[continued from previous message]   
      
   Baba replied, "Tagore was a mystic. His book Bolaka was, in My opinion, better   
   than Gitanjali. It should have won him the Nobel prize instead of Gitanjali.   
   Mysticism is a never ending endeavour to find a link between the finite and   
   the infinite."   
      
   Subsequently I began to understand what Tagore wanted to convey in his poetry.   
   Even today Baba's definition captivates me and I enjoy contemplating the depth   
   of its meaning.   
      
   In 1967 Baba chided me saying, "Don't run after intellect." From then on He   
   stopped responding to my prying questions. I was sad because He started to   
   give me the cold shoulder, and I stopped asking questions directly. It was   
   only in 1985, when my quest    
   to understand devotion reached some maturity, that I realized how futile   
   running after intellect had been.   
      
   Maharishi Patanjali said, "Rtam bhara tatra prajina," which means that   
   intuition in its unassailed stance is filled with veracity and can only be   
   attained through dhyana (deep meditation). It means that running after   
   knowledge is like throwing away the    
   cream and drinking buttermilk which has gone stale. Through dhyana one can   
   have access to all mundane things, but one should not run after these. If one   
   does an'udhyana, which means to continuously chase one's Is 't 'a (Guru), for   
   a few months, one can    
   also know this secret. Baba actually meant that if one dives deep  in to   
   one’s  inner conceptual depths , reply to all questions will be found.   
      
   For seven months I stayed in the jagrti (the Ananda Marga centre) in Jamalpur   
   and watched Baba every day. I observed that whenever a person tried to test   
   Him, Baba would behave in such a way that He put that person to the test. For   
   example, when a person    
   full of doubts questioned Baba, He would sometimes feign ignorance, so that   
   the person judged Baba unworthy and left. Mostly such persons tested in order   
   to try to better Him.   
      
   One should never test the Guru. Only one who is puffed with ego tests the Gum.   
   That is why Christ said, "Blessed are those who believe without seeing." Here   
   Christ meant that the real seeker should be humble like an innocent, guileless   
   child. When there    
   were seekers, however, who wanted to dedicate their lives to serve the   
   suffering humanity, and sincerely wanted to know if they were choosing the   
   right Guru, Baba used to undergo their tests happily.   
      
   Similarly, the right to test the worthiness of the disciple lies with the   
   Guru. But when He tests, the disciple always fails. Then one can realize how   
   mean he or she was to test the Guru. Kabir said:   
      
   Kabir, yeh tan vishki belari Guru Amrit ki khan   
   shiish diye sadguru paye toe bhi sasta jan.(Bhojpuri)   
   Kabir! this body of yours is a poisonous creeper.   
   The Guru is the storehouse of nectar. By the exchange of your head,   
   If you receive Guru in turn,   
   Understand that you got Him cheap!   
      
   That is why, when Shrii Shankaracarya was tested by Shakti, he lamented:   
      
   Ku putro jayet kwacidapi kumata na bhavati.   
   A bad son is born, but a mother is never bad to her child.   
      
   Guru Govind, the tenth and last Guru of the Sikhs, said:   
      
   Jo tohe prem khalan ki chav, Sir Dhari tali gali meri avo.   
   If you want to play the game of love divine,   
   Walk my path with your head on your palm.   
      
   Due to my swollen ego, I also made the mistake of testing Him, but He accepted   
   my tests happily.   
      
   Because of my thirst to learn, I used to write down all that I could. Like the   
   proverbial ant, I would struggle to carry away, grain by grain, every bit of   
   His inexhaustible knowledge from the sugar mound that He was. Before each   
   effort I would think, "   
   Next time I will carry away the whole hill." But when I returned, I found that   
   the mound had again grown larger. Finally, realizing that His knowledge was   
   much more than the greatest mountain, I had to throw away the grains and   
   surrender.   
      
   When did I stop my pet weakness - intellectual pursuit? It was only in May   
   1968 during   
      
   Baba's Renaissance Universal (RU) discourse[7], "Expression and    
   ymbolization". Tens of thousands of Margiis attended this speech. As usual, I   
   was struggling to take notes and finding the topic difficult. By the time I   
   finished writing a few lines, Baba    
   had advanced sentences ahead!   
      
   Dropping my pen and paper I thought, "Let me listen, understand and remember   
   as much as possible, and leave the rest." At that moment, a miracle occurred.   
   A blissful feeling spread from my ajina cakra (the psycho-spiritual centre   
   located in the centre of    
   the head). I started to understand and remember nearly everything He was   
   saying.   
      
   Baba usually asked for comments after His RU talks, so this time I rushed   
   eagerly to Him. But before I could say anything He asked me, "And why did some   
   intellectual boys throw away their pen and paper?" I said to Baba,  “Baba your   
   speech was so deep”.    
   Baba quipped back  “How many fathom deep my son”. I was silent , because  that   
   reply meant so many things.   
      
   Thereafter, bit by bit, Baba enlarged my receptivity. I realized that ego is   
   the arch enemy. When ego does not dominate, then only can He augment one's   
   powers of receptivity. This I experienced, and increasingly I could retain all   
   the important points    
   from His talks. At the same time, a beautiful feeling like a current of light,   
   would penetrate my ajina cakra and anahata cakra (psycho-spiritual centre   
   located in the centre of the chest), bringing tears of happiness. I would   
   become lost in ineffable    
   bliss. After such experiences I never felt like talking; rather I preferred   
   solitude in order to cry and thus soothe the pain of my own pettiness.   
      
   I had made myself small and mean by doubting Him. Yet despite everything, this   
   Great Personality bestowed such grace upon me. Years later I understood that   
   these experiences were His application of positive microvita[8] to make my   
   plexi and associated    
   glands more complex so that they could absorb increasingly more subtle and   
   spiritual vibrations.   
      
   The wonder was that for many years He was elevating His disciples without them   
   even knowing it. Baba never wanted kudos. He did not want anyone to know that   
   He was giving them something extraordinary. Only on later reflection could the   
   recipient sense    
   something of what had happened. When He enlarged one's receptivity, one would   
   feel that everything in this universe was happening properly and correctly   
   according to the Cosmic Will. After such experiences I would contemplate   
   deeply, and after finally    
   understanding, realization would come.   
      
   Occasionally Baba would ask persons more learned than myself to expound on a   
   topic about which He had just spoken. If they failed, He would turn to me. I   
   was always amazed at the beauty and coherence of the explanations coming from   
   my mouth. I knew it    
   was someone else talking through me and I experienced a sense of bliss at my   
   anahata cakra. The intellectuals were amazed that a less educated person could   
   speak so well. After this, I lost the desire to show off my knowledge.   
      
   One day out of the blue Baba said to me, "You are a critic. Today I want you   
   to criticize me."   
      
   I hesitated because by now I was well aware of my ignorance. I offered a   
   cautious reply. "Baba, Veda Vyasa wrote the Mahabharata through a parrot, so I   
   can never venture to speak about You."   
      
   But Baba persisted, "It is My order for you to criticize Me."   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)