eyes are very dangerous and very soothing, too, I tell you. The eyes are dangerous when you come in contact with someone who is dyed in worldly things. And if you come in contact with someone who is dyed, not in the world, but in the Word, you will have that. Take the letter “L” out of “W O R L D,” and then what remains? “W O R D.” The Word is God. So He is Word personified. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.” If you have that radiation, you will be filled with the Word. This is what is taught to those who would like to have this earth life be the last one on earth.
Suchlike radiation and receptivity cleanse away the infirmities of the dirt of past ages. You are born in Christ, you might say now, in the words you have to use at all. You are born in the Master. And the criterion of one who has become receptive like that to the Master is that if you put a question to the Master and then you ask the same question of the one who is receptive, he will utter the same words with which the Master answered the question That is because in the answer he gives, Master is working through him. But that begins with the cognizance of that receptivity.
Suppose there is some Master, and He remembers you although you are a hundred miles away. And, by radiation, you get a very soothing, a very palliative feeling — a wave of thought — from head down to feet. You feel a sort of purity and bliss. If you note down the time that it happened and you inquire whether at that very time Master was remembering you or not, you will find that He was remembering you. That wave of thought works.
I had those experiences in my life. Sometimes I had it, and I made a note of it, and went and inquired about what Master was doing at such and such time. And they said, “He was remembering you.” Do you see? This is what a disciple’s and a Master’s relationship is. But mind that, it will only develop when there is no one between you and the Master — not even your body or your intellect.
Radio can catch words from thousands of miles away. Why can’t you have radiation from a Master? Thought waves are very strong. The speed of the sun’s rays is faster than electricity, and that of the pranas is quicker still than that. And the soul is the quickest: from hundreds amd thousands of miles away, you can radiate all at once, in the same moment.
This is what is to be developed, and it can be had only in the company of a Master. By reading scriptures for your whole life, you won’t have it. Of course, that will awaken an interest in you to have this sort of life. But this is like, for example, a holy river. In India they consider the Ganges to be the most sacred river. Where it comes out, it is only a small place; but on the way, many other streams join it, and all are called the Ganges. Excuse me, but if you put in, say, five or ten bottles of wine, even that becomes the Ganges River. This is to show that when your soul, by receptivity, comes in contact with the God in man, you are purified. The worst sinner can be purified. There is hope for everybody. Master comes for sinners, mind that. And as for the virtuous? Truly speaking, they are also attached: for good or bad actions done at the level of being a “doer” are binding on you, just as fetters, whether they are made of gold or iron, can bind you.
So this radiation that I am now speaking of can be had only through a Master. Books won’t be able to give it to you, although you may read them for hundreds and thousands of years. You can even have it from a distance, by developing receptivity. That is why Kabir said, “Your Master may be living beyond the seven seas” — just as we are now sitting on the other side of the world from India — “and if the disciple who lives on this side directs his attention, he will receive radiation.” Do you know why? That Master is Word personified, and Word is everywhere. The very moment you become receptive, you get it. That is why people who live hundreds and thousands of miles away from the Master get radiation and help, then and there. And when they do, somebody bears testimony to it: they saw the Master standing by. This is no exaggeration, but solid facts.
Even today I received a letter from India relating to me that this person had come under a truck. And he said, “Master was standing by me and saved me.” The body is not the Master, mind that. It is the God Power manifested at some human pole that is the Master, the true Master. Of course, we also have respect for the man-body at whose pole that Power works.
Now do you follow? There is no fear of being thousands of miles away. He is always with you. At the time of initiation He resides with you and He never leaves you until you are absorbed in the Sat Purush — until the end of the world, as Christ said. It was the God Power working at the human pole of Jesus, not the son of man, that will never leave you.
So you can get radiation from thousands of miles away; but, all the same, His presence physically cannot be underrated. That is still more: you see somebody before you. The other thing you can have only by developing receptivity, not otherwise.
All Masters have spoken of the physical company of a Master. It has wonderful effects: one is by radiation; and the other is by His giving you a contact with the God Power within you. And it is only the God Power that can give you a contact with God: no other thing can give it. Who can give you a contact with God, I ask you? God has no equal, no brother, no parents. But it is said that the manifested God, in the very man-body in which He has manifested, will give you a rise and a contact with the Word within. Truly speaking, He is the Master. And the outer Master, working in the physical form, will be sympathizing with you — sometimes He will be shedding tears for you out of sympathy. But He is very strict, mind that.
He is All-Love. The more you become the mouthpiece of God, since He is God-in-man, if you become the Godman in you, He will draw radiation to you. That is why all Masters have given that out, and Christ also said the very same thing. Have you read the Bible? We sometimes read our Bibles and go on only ruminating over them, not going into the things that they say. Christ gave an example of a vine whose branches that are connected with it bear forth fruit. If they are cut off from the vine, they don’t bear fruit. Then He gave a direct example. He said,
I am the vine; thou art the branches.
So long as you are embedded in me,
you will bear forth fruit.
He means what He says. This is what He meant at heart of hearts.
Become receptive. That receptivity can be developed only when nothing remains between you and the Master, not even your body. You will forget your environment, your own body. “As you think, so you become.” Is it not so? It is a very simple matter; no philosophy is required for that. Both the unlearned and the learned have the same privileges. But it sometimes becomes harder for learned men to know these very simple things. They would like to hear these things in a very highly-styled way. Some people do meet me and say, “If Spirituality is so simple, we don’t want it.” They must have it in a very — I mean — difficult way. That is why Christ said, “Be like little children. Suffer little children to come unto me: because the Kingdom of God is for them.” Now, what is a child? He is not educated; he has no degree. He has simplicity, devotion, straightforwardness; he is true.
I tell you, we spoil our children. They follow our example. They are nearer to God when they are born; being at home and in the company of outer contacts make the children worse. I remember one story about a child: Somebody came to the house and asked him, “Will you tell your father I’ve come to meet him?” He went in and told his father. The father said, “Look here, tell him that I am not in the house; I’ve gone out.” He went back, and in childlike words said, “My father said, ‘Tell him that I’m not here.’“
Do you see how simple they are? It is we who teach them these things, by our example. Even if we don’t teach them, they copy us, our views, our life. They do what they see. So we are responsible for the children: it is we who should begin at home. Reformation should start from our own selves and from our individual homes. And then further, there is the question of meeting other boys in the street or in the schools. The pity is that matters are growing worse. Even if the children copy what their parents do at home, when they come in contact with other children who are spoiled, they are also spoiled. When they go to school and to college, what do they learn there? Not the ideal life.
So this is how we are spoiled. You should begin at home. I think children can grow more and become more receptive and more spiritual than we. The whole of Spirituality boils down to that.
To have Spirituality you are not to learn it in books, mind that. If you get their right import, books will only awaken in you an interest to have God, to see God. And that’s all.
Once a student came to Ramkrishna Paramhamsa; he had a book under his arm. Ramakrishna asked him, “What is it?” He said, “Master, it is a book that shows how water is made.” And smiling, Ramakrishna said, “Will you squeeze some of the leaves of the book and see how many drops of water will come out of them?“
The story is told of a student who was quite young and was asked to consult a dictionary about a word he did not know. He got the dictionary. One day he lost his shoes, and he began to search the dictionary to find where the shoes were.
The scriptures speak of God; they speak of what the Masters had experienced in Their life with God; and that is all. But those experiences can only be had within you, not in books. Unless you have the same experience yourself, you cannot become spiritual. You may be reading books for hundreds and thousands of years, and yet you won’t even have their right import unless you understand it from somebody who knows the Way: because they are fine records of the experiences that they truly had with God. If there is any man like that, understand him; try to learn those scriptures at his feet. He will give you their right import, because he has also seen the same things that the Masters record. And even if you understand them, what will it mean? By reading, you understand theory, that’s all. You learn the laws of health, but you are not healthy; you know how riches can be earned, but that is not being rich. So that is it. Spirituality is something you have to have within yourself. And that can be quickened by a little thought of a Master Who is developed on the Way.
Now do you understand what the higher value is of coming in contact with a spiritual man? And we take it spiritually in a different way. Excuse me if I say that the reading of scriptures is just to show you what Spirituality is. They point out to you what Spirituality is. And what is Spirituality? It is a science of the soul: how the soul can be analyzed from mind and matter and the outgoing faculties, knowing yourself and knowing God. You will find references to this in scriptures.
So you may be reading scriptures all your life; but you cannot experience what they say unless you have that practical self-analysis, knowing yourself. If you come across Someone Who has known the Way, He may give you a meditation sitting; and you will have it. What you cannot have in hundreds of years, you can have in a few minutes. This is what the Master does at the time of initiation.
So we go to Masters for God-intoxication, I would say. It cannot be had by books; it can be had only from life or by radiation. And by radiation you can have only the same thing that He has, when you develop receptivity. And you will develop receptivity when you are clean, mind that.
What is cleanness? When within you there are no other thoughts except those of God. That is true cleanness. When there is nothing standing between you and God, that is true cleanness, that is true receptivity; and you will have the full effect of radiation. Do you see? So this is what you get from the Master.
She started that hymn — that was a good hymn, of course. Masters give the Truth from all angles of vision. They explain the same Truth in a way that you can get it. He is praising his Master:
My Master is very competent to dye us in His own color.
And how does He dye us? That has been explained to you. And that can be had by direct physical contact or by radiation, even from thousands of miles away.
He resides within you. He is not the son of man or the man-body or the flesh or bones. Of course, the flesh and bones are blessed at which that higher Power works. That is why Christ said to His disciples,
Blessed are ye, because you see what the old prophets and righteous men tried to see but could not see.
Do you see? And Christ told them,
I will be with you; I will go wherever you are. Speak the truth from the housetops.
And when you are brought to a court, don’t be afraid.
He will speak — Master will speak through you.
This is what He meant.
We read our scriptures, but we don’t follow what they say. I think what I have paraphrased is given there; you are in the better know of the Bible. He said so:
Even if you are brought to a judge, don’t be afraid.
Don’t think of what you have to say.
That will come of itself from within you.
Because those disciples were in tune with the Master, the Master spoke through them. Sometimes you will find that a disciple’s very voice will agree with the Master’s. This is something that is not given in books, I tell you; there are only references to it there. You won’t understand them unless you come in contact with Someone Who is on the Way. And this is what is being given to you, without any exaggeration — solid facts.
So, Master is God-in-man; and what do you become? If you think of the God-in-man and you become the Christ Himself, what will happen? God will come. He is within you. This is, I think, the easiest way. This is why Guru Amardas said someplace,
If you want to worship God,
you cannot pray to Him with your hands,
but with the spirit.
You are spirit in man: unless you analyze yourself from the outgoing faculties, mind or intellect, you cannot become spirit. And you can worship Him only in Spirit. So Guru Amardas said,
If you are to worship God, worship the Master, because God is in Him.
Maulana Rumi said,
When you come nearer to a Master,
it is coming nearer to God,
because He is God in man.
The more you go away from Him,
the more you are going away from God.