American spiritual teacher, author and psychologist
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In a non-traditional culture such as ours, dominated by technology, we value information far more than we do wisdom. But there is a difference between the two. Information involves the acquisition, organization, and dissemination of facts; a storing-up of physical data. But wisdom involves another equally crucial function: the emptying and quieting of the mind, the application of the heart, and the alchemy of reason and feeling.
"It is like that moment depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where the hands of God and man are about to touch. It's just at the moment when the despair is greatest, when we reach up, that the grace descends, and we experience the knowledge or the insight or the remembrance that it all isn't in fact the way we thought it was. If it happens too violently, we decide you've gone insane. And there are people who are all too willing to reassure us that we have, and there are places for that. In hunting tribes, mystics are treated as insane — they're an inconvenience because the tribe has to be kept mobile and old people and crazy people have to be put away somewhere. But if we're in a certain position at the moment of seeing through, if the view has been gentle or if we're with somebody else that knows, or if we had intellectually known but didn't believe, all of which is a karmic matter, if we had some kind of structure or support system, we says, "Even though everybody else thinks I'm mad, I'm not.
When Maharajji came out you never knew what to expect. He could do the same thing a week in a row until you’d think, “Well, he’ll come out at 8:00.” Then he might not come out all day, or he might just go into another room and close the door and be in there for two days. You had to learn to expect the unexpected. One day he came out and all he said all day long was “Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan,” repeating these words to himself like a mantra. Days went by like this and somebody finally said, “Maharajji, what are you saying?” And it turned out to be an old Behari dialect, and all it meant was “Too big, too big, too little, too little.” When he was finally asked why he was saying this, he said, “Oh, all you people, you all live in Thul-Thul, Nan-Nan; you live in the world of judgement. It’s always too big or too little.
A young lad was sent to school. He began his lessons with the other children, and the first lesson the teacher set him was the straight line, the figure “one.” But whereas the others went on progressing, this child continued writing the same figure. After two or three days the teacher came up to him and said, “Have you finished your lesson?” He said, “No, I’m still writing ‘one.’ ” He went on doing the same thing, and when at the end of the week the teacher asked him again he said, “I have not yet finished it.” The teacher thought he was an idiot and should be sent away, as he could not or did not want to learn. At home the child continued with the same exercise and the parents also became tired and disgusted. He simply said, “I have not yet learned it, I am learning it. When I have finished I shall take the other lessons.” The parents said, “The other children are going on further, school has given you up, and you do not show any progress; we are tired of you.” And the lad thought with sad heart that as he had displeased his parents too he had better leave home. So he went into the wilderness and lived on fruits and nuts. After a long time he returned to his old school. And when he saw the teacher he said to him, “I think I have learned it. See if I have. Shall I write on this wall?” And when he made his sign the wall split in two. — Hazrat Inayat Khan The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Once I asked Maharajji how it is possible for a man to remember God all the time. He told me the story of Narada (the celestial sage) and the butcher: Vishnu (one of the aspects of God) was always praising the butcher and Narada wondered why, since the butcher was always occupied and Narada spent twenty-four hours a day praising Vishnu. Vishnu gave Narada the task of carrying a bowl of oil, full to the brim, up to the top of a mountain, without spilling a drop. The task completed, Vishnu asked how many times Narada remembered Vishnu. Narada asked how that would be possible, since he had to concentrate on carrying the bowl and climbing the mountain. Vishnu sent Narada to the butcher and the butcher said that as he works he is always remembering God. Maharajji said then, “Whatever outer work you must do, do it; but train your mind in such a way that in your subconscious mind you remember God.
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I thought at that moment, "Wow, I've got it made. I'm just a new beautiful being — I'm just an inner self — all I'll ever need to do is look inside and I'll know what to do and I can always trust it, and here I'll be forever." But two or three days later I was talking about the whole thing in the past tense. I was talking about how I "experienced" this thing, because I was back being that anxiety-neurotic, in a slightly milder form, but still, my old personality was sneaking back up on me.