I had a difficult decision to make. Desperately I prayed to
God, “What do You want me to do?” But no matter how much I prayed I couldn’t
get an answer.
I asked to speak to Swamiji about it. When we met, he was
sitting in an armchair and I was on the floor in front of him, with an ottoman
between us. As I began to explain my dilemma, I was so overcome with emotion I
collapsed against the ottoman, buried my head in my hands, and began to sob.
Through my tears, I said to Swamiji, “It is so hard to know
what God wants.”
Swamiji looked at me calmly and said simply, “No, it’s not.”
We sat together for a few moments longer, but it was soon
clear he had nothing else to say to me, so I left.
“It
may not be hard for him to know,” I thought, as I made my way back home,
“but it is hard for me.” Swamiji’s answer, however, had not referred to either
one of us. He spoke of the simplicity of the task itself.
Later
I prayed, “Why is it hard for me?”
Instantly
the answer came: “Because you don’t want to know. You are afraid that God’s
will may contradict other desires of your heart.”
The
first time I heard Swamiji speak, I thought, “He is the most intelligent man I
have ever met.” That impression has been more than confirmed by all my
experiences in the years since. I had often wondered, “What is the secret of
his remarkable intelligence?”
“Reason
follows feeling,” Master said. Whatever the predisposition of the heart, the
mind will follow. Most people are predisposed in favor of their desires,
attachments, and the fear of facing an unknown challenge. All these block one’s
ability to perceive reality.
Swamiji’s only “predisposition” is to know the
truth. He is not plagued by what Master calls the “thwarting cross-currents of
ego.” He has a single desire: To know God’s will.
Swamiji
leads with his heart. From the side, he looks like a strung bow: straight spine,
outwardly curving chest. The clarity of his mind comes from the courage of his
heart.
“In
teaching meditation,” Swamiji said, “people speak of the need to calm the mind.
In fact, it is the heart that needs to be calmed. That is why devotion
is fundamental to success in meditation. When the heart is calm and one-pointed
in its focus on God, the mind is also still, because there are no restless
feelings to disturb it.
“Patanjali
defines the state of yoga, meaning ‘union with God,’ as ‘Yogas chitta
vrittis nirodh.’ Yoga is the ‘neutralization of the whirlpools of feeling.’
These whirlpools—chitta—reside in the heart.
“Jesus
put it this way, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ Purity
means the absence of any other desire except the desire for God. This is our
natural state. It is not something we have to acquire. All we have to do is
remove the impurities of the heart which keep us from knowing ourselves as we
truly are: One with God.”
That
simple exchange with Swamiji—my anguished cry, “It is so hard to know God’s
will,” and Swamiji’s calm, three-word answer “No it’s not.”—was one of the most
influential encounters I have ever had with him.
Whenever
I find myself struggling to know God’s will, instead of crying repeatedly,
“What do You want me to do?” as if God had to be persuaded to tell me, I pray
instead, “What am I afraid of?”
Whether
the answer comes in a flash of intuition, or after long, and sometimes painful
introspection, once the fear is removed, Swamiji is right. It may still be hard
for me to follow God’s will, but it is not hard to know.
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