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“One must
become colourless while playing with colours.” –
Rev. Babuji Maharaj.
Smt.
Shilpi Gaur
Dear
brothers and sisters,
My
humble pranam to you all!
Today
on this auspicious occasion of the Basanth Panchmi,
the birth anniversary of our Grand Master we have
gathered here to understand better what our Master
meant when he said, ”one must become colorless
while playing with colors.”(SS-533).
In the
same section Master says this is a fun (joke) of
Holi. We can see that he has written the passage in
a satirical way. Where in Master has used colors
of Holi to metaphorically represent the forms
and colors of His creation or the divine leela (
maya) to which, we get attracted and attached and
weave our own fibers of different hues and colors.
In our
book ERY pg- 42 it says “We use our central force
at one point just as the Almighty did when He
created the world by issuing forth the powers of
creation from just beneath the Centre through the
force of His will, in different forms and colors
like the fibers of the net, to complete the
creation. It was one with Him when there was no
creation. He has been at His centre and shall be
there when the things, which have come down, go back
in Him, or to the original point called Centre. We
began to weave our own fibers of different hues and
colors and we are all the time with them.”
It is
we who have wrought this havoc within us (we are
living a life in the lower stratum of humanity,
catering primarily to the animal consciousness in
us), making thereby a network interwoven by the
fibers of our wrong and vicious thoughts and
actions. As a rule nature wants to keep everything
pure and clear just as it had originally come down
in the beginning. But, when we pose ourselves as the
doer we cover it under our color and this thought
makes an impression. When such thoughts get
accumulated they form numerous veils; hiding our
real self under such coverings, that is why we can
say we live in our own cocoons.
Master
states “there is a great participation in colors
and gulal revelries…But brother who are these? They
are the people whose temperament is inclined towards
play.”
People
are charmed by the unreal. But unreal holds charm
only for the ones who have an interest in that. Our
worldly life offers us many situations in which we
get tempted to either like or dislike it; we either
get attracted and get attached to things of unreal
status or repel and form negative impression about
them. Either way, it is the cause of bind and that
is the color apparent to us. Thus we form our
network and keep making it a complex color pattern,
living in illusions and further thinking and acting
according to those colored glasses of ours
prejudices, notions and wrong thinking. Thus our
living is marred by these impressions and we are not
able to understand the real life. It is like if you
are performing a role of a character ‘A’ on the
stage; but while performing you get carried away
(attach) such that you start identifying yourself
truly as that ‘A’ alone. Then you are deluding
yourself as that is not reality and you are
associating and limiting yourself only to unreal;
forgetting the reality (your true self).
Master
says “You will say that those who have eyes to
see can very well distinguish between black, yellow,
blue colors etc. I would say this, that as long as
the eyes bear the power of distinction between
black, yellow, blue colors etc. which is the real
aspect of the color, it cannot be called to have
discrimination (real knowledge) about colors. So
long as there is variety in inclination, one does
not give due respect to color.”
The
point Master is driving here is that as long as we
lack balance we will take the effect of the
circumstances and environment and we will be taking
impressions related to them. We will see (feel) the
opposites of life – likes & dislikes, joy & sorrow,
discomfort & comfort, success & failure, achievement
& disappointment, give & take, etc. which are
nothing but different variety of colors in life. But
if we have balance we will take all things with
equanimity. So the real knowledge is where passion,
excitement and desires will lose intensity and joy &
sorrow, like & dislike etc. will disappear from the
view. Hence when we reach a stage where we no longer
make impressions and stay in a balanced state we can
say now our eyes have lost the power of distinction
between various colors of life. Here, if our
Master’s commandment 5 ,6,& 7 are followed it helps
us treat all things as our blessings and we see no
difference between one and other. Hence when our
approach is balanced, we will give due respect to
color as there will be no undue attachments and
desires pulling us towards the variety present in
life. If our interest is not there to
identify(admire ) it then we will not get charmed by
it and thus have no distinction between the
different shades of the color.
Master
also conveys that when we link ourselves to the
whole( ultimate) then certainly the same view is
presented to our vision. As most of us know that
white light is actually a combination of all visible
colors of light mixed together. A white sunlight is
separated by water droplets to bring out the
spectrum of different colors in it, the rainbow.
White- which is colorless in the sense that the
separation of all distinct colors melt away and a
colorlessness is present. So when we think about
complete/whole, supreme, the Ultimate we naturally
will find that it is colorless hence if we attach
ourselves to Him with our love & devotion and
finally become unaware of that link by repeatedly
maintaining it- there will be a state of mergence,
which we are in search of? Thus our state too will
be colorless. Hence even while playing with colors
we will become colorless. For example: even though
we will do our due duties but the effect of the same
is not taken in by us thus we are not soiled by its
color though we surely played during the time we
discharged our duty.
Till
now we tried to understand what is color and what is
colorless, but now the prime question is How to
become colorless?
”Everyone has, and remains entangled in, a
particular charm of having some particular type of
pleasure which becomes his primary pursuit. For the
learned it may be the mental pleasure derived from
books, for worshipper the joy of worship, for the
bhakta the charm of bhakti, for siddha the delight
of siddhis, for an ascetic the life of aloofness,
and for a man of attainments the satisfaction of
being perfect. For a true follower of the divine
path all theses have no attraction at all. His only
object is to appear before the great Master in his
absolute state in order to secure oneness with Him,
the infinite. This can be possible only after one
gives up all the coverings he is enclosed in.”
(SS-375, Sruti-vol 1 :pg 121)
But
how can we become devoid of coverings (colors) that
we have?
The
first and the foremost is that base or our
destination must never go out of our mind. We must
ever keep our goal in mind. We need to be restless
all the time like a mad man in love wailing and
crying for what he knows not.
As we
have to follow our commandment no. 3-“ Fix up
your goal which should be 'Complete Oneness' with
God. Rest not till the ideal is achieved.” It
helps us address this very issue.
Only
the ones who have this crazy and mad restlessness to
achieve this goal progress in this field.
We
have to create pain in our heart- the craving needs
to be generated. It is our duty to fall madly in
love with Him.
“The
easiest way to increase the intensity of craving is
to take it up even in artificial way if it is not
actually present in mind. In course of time, by
constant practice, the artificial feeling will
become true and genuine.”(Sruti vol-1, pg 173;
SS-469)
Have
confidence that we can reach the goal and be
prepared to put in the needed effort for the same.
Our
abhyas helps us to purify ourselves and realize this
craving, enhance it and that surely paves way in
firming up our determination to move forward.
Master
says elsewhere” You are reaching out for bliss and I
am talking of craving and restlessness.”(SDG-108).
Craving alone will be the cause of movement further
bliss and peace are scenes on the way and not
destinations in themselves.
Master
talks about a hindi saying - raan ke par suhagan
lage; “hai jaa bahna mosi”(sister become like
me) wherein a widow touches the feet of a women
whose husband is alive, then she wishes that the
latter may also become like her. In hindi, this
phrase is used in a jovial/sarcastic context when
someone wants to convey that –‘you also get what I
got’. So here our Master has used it to convey to us
that he wants that we have the same restlessness for
the goal as he has. Since after that we will become
eager to get all those states which he is restless
to impart to us.
Pranahuti / Transmission
The
Master says that without the help of Pranahuti it
will be difficult, if not impossible, to reach
higher stages of sadhana.
It
enables the aspirant develop an attitude of humility
in thought, word and deed. It enables the aspirant
understand (feel) that Master is the knower, doer
and enjoyer.
“What
is transmitted is the very core of reality namely
consciousness or spiritual energy which nurtures and
enables the recipient to grow in an integral
consciousness that sees no duality.”(BP-
vol-3 pg-66) We all have felt pranahuti, we may
express or feel it in our own way but one thing is
for sure that we know it stirs up in us an
inclination towards divine. It brings the divine
reality directly in our heart making us feel our
connection with the supreme Life force. This gives
us confidence in system, ourselves and boosts our
determination to move towards our goal, gives us
courage to follow Master’s method ardently.
Because of pranahuti we get rid of many deeper
sanskaras (impressions) called Avarnas, our binds
get loosened up etc. which makes the path of
aspirant easier to tread. The support it provides is
very effective in making us lighter and lighter in
the fastest and easiest way.
“Pain
or pleasure is enjoyed in the brain or the mental
plane only, though Medical science is yet to confirm
this. In the case of persons who have stopped
forming samskaras or impressions by adopting the
method of surrender to the Master thinking him to be
the doer, knower and enjoyer, the only task that
remains to be done for coming out of the cycle of
births is the clearing of the past samskaras and
vasanas. Through the cleaning process, meditation on
the lines given by the great Master and constant
influxes of the Pranahuti which eradicates the
vasanas one is enabled to cross over the cycle of
births in the system of PAM.” [PG (Second Edition -
2006) - Page No.382
]
Abhyas
(The meditational practices and following the 10
commandments) –
It is
our responsibility of removing the grossness which
has come. We ourselves formed the sanskaras
(impressions) which have become coverings upon
coverings and thus have buried our true self under
them like a silk worm in a cocoon. It is our duty to
get rid of the network or coverings we have formed.
Our
purification process is a tool provided to us for
getting rid of our impressions (mala & vikshepa).
Our
abhyas helps us stay connected to the centre, purify
ourselves and help the mind leave its wandering
tendency and become regulated, commandments help us
do our spiritual & worldly duties taking the right
perspective towards them.
Practically we know many of us fall for our
weaknesses in the name of sloth, other higher
priorities, lack of confidence in one self, wasting
time in things not conducive for goal, lack of
interest, etc. Our determination and bedtime prayer
helps us break through our weaknesses (known as well
as unknown ones).
Our
attitude of trusteeship or due attachment helps us
remain impressionless even as we perform our
necessary actions in the worldly plane. We remain
like ducks and coots, who are not soiled by the
water in which they live. Similarly we will not take
the effect of the environment in which we live by
adhering to the principle of trusteeship.
Everything hand in hand helps us have a recipe for
becoming finer and finer thus coming closer and
closer to divinity (our original state-colorless so
to speak).
Hence,
Master says that on the occasion of Holi if we learn
this lesson from Holi that
One
must become colorless while playing with colors.
Then,
the real benefit will accrue to all of us.
I
conclude with prayer that we all make sincere
efforts to become colorless and move steadily on the
path to the Infinite.
Thank
you, |
