Satsang Ashram, Himaitpur, Pabna (Now in Bangladesh)17th November 1943
Mr. Capel Briton, a young Englishman has been living at
Satsang Ashram, Pabna for a
few days. He has an intense spiritual yearning and he wants
to get certain points clarified
by private talks with Sri Sri Thakur Anukulchandra. Sri Sri
Thakur is seated on the
portico of Marti-Mandir. Capel comes here with Prafulla
Kumar Das and expresses his
desire. Sri Sri Thakur asks others to vacate the place. Sri
Das stays on to act as an
interpreter.
• Sri Sri Thakur: Don't you find any difficulty here?
• Capel: No, We have been used to considerable hardship in
course of our work in
the army. Compared with that I am in great comfort here.
Moreover, I am deeply
enjoying the friendly behaviour of the Ashramites.
• Sri Sri Thakur: Love dwells in your heart and so it
excites love in others. No one
remains stranger to Him who possesses the wealth of love.
Everyone becomes
his own.
• Capel: I do not have the good quality you ascribe to me. I
would like to know how
that lovely quality can develop in me.
• Sri Sri Thakur (smilingly): That you are eager to awaken
it within you is an ample
proof of the fact that it is inherent in your nature. But it
is to be nurtured and the
more it is nurtured, the more it grows. Lord Jesus is
Love-Incarnate, and the more
our love to Him intensifies the more it spreads over the
world. Otherwise we can
not succeed in cultivating love ; our love becomes
dissipated in wrong directions
under the sway of passions. Its purity cannot be maintained.
• Capel: I seek to love Lord Jesus, but I cannot feel Him
within me. Moreover I
cannot understand what place love occupies in this world
torn by war and
restlessness.
• Sri Sri Thakur: If you get a devotee who loves the Lord in
thoughts, words and
deeds, observes His teachings and tenets in his daily life
and is completely
absorbed in Him then you can easily realize the Lord through
him by
following him properly. He cannot be understood by reading
of books and
imagination. We can feel Him to some degree by seeing a
living man, who has
imbibed Him in his character and whose heart is fully set on
Him. Of course mere
seeing is not enough ; he is to be practically followed with
love. What is
required is unconditional surrender. Because if I follow his
instructions as far
as they are to my liking and discard them when they are not,
then any complexes
do not get adjusted. We cannot relish or understand many of
directions because of
complexes. Complex does not let us understand. The reason we
boast of so much
does not help us to a great degree. Because reason moves
according to complex
and sentiment. So we should obey His mandate without any
hesitancy or
consideration. Whether His instructions appeal to us or not,
if we go on obeying
them inspite of ourselves, we can subsequently understand
the logic of His
instructions. In course of doing this we learn to discover
and adjust our
submerged complexes. So complete transmutation of
personality can not be
effected without following the guidance of a Seer. Many
unwarrantable traits lurk
in our character. Even if good qualities become manifest,
the desire for selfgratification
predominates there. So real elevation of being is not
achieved. And
the enormous restlessness and the conflict of the world stem
from lack of Ideal-
Centeredness. If we could move centering round Lord Christ
and if we could
inspiringly attract men towards Him, then the state of
affairs would have been
different. Every man would have the interest of every other
man. Nobody would
imagine killing another. To kill another is to destroy the
foundation of one's
own existence. You should bear in mind that the Advents are
all bedewed with
the attributes of providence and it is they who are Christs.
Christs means anointed.
• Capel: Even if man does not love God, he may love man.
Man's love for man is a
very common thing. Moreover I have seen that almost every
individual has this
tendency. Despite that why should violence and hatred
dominate the world?
• Sri Sri Thakur: As there is love in man, so also there is
hatred in him. Someone
should be held aloft before man by loving whom his tendency
of love becomes
strong and his hatred and jealousy become adjusted and
controlled. So if Lord is
not infused in man, he can not advance very far with his own
assets. It does not
become feasible for him to master the amount of toleration,
endurance,
acquaintance with individual distinctiveness and sense of
proportion, which is
essential for mutual harmonious relation.
• Capel: The point you are hinting at leads to the cult of
Guru hood. One of the
chief drawbacks of Guru hood is this that if the Guru is not
without defects, then
the disciples thoughtlessly imbibe those defects and the
Guru is not unlikely to
exploit them taking advantage of their devotion towards him.
• Sri Sri Thakur: So we should carefully observe a man
before accepting him as our
spiritual guide. It is to be specially discerned as to what
sort of devotion he has to
his own Guru and if he practices what he preaches. A real
Guru can not think of
his own interest separately from that of others. His sole
interest lies in enhancing
the becoming of others. When he takes anything from a man,
he takes it because
giving will benefit the giver. Otherwise he does not accept
anything to fulfill his
personal desire. So it is not possible for him to exploit
anyone. But he may exploit
our complexes to serve our being. Suppose, some one is
addicted to drinks. If he
has some money with him he will forthwith take to drinking.
By repeatedly taking
from him, if he can be kept constantly in want, then his
inclination towards and
opportunity of drinking are likely to shrink. In this case
taking lovingly from him
becomes a source of his welfare. There is no doubt about the
fact that the wrong
choice of Guru may cause harm to man. How can one lead
others to light, when
the said one has not himself caught a glimpse of light ? How
can he who has not
transcended the limitation of passionate ness help another
in transcending it?
• Capel: Where there is the likelihood of mistake and danger
in choosing a Guru,
then it is better not to have a Guru but to carry on
spiritual practices in one's own
way. God is there and man can attain to Him, if he has
sincere craving.
• Sri Sri Thakur: If I continue spiritual practices without
accepting a Guru, then I
shall remain what I am, I shall not be able to detect my
weakness, nor shall I be
able to overcome them. To realize God means to attain the
character of God
according to my distinctiveness. How shall I mould my
character and conduct if
there is no living example of His character and conduct
before me? To realize
God is not just a conventional affair. People think that a
little perception of inner
light or sound is a great achievement. But it is not so. If
character does not change
and complexes do not get adjusted then the mere perception
of light or sound or
the excitation of joy does not serve any very useful
purpose. Even after the
attainment of those realizations, egoistic explosion of
complexes may occur at any
time. Again, without devotion to the Guru a man cannot
advance very far in the
realm of fine realization. One gets merged at a very low
level. The deeper the
devotion to Guru, the finer is the stage up to which
self-consciousness can be
kept alive. Moreover, if self-consciousness is maintained,
fine and finer, deep and
deeper realization can be experienced. Those, whose
consciousness gets muddled
at low stage of elevation, may afford to remain satisfied by
thinking a
comparatively gross perception to be the culmination of
realization. The more the
Guru is a man of deepest realization and deeper the
attachment towards Him, the
more the likelihood there is of attaining deepest
realization; of course regular
practice is necessary. Realization should again be made to
find expression in
personal conduct. At the every stage of our soul-searching
and self-reformation
the need of a Guru is imperative.
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