Let me rewrite the well known adage with an altered focus: Man does what man is.

This means, if we want to monitor our deeds, we have to monitor ourselves. But the interesting fact is, we can monitor ourselves through our deeds only. If I want to jump into a boxing ring, I should have strong muscles, adequate skill and a certain amount of cruelty; if I want to teach suryanamaskar, for instance, I have to show it by doing the namaskars myself. We can not make a world without first making ourselves. Therefore Bhagawan says, “The world is what you are”. The simple logic follows: to remake the world we have to remake ourselves. The confusion we find in the current state of humanity is not due to want of knowledge, but due to want of courage to live what we know. History is always made by a few, those who not only have the vision, but the courage to follow it to its end, while the rest of us fall a prey to it. And, it is for us to decide our roles.

The best appeal of Bhagawan is He lives every moment of His life what He says. He outlined for Himself three purposes when He was in his early teens: raising the spiritual consciousness of humanity, protecting this consciousness from negative powers, and restructuring the negative powers. When someone asked Him what is His siksha for humanity, He answered, “My life is my siksha”. He has been living His siksha for 83 years now. He lives as man, but works as God. The simple message Bhagawan seems to point out is ‘Be possessed by your life’s mission’. It is not enough we have a goal, the goal must take hold of what we are. For most of us who haven’t configured a mission for ourselves, Swami has been defining it all these years, ‘Spiritualise your personal lives’.

I want to clarify a possible misunderstanding at this point. Spirituality has no quarrels with the profession we pursue for a living if the profession does not quarrel with spirituality. Quality life is not opposed to quantity life if the former is allowed to control the latter. Profession is only a part of life, a minor part. There is a very large chunk of life outside it. We can not allow a minor aspect of life to define the whole, can we ? It is all a question of priorities, God should be on top, or the world. In fact it is never a question of ‘to be, or not to be’, it is ‘to be and not to be’. God is not exclusive, He is all inclusive. Choosing God is not deleting world from the list, but elevating it through God-touch. Therefore when Tigrett sought Bhagawan’s permission to retire into some cave and spend the rest of his life in meditation, Bhagawan replied, “No. That would have been better in another time in history, not now. You shall have to do a lot of work with me”. Swami teaches us that a man who climbs a real tree has access to the shadow tree as well, but one who climbs a shadow tree has no access to the real tree. He has always said, choose God, you choose the best benefits of the world too, but check the world as first choice, you miss the right answer to your problems.

If we want to participate in His mission, either for personal reasons, or larger-than-personal, and in the present context they overlap, we have to make a deep study of not only what He does, but what He is; and what He is, is far more important than what He does. His actions issue from what He is. If this means anything to us, it means only one thing, if we want to be part of the mission He has spelt out for Himself, we have to become what He wants us to be, reflections of His divinity. Jesus is reported to have said man is made in the image of God. So what greater task do we have than approximating our original ?

Here comes the special task of the sai student. Bhagawan has not only reiterated times without end His closeness with His students, he has cautioned them times without end, “To whom much is given, of him much is expected”. And what is expected of them except reflecting His life, not only what He does, but what He is ? This is not only a choice, but an obligation, an obligation of love and reverence. Love is the only obligation which enriches the giver, enlightens the receiver. One who receives of God inculcates a responsibility of sharing God. This is as powerful a karma as any other. But this karma does not bind, it liberates. That is the mercy of God. He binds us to Himself in order to liberate us from ourselves.

If love is the core of our relationship with Bhagawan, discipline is its protective gear. Bhagawan says there has to be a rose among thorns to embody fragrance, and a mother to make us experience a mother’s love. The roseness of the rose lies in its fragrance, and the motherhood of mother in her selflessness. One can not accept a rose and deny its fragrance; one can not accept a mother and deny her selflessness. One can not accept Bhagawan as a guide and be cold to what He stands for. We can not even remotely call ourselves a devotee unless we make serious efforts to walk His footsteps. And students of Swami owe it to themselves more than anyone else.

The high and low of all this is, Bhagawan has come to show us a path, as well as give us a taste of what lies at the end of it. He doesn’t however say, ‘do what you will, be what you will, you will reach me’. Therefore, loving God is living God. There is no alternative. Not only all our actions, all our thoughts too have only one reference, the highest spiritual truth that Bhagawan embodies. We have to shape our lives on this anvil. It is both a privilege, and a responsibility.

Swami means to me a call and an assurance, a call to become what I believe. We are fond of building a wall between reality and ideal. But strangely, we aren’t honest even in building the wall. We talk of a log cabin ending in the White House, but when it comes to being true to our beliefs, we allow a lot of concessions. If I am unwilling to follow the call, I have no access to the assurance. This time also the call comes from an extraordinary friend. Though Arjuna was sorry before the great war for calling Sri Krishna a ‘sakha’, Krishna preferred to remain a sakha, a charioteer to him, and not only won the war for him, made him part of His mission. To a question why of all brothers Arjuna was given the Geeta, Swami replied, ‘Arjuna was a karmayogi, once he was convinced what to do, he never looked back’. Bhagawan also asks us to ‘walk with me, and be my friend’. We are not serving a boss, spending unpleasant hours in a stuffy office doing his unpleasant bidding for a package though attractive, we are invited to the board meetings to share the decision making, and carrying it out. The package is, ‘Give love, get more love; bring peace, get more peace; invest spirituality, receive higher spiritual dividends.’

To share Bhagawan’s mission, we have to leave behind our shadows and grow into His likeness; to be His friend and walk with Him, we have to let the golden apple lie by the wayside.

– Bejoy Kumar Misra