Secrets of the Inner Journey ~ Swami Muktananda

Swami Muktananda


Excerpts from his book
I Have Become Alive ~ Secrets of the inner journey.

A Maharahtran saint put it very beautifully. He sang:

When I was sleeping,
my Guru did not give me sleeping pills
so that I would sleep more at his door.
Instead, he woke me from my sleep.
I was sleeping in the delusion of ego,
Thinking, “I have my family,
I have my work, I am the giver, I am the doer.”
When I woke up, I saw that there was no world,
there were no men or women,
there were no insentient objects in this universe.
Everything was the play of God.

This is the understanding the Guru gives us, and to give us this understanding is the Guru’s function. The Guru is a being who is saturated with the divine grace of God and who transmits it to others. In Shaivism, it is said that God performs five actions. He creates the universe, He sustains it, He dissolves it, and He bestows His grace on suffering individual souls, so that they can realize their oneness with Him and become free of bondage. The bestowal of grace is the fifth action of God, and that grace-bestowing power, ‘that Shakti’ is the Guru. The Shiva Sutra Vimarshini says, “The Guru is the grace-bestowing power of God.” The Guru is not a body made of flesh and blood. The Guru is not a man or a woman. The Guru is not an individual being. He is the embodiment of God’s power, the power of the Self. It is not a particular individual who is the Guru; but the power, the Shakti, that flows through that individual. Such a Guru has the ability to transmit God’s energy into others, to awaken and unfolds in someone, yoga takes place on its own. Spiritual attainment happens on its own. By awakening this inner power, the Guru removes the cataracts of ignorance and ego that cover our eyes and prevent us from seeing God. Then individuality is changed into Godhood.

All attainments come from obeying the Guru. I can tell you this from my own experience. When I went to stay with my Guru Nityananda, he told me to go and sit in the place where Gurudev Siddha Peeth now exists. I didn’t ask my Guru, “What should I do there? What should I eat?” All that I did was sit there. Some people used to bring bread once a week from Bombay. I would keep that bread for eight days, and that was what I would eat. I used to visit Nityananda Baba every day. At his place there were piles of food; so much that it would just sit there and rot. But I never asked for anything. I just obeyed his command. The result is that I received the most divine shakipat. And now, even though I don’t know English, I have been able to do a lot of work all over the world. Consequently I have been able to give shakipat to anyone who has come to me, knowing that whatever my Guru wants to make happen will happen. It is because I have surrendered completely to my Guru that I have been able to transmit Shakti to so many people all over the world. This is the power of Guru’s race; this is what you attain by following the Guru’s path.

A great saint describes in one of his poems the state the Guru gives us:

When I met that pure one I also because pure.

From him I received grace, and after that I began to meditate.

As I meditated, my individuality vanished,

And I myself became Consciousness.

I myself became the Guru …

When my inner ego was struck by the sword of my Guru’s love,

That love began to kill my ego,

So that even thought I was alive, I experienced death.

My death died, and I became immortal.

When I received the Guru’s touch, he took away my sleep of delusion.

The fire of knowledge was kindled in me,

And it burned up all my involvements.

It burned away my bondage and I became completely free.

When I met the Pure, when I merged in the Pure, I also became pure.

When I met that ecstatic being, my individuality vanished,

And I became God.

Living with the Guru

Q: Is it necessary for disciples to live with the Guru closely for a long time in order to get the most from their association with him?

SM: It is not necessary to live with the Guru. What is necessary is that you have love for the Guru and that you have interest in the Truth. A person who is not established in his sadhana may stay very close to the Guru, but he is still far away from the Guru. It is not enough merely to be with the Guru if you do not follow the Guru’s path. If you live close to the Guru but remain far away from sadhana, you will not attain much.

A Personal Relationship

Q: The people who spend a lot of time with you seem to get lots of personal teaching and work on their egos. How can people who do not have a personal relationship with you get the benefit of that teaching?

SM: A person should not try to have a personal relationship in order to get the benefit of someone’s teachings. The Lord of all beings dwells within everyone’s heart. You should meditate on Him and remember Him. Then you will attain what you are supposed to attain. IT will come of its own accord without your trying to attain it. Nowadays you can get these teachings wherever you want to. There are many shops for teachings. You do not lack them. To realize the Self, only two words are enough. You do not have to study a lot. You do not have to read many books. Nor do you have to put forth a lot of your own effort. If you can imbibe only two words, they will be more than enough to enable you to cross the ocean of the world. When you have an intense longing to attain That, when you are thirsty to attain that supreme Truth, then this Truth reveals itself in your own heart. Where is that place where there is no Self? Who is there who does not have this Self? The scriptures say, “God is apparent.” So how can you say that you cannot see the Self which swells everywhere and in your own heart? Why do you have to put forth a lot of effort to attain what already exists within you? The thing is , you should have intense longing to attain That, and you should also be filled with tender devotion.

Mind Reading

Q: Some people say that the Guru knows everything, that he knows all your thoughts and so forth. Yet it is obvious that he does not know everything on this level of consciousness – all languages, all people, all names. When people say the Guru knows all, are they speaking of the universal guru rather than the individual Guru?

SM: I don’t know what Guru you are speaking about, the universal Guru or the individual Guru. All I know is that the Guru is certainly aware of all your thoughts and of everything else that is going on. He does not need to know all the mundane languages; just one language is enough, and that is the language in which God communicates, the language of the heart. God does not communicate in English or French or Spanish.

The Guru should not be confused with a psychic. You expect things like mind reading from a psychic. The Guru’s concern is with the one Reality which is in everyone. He is not concerned with which particular disease and individual may suffer from. The Guru takes pleasure only in the Consciousness with seekers, not the crap in their minds. To a Guru, the thoughts and fancies which keep arising in the mind are mere trash. He transcends the mind and lives continually in the state beyond the mind. Why should he be conscious of what is in others’ minds when he has risen above his own mind? If he is not interested in what is happening in his own mind? Why should he plunge into the hell of another’s mind? Suppose that there is a person who is thinking negatively about someone else. Should the Guru become aware of that? A Guru likes to be aware only of the supreme Truth; he delights only in that. So why should he be aware of all the thoughts in another’s mind?

An event occurred in India involving a royal guru and a Siddha Guru. The royal guru was sitting in meditation under a tree when all of a sudden his mind was distracted by the thought of the prince’s coronation. He was wondering what kind of horse the prince should ride in the coronation procession and exactly how it should be decorated. Just then the Siddha Guru appeared. The royal guru was very proud of the fact that he was the guru of the king, while the Siddha Guru was totally free of pride and was immersed in his inner ecstasy.

There are two things that drive a person to ask a question: fear and the desire to test. Theis royal guru asked the Siddha, “Do you know what thoughts are in my mine?”
The Siddha replied, “Why should one who is revelling in the kingdom of God take interest in decorating a horse?”

Why should a saint take any interest in the filth of anybody’s mind?

What the Guru Asks

Q: A disciple asks much of a Guru. What in turn does a Guru ask of his disciple?

SM: A true Guru wants nothing from a disciple. Is the Guru a perfect being or an imperfect being? If he is a perfect being, he will not want anything from anyone. In ancient times, Gurus used to live in forest hermitages, and their needs were extremely few. Disciples would come and serve at the ashram, but that was not so much for the Guru’s sake as for their own growth. The Indian scriptures say that a disciple should give whatever he has to a Guru, but the Guru must not accept anything from a disciple except his ignorance.