One 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. Mr. 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 self-gratification 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.
Capel: If a man can lead a moral life that can suffice. Spiritual life may involve the necessity of a Guru, but a man may do without a Guru in his moral life. Man understands general moral principles and some persons with high moral character are found in the society and a man can adjust his conduct by observing their conduct. But there he does not require selling himself outright to another particular individual. To surrender one's personality to another seems to be extremely self-derogatory.
Sri Sri Thakur: Everyone of us is begotten by a particular individual and so we acknowledge that individual as father; such is the dispensation of nature. Do we consider owing allegiance to father as something disgraceful ? Rather, because of our veneration to one as father, we can pay profound respect to others who are like him. Only depending on another suitable integrated person can unify our personality. The basis of our life is our life-urge. If the urge is torn in a hundred ways, then our personality becomes totally shattered. If we accept some one as primary then out of an urge to fulfill him, we may gather necessary ingredients from all suitable sources. That causes no harm. Out of this adherence all knowledge and experiences of man become tied together on a common thread to find a meaningful fulfillment in one. A man may have varied knowledge, qualities and experiences but if he has no centre of fulfillment, then all those things exist as so many disintegrated lumps. He may observe moral principles but they are not assimilated and absorbed and this brings indigestion of morality. Again, our urge can not continue intact without having a definite Superior Beloved. Man does not observe principles for the sake of principles, but he observes them out of an urge to satisfy the Superior Beloved. If there is no Superior Beloved, the ardour for observing principles also diminishes.
Capel: Why should there be only one Superior Beloved? There may be many.
Sri Sri Thakur: It leads man to the same result as is derived by a woman by having many husbands instead of one. Uni-centric adjustment can not take place. It begets a conflicting personality. So some one should be prime. If a man's different organs are generated and developed in different wombs of different mothers, can they be fastened to form a single normal living organism of a man? Unity evolves into variety and variety becomes meaningful in unity. In the beginning there must be a unit. One cell in course of its division forms so many organs and evolves into a huge human body. So there exists such co-ordination and reciprocity among the different parts of the body. So a deep sense of harmony and concord prevails among the different elements of our knowledge if that sprouts through adherence to one. Otherwise there subsists no relation between one understanding and another in a man. The isolated understandings create a confused uproar and do not enrich life by being mutually fulfilling.
Capel: How does untottering faith in the existence of God become steady ? At times doubt torments my mind.
Sri Sri Thakur: Love is at the root of faith. When love for passion supersedes love for being, doubt becomes prominent instead of faith. Whenever you begin to doubt about God, take it for granted that passionate ness has possessed you. Faith is enlivening that alone leads man aright and makes him powerful. Disbelief and doubt make man unconscientiously and weak. The more our devotion to Guru Increases, the more our faith in God becomes firm. And through spiritual practices direct experience is to be gained about the original abode of being. If a man stands on the bedrock of that realization, then his mind totters very little. A man cannot be rooted in faith, till the veil of his passionate ness is completely penetrated. Passionate ness creates a false screen that covers truth. The sun is self-luminous, but have you not seen how it is often darkened by the cloud?What has been described in our scriptures, as the veil of illusion is perhaps this passionate ness.
Capel: Today man cannot do without science, but science is turning to be a source of restlessness instead of peace. What is the way out?
Sri Sri Thakur: If we cultivate science actuated by a sense of Dharma, then it will be our endeavour to harness science to our effective living along with that of others. Thereby science will be meaningful to our life through distribution of mutual service. The urge to live and let others live is the religious urge. So this religious urge has to be awakened. Then the idea of saving others and not destroying them will dominate others. And then science will contribute to peace instead of disturbance. Along with that there should be preparedness for self-defence. And such ideas are to be propagated among the masses of different countries as are sure to intensify within all the urge of living and letting others live. Preparation for self-defence is meant for this that no destructive force may annihilate existence and integration.
Capel: There are people who reckon preparation for killing others as a part of preparation for self-defence. Because if others realize that, their attempt to kill us is sure to bring about their death, then at least that fright will dissuade them forth taking aggressive measures and our security will be ensured. Then the race of making preparations for self-defence will automatically bring in violence and war.
Sri Sri Thakur: The motive-force that should guide us is to maintain our own existence without causing any injury to other people, as far as practicable. We have no right to allow our existence to be victimized by others violence, because existence is the endowment of God.
Capel: It is said that God cannot be attained without extinction of desires. But is desire-less life possible? How can it be possible that no desire will spring up in one's mind?
Sri Sri Thakur: Whatever will may appear, whatever desire may linger, if their goal is God, if their sole purpose is to fulfill Him, then they cause no harm. But we should not give indulgence to those desires that are opposed to Him. To indulge in them is to burden us by carrying unnecessary loads. Of what use it is to indulge in that which separates me from my beloved and hurls me down in the vortex of afflictions?
Capel: I have given you lots of trouble. I have profited much by talking with you. Let us close here today.
Sri Sri Thakur: No trouble at all. I like it immensely. But I am an ignorant man. I do not know English. Moreover, I do not possess sufficient knowledge to present my ideas in a systematic manner.
Capel: I have read your "The Message", no one can speak like that without knowing English.
Sri Sri Thakur: I do not know anything. Kestoda (Shri Krishna Prasanna Bhattacharya) has somehow brought out those things from me.
Capel: I shall again talk with you according to your convenience.
Sri Sri Thakur (smilingly): Oh yes! Whenever you like. If anyone benefits by talking with me, I consider myself the gainer thereby. I am as much within me as I am within you. If you do not become fulfilled, to the same extent I remain unfulfilled.
Compilesd by Shri S. P. Chakraborty (Barun).
