Discussions With - By Shri Paramhansa Yogananda
A Columbia University professor came for lunch discussion with the Master at Mount Washington. He asked several questions, which were replied aptly by the Master:
On the importance of following the teachings of the Guru, the Master said,” If you go to a Doctor & get a prescription from him. After returning home you either tear & throw the prescription or frame it & hang on the wall, how do you expect to get well? The Guru is the spiritual doctor. It isn’t sufficient to have a Guru or take Naam from him or seek his Updesh. But most important is to follow the same. If one follows his prescription even if partially his life will be transformed. Those who practice his teachings will pass thru the portals of death into the radiant kingdom of light.
Don’t expect to get there if you passively depend on the Guru, i.e. like hanging the prescription on the wall, & expecting the writing to heal the person. Go on with steadfast faith, devotion & joy. You will realise how sweet the life can be if lived rightly. You will be glowing with inner radiance, vitality & happiness.
On being very conscious about health of body, the Master said, “It is God’s body. He wants to keep it well, let Him do so. He wants to keep it unwell, it is all right. If you have health, but are attached to it you will always be worried to lose it. If you become ill, while fearing the loss, you will really suffer. Why not remain joyful in the Self? Man’s greatest problem is his EGO. Whatever happens to him, he thinks it affects him personally. Why be affected, you are not this body. You are He. Everything is He.
On the cycle of Birth & Death, the Master says, the God has created this Universe to as a large PLAY. For ‘the Show to go on’, there has to be activity, variety, and interest created for the characters in the Play. It has to all seem real. Hence the appearance of individuality & so the Ego. As long as the man enjoys the play, being involved in it, he will go on moving as per the Wheel of Birth & death, birth after birth, experiencing life’s pleasures & pains.
To get off the Wheel, you have to seek freedom intensely; your longing has to be fervent. If it is, the Lord will release you. He tries to keep you here with tests, but in His higher aspect, as cosmic lover He hates this show wants you to be out of it. Once He sees that you want Him & not His show, why will He not release you!! Try to rise above the pairs of opposites: Pleasure & Pain, Sickness & Health; Happiness & Sorrow. Free yourself from the consciousness of individuality (Ego), separate from everything.
Keep your mind steadfastly in Him. Remain inwardly unaffected. He alone is what you really are. His Bliss alone is your True nature. Desire Him & Get Him.