Q: Gurudev, I happened to meet an American diplomat who has been on the spiritual path for 40-45 years. He said that some saints have visions of a kingdom of God, which is blue. Millions of souls are hovering around to get inside the kingdom of God, but that is possible only through a master. I just wanted to know whether all this is true.
Gurudev: In the Gita also it is said that, among the millions, only few will walk the path, and amongst the few who walk the path, only a few will come to know me well.
Among these 8.4 million types of species on the planet, human species is only one. After 8.4 million bodies, you get the human body. Just imagine, 8.4 million bodies! From bacteria, birds, animals, etv., 8.4 million lives later a human life comes. In this human life, few get to know the real spiritual path. And among those, the few who walk on the path are the lucky ones. This is nothing new.
Adi Shankara has also said, that the human birth is very difficult to get. After having gotten human birth, then the desire of wanting to walk on the spiritual path, is again very difficult to get. Few people get this. And even after getting this desire to walk on the spiritual path, only few get the opportunity to do it; they get the right path.
So many people, who want to walk on the spiritual path get caught up in all these wrong notions that one day the world is going to collapse, or doom’s day is going to come. And so these people pray out of fear. They get into paths where they are indented with fear and guilt. See, fear and guilt are two things which will never allow you to go deep into yourself. And this is what some of the so called (religious) paths do.
Some of the religious paths create this fear of hell and heaven, and other things, and put people into such a turmoil of guilt and fear that the mind can never calm down. Meditation can never happen. This is very unfortunate. So even though these people are aspirants, they are not getting the path. This is again a big luck.
These people don’t get access to the knowledge: 'Come on, the mind is like a river, what are you holding on to? Don’t hold on to it. All the events are gone, drop it and move on. Live in the present moment'.
This knowledge is not available to many people (who aspire to walk the spiritual path). They go on repenting and repenting about the past, feeling guilty, and the mind becomes a mess. Of course they do pray. Their prayers do help, and they get some blessings. Blessings come to everyone, no doubt, but the knowledge, the right path and liberation remains a distant dream for them. Peace does not happen in their life. They sit with the hope that one day they will go to heaven. And so these souls get trapped with desires and fear.
They have come to the human life to be free from all this, and think that God will one day release us. But they will have to come back again to work out all these things. Again they will get meditation.
So, a human birth, desires for a path, and the path being available to them (Maha Purusha Sannidho: getting a spiritual master), these three things are rare and difficult to get. If you have all three, you are lucky. That is what is said.
But don’t worry, you are not hovering around. You are already on the path and you are happy and relaxed.
