Inspirational Stories
by Sri Chinmoy
This incident took place one hundred fifty years ago in a spiritual community. Two teenage boys, who were deeply interested in literature, made an arrangement for a literary meeting. They requested their Italian teacher to preside over the meeting, and he gladly accepted. About two hundred literature-loving souls attended the programme, which consisted of songs, short plays and recitations. It lasted for about two hours and was a grand success.
At the end of the meeting the Italian teacher, whose name was Mihir, said, “God wanted this spiritual community of ours to be divine, but unfortunately our spiritual leader is making the young generation into a monkey-generation instead of a God-generation.” Immediately the audience began protesting vehemently. They insulted him mercilessly, and Mihir had to leave the hall in utmost humiliation.
That night around midnight, a young man broke open the door of Mihir’s home and pointed a revolver right at his chest. “How dare you speak ill of our spiritual Master!” he said. “You ungrateful creature, you shameless beast! You live here in our spiritual community, yet you have the audacity to speak ill of our Master. It is not our Master’s fault that we are not yet totally divine. He has been working so hard to make us divine, but we cherish ignorance. It is not the Master who is making monkeys out of us, but our own ignorance-loving life. Needless to say, you are in the same boat. If we are all going to be monkeys, you are certainly no exception. But I totally contradict your statement that we are becoming monkeys. No, we have made considerable progress and we shall go on making progress slowly, steadily, and effectively. Anyway, I have not come here at this hour of the night to offer you a long sermon. I have come here to take your life.”
Mihir was terrified. “Please, I beg of you to spare my life,” he stammered. “I shall never criticise our Master again.”
The young man hesitated. Then he said, “Forgiveness is granted this time, but I warn you that it will not be offered again.”
Alas, a few days later Mihir announced to the students in one of his classes, “I could have written far better spiritual poems than the Master has written. It is just because I do not care much for spiritual poems and lack the inclination, and because I have no time that I have not written any. If I had written poems, I could have far surpassed our Master’s poetic genius.”
The students could not believe their ears. Two students ran up onto the platform, and one of them brutally boxed the nose of the teacher while the other vehemently pulled him by the ear. The sufferings of the teacher can better be felt than described. Several students immediately went to the president of the spiritual community and narrated the whole story.
The president said, “I don’t have to speak to the Master about this. It is I who have to take action. You go and tell your Italian teacher that in fifteen minutes my attendants will be at his house to take him to the railway station so that he can go back to his native town.”
With or without his consent, Mihir was put onto the next train, and the ashram authorities considered themselves well rid of him. He did not go back to his home town, however, but travelled to a big city, where he applied for a job with the city’s largest newspaper. He got the job and after a while became the newspaper’s most prolific writer. He wrote considerably, both in English and in Italian. Within six years, the newspaper authorities made him the chief editor.
Now, Mihir did not forget about his humiliation in the spiritual community. Quite often he would fabricate undivine stories about his former spiritual Master and his ashram. Of course, at times there was some truth behind his merciless attacks, for he had lived in the ashram from the age of ten to the age of thirty-five, and he knew the place well. Finally, he wrote a biography of his ex-Master, of course without asking permission. In most sections of the book his imagination ran riot, and when the book came out, the authorities of the ashram sued him.
While the case was in court, Mihir bribed seven of his former brother disciples to supply him with the most sensational, but private stories about the spiritual community. These stories he published in his newspaper, in spite of the fact that he was already being sued by the spiritual community. The owners of the newspaper were highly pleased with him. Because of his sensational journalism, the paper gained several thousand new subscribers.
One day an article about the ashram lawsuit appeared in the paper. It contained accusations from a disciple of the Master against Mihir, accusing the editor of slander and deception. The newspaper authorities all took the side of their editor, and defended him untiringly. Fortunately or unfortunately, the editor won the case. Alas, during this time the Master himself began to suffer from most serious ailments, so the mood of the ashram was very low. The authorities of the spiritual community wanted to take the matter to a higher court. But the Master said, “I do not think it will do any good. If you have any other suggestions, however, please tell them to me.”
One of them said, “Master, we know you have tremendous occult power. You have used it many, many times. Please use it once again. This time use your occult power to make the right hand of that rogue paralysed so that he can never write again.”
The Master said, “He does not need a hand to write. Even if he does not write, whatever he wants to say against me he can dictate to his secretary. They will still be able to publish it in the newspaper.”
The disciples then said, “Master, then do something to his brain. With your occult power, damage his brain so that he cannot think properly. Make him senile so that he won’t be able to criticise you anymore.”
The Master said, “Well, that can be done.” So he used his vast occult power and damaged the editor’s brain. “Also,” he told his disciples, “I have done something else which will please you still more. I have made him blind in one eye.”
Since he had become partially blind and totally senile, the editor could no longer work at the newspaper. He had to resign, but the newspaper authorities were extremely kind and sympathetic. They continued to give him his regular salary, and told him that they would do so as long as he remained on earth.
Now Mihir’s secretary was a young girl most devoted to her boss. She simply could not account for his sudden brain defect and blindness. Finally, she decided to go to see a famous occultist who lived in the same city as Mihir’s ex-Master, and to him she narrated the whole sad story, as much as she knew, from beginning to end.
The occultist, whose name was Khudhu, saw quite clearly that it was the ex-Master who was responsible for the editor’s blindness and brain damage, and he felt extremely sorry for the poor man. Inwardly he approached the spiritual Master and said to him, “What kind of spiritual Master are you? If people speak ill of you, you punish them mercilessly! Is forgiveness not the first requisite in the spiritual life? Anyway, since you have not forgiven this old man, I shall not forgive you either.” Then Khudhu used all his occult power and gave the spiritual Master a most serious stroke.
Within a few minutes the Master died, but just before he departed from the earth-scene, three times he said: “Khudhu, Khudhu, Khudhu.”
At first his disciples, in their extreme sorrow, were simply puzzled by their Master’s final utterance, but finally it occurred to them that the Master was referring to the great occultist, Khudhu. A few of them rushed to Khudhu’s tiny house and entered into his room. When they saw Khudhu’s face they were simply paralysed with fear. They did not see him as a real human being, but as a voracious tiger. Yet in spite of their fear they fell at Khudhu’s feet and said, “We are sure that it is you who have killed our Master. Since you have the power to kill, you also have the power to revive. Please bring our Master back to life.”
Khudhu said, “Yes, I have the power, but I am not going to use my power to revive your Master. I have killed him because he has been extremely unjust to poor Mihir. With his occult power he made him blind and destroyed his brain. So now, with my own occult power, I have killed him.But it is no loss to you. Now that you have come to know that my occult power is far superior to that of your Master, you can all become my disciples. I shall teach you how to acquire occult power. You too, like me, will be able to perform miracles, and to place the whole world at your feet.”
The Master’s disciples cried, “O great Khudhu, what shall we do? You have made us fatherless!”
“But I have just told you that you can now find your father in me. From now on, I can be your spiritual father,” said Khudhu.
The disciples felt extremely sad and miserable. They said, “No matter how great you are, even if you are the greatest living occultist on earth, we can’t become your disciples. Our Master is our Master. We shall remain loyal and faithful to him until we breathe our last.”
“What kind of Master did you have?” asked Khudhu. “He did not have even a drop of the milk of human kindness. I can forgive you all because I know you are ignorant people. True, you instigated your Master to punish Mihir. But why did he listen to your request? And worse, why did he harm the poor man even more than you wanted him to? Here is what I will do. I will revive your Master provided you can give me full assurance that when I help him regain his consciousness, the first thing he will do is kiss the dust of Mihir’s feet.”
Immediately the disciples exclaimed, “Oh no! Impossible! It is beneath the dignity of our Master to touch the feet of that scoundrel!”
Khudhu said, “You call him a scoundrel, but in what way is your Master superior to him? Can you justify the punishment your Master gave him? He spoke ill of you and of your Master, but that did not mean that your Master could go to the length of destroying him. Since you do not wish to accept my proposal, leave my house immediately. I will have nothing to do with you people.”
But one of the disciples said to Khudhu, “O occultist of the highest magnitude, what would happen if you revived our Master and he touched the feet of our former spiritual brother?”
Khudhu replied, “I am glad that you are calling him your brother, but you must know that your Master must not merely touch this man’s feet, but literally kiss the dust of his feet.” At this, all the disciples buried their heads in their hands in utter shame and disgust. But Khudhu continued, “The moment your Master touches the dust of Mihir’s feet, his former disciple will regain his eyesight and his brain will become normal again.”
One of the disciples said, “O Khudhu, why does our Master have to go through this kind of humiliation? Is our pleading with you not enough? Is our prayer at your feet not enough for you to forgive our Master? If you are a greater spiritual Master than he, should you not show more compassion than he did?”
Khudhu said, “You are right. Revenge does not ever solve any problem. Only Light can solve all human problems. I forgive your Master. I shall revive him and I shall cure Mihir myself. The highest spiritual Power of the Supreme will punish the inferior and subordinate powers in its own way. They, in turn, will punish the still more inferior ones. From the highest point of view, I did not do the right thing, when I punished your Master. I should have allowed the Supreme to deal with him in His own way, or I should at least have waited for the inner message from the Supreme before taking action myself. Divine Compassion and Wisdom-Light are the highest forms of action. Divine Compassion and Wisdom-Light alone can grow and blossom into fruition.”
There once lived a spiritual Master who had only twenty disciples. The Master had tremendous occult and spiritual power, which he had used many times to help and please his disciples and their friends and relatives. One evening the spiritual Master and his disciples all were in deep meditation when suddenly a disciple entered the meditation room weeping and sobbing. She disturbed everybody’s meditation. The Master most compassionately asked her what was wrong.
The disciple replied, “Master, Master, this morning my daughter and three friends went out for an excursion in a car and they met with a serious accident. All four girls are now unconscious in the hospital. The doctor says there is very little hope. I have come to ask you to save my daughter and her three friends.”
The Master said, “Snigdha, you are my disciple, my very dear disciple, and therefore I may try to save the life of your daughter. But I don’t want to be responsible for the lives of the other three girls.”
“Master, what will people think of me when they see that my daughter alone is saved by your spiritual power? And what will people think of you? Will they not think that both of us are very mean? Will not people think that we care only for our own dear ones? No, Master, you have to save the lives of the other three girls also. I don’t want you to save my daughter alone. I am a mother and I know what a mother’s heart is. I know that if these three girls die, their mothers and fathers will all be heartbroken. For the rest of their lives they will be utterly miserable. Therefore, Master, out of your infinite love and compassion, please use your power to save all the girls. And if you do not want to do that, then I don’t want my daughter to be saved either. Let all of them go to Heaven. I am sure God will look after them there.”
The Master remained silent, and Snigdha joined the meditation. A few minutes later another disciple came in weeping and sobbing. The Master inquired about his suffering.
The disciple replied, “Master, my son, my only son has been attacked by cholera. It is a matter of only an hour or two before he will leave us for Heaven. The doctors have already told me that his case is simply hopeless. His mother’s heart is breaking with grief. I have come here for your compassionate help. Many times you have saved the members of my family from imminent calamities. This time also, please save us. Please save my son. I shall be grateful to you all my life.”
The Master said, “I am sorry, Dinesh. You are my disciple, and I would have been more than ready to cure you if you yourself had been attacked by cholera. But your son has not accepted our path. He does not even care for the spiritual life. Therefore, I cannot be of any help to him .”
“Master, Master, he is my only son. I do have three daughters, but he is my only son. Do you mean that I must lose him now? Please don’t be so cruel to me. Master, I am fully aware of your occult powers. Please do me a favour, and this will be absolutely the last thing you will ever have to do for me. Please save my son and let me take his cholera. I have lived a long life already. For an old man like me to depart from this world means nothing. But my son, who is now in the prime of his youth, must enjoy the world and offer his mite to the world. Master, I beg of you, please grant me this last boon. Let me die of cholera immediately, and cure my son of this fatal attack.”
The Master remained silent. Moments later a young disciple came in and bowed to the Master.
He was calm and quiet. The Master said to him, “Mahesh, you are the third person to come late today. The first two had serious problems in their families. What prevented you from coming on time?”
“Master, I too have a serious problem. Last night my father suffered a severe stroke. His case is quite serious, but I leave his fate entirely to God’s Will and your Will. I am sure you and God will do what is best for him, for his soul.”
The Master said, “Mahesh, I am extremely proud of your unconditional surrender. How I wish to have more disciples of your type!”
“Master, since I have left my father’s fate at your feet, since I have made this unconditional surrender, will you not tell me what is going to happen? Will my father survive or not?”
“Mahesh, my son, why such curiosity? On the one hand you want God’s Will and my will to prevail, but on the other hand you are consumed with the desire to know your father’s fate. Is this not a deplorable contradiction?”
“Master, you just said that I have made unconditional surrender, and that I am the only one who has made that kind of surrender. Undoubtedly I have pleased you. Master, it has taken me seven long years to please you in your own way. Just because I have pleased you in a situation as grave as this, will you not condescend to please me by telling me what is going to happen to him?”
“All right, Mahesh, let me feed your curiosity. Tomorrow your father is going to die.”
Mahesh immediately burst into tears and cried, “Impossible! My father cannot die! You have to cure him. If you don’t cure him I shall leave you. Not only that, but I shall speak ill of you. I shall tell people that you have blackmailed me. I shall tell them you have taken thousands of dollars from me with the promise that you would give me salvation and realisation, and now that I don’t have any money left you have thrown me out of your ashram.”
The disciples were simply shocked at this. One young man stood up, grabbed Mahesh, and attempted to throw him out of the meditation room. But the Master interrupted him.
“Stop, stop! ” he cried. “My forgiveness is infinitely more powerful than my sense of justice. Let Mahesh stay.”
Then he turned to Snigdha, whose daughter had been in the car accident, and said, “Snigdha, your magnanimous heart deserves special consideration from me. I shall save your daughter and her friends with my occult and spiritual power. But I tell you, if you had left their fate to God’s Will, I would have been extremely happy and proud of you.”
Then the Master said to Dinesh, “You want to sacrifice your own life to save your son. This kind of sacrifice is quite unusual. For one to give his life for another is very, very rare. For your sacrifice I am truly proud of you, and therefore I am going to save your son with my occult power. But one thing I wish to tell you: I would have been infinitely more proud of you if you had offered the fate of your son to God’s Will.”
Finally the Master spoke to Mahesh. “It is infinitely better to desire sincerely than to make false unconditional surrender. You know that your act of deception will be ridiculed by all and sundry. But I forgive you, my son. To be unconditionally surrendered has always been the most difficult thing on earth. Again, I wish to illumine you with my compassion. Do not give up the spiritual life just because you have deceived me today, just because people will mock you for a time. Be sincere. No sincere effort goes in vain. In the distant future you are bound to make true unconditional surrender, for without that, no human being has ever reached or will ever reach the transcendental Height.”
Then the Master asked all the disciples to come up to him one by one for his blessing.
One day a great spiritual Master said to his dearest disciple Gokul, “My son, you have now equalled me in spirituality. You have inner Peace, Light and Bliss in boundless measure. I want you to leave my ashram and open one of your own.”
Gokul burst into tears and said, “Master, Master, this can never be. I can never leave you, and I shall never leave you. You are my life. You are my soul. You are my goal. You are my all.”
The Master said, “Son, two lions cannot live together in one den. One has to move into another den. You are not getting the opportunity to flourish here.”
“Master, who wants to flourish? Not I! Not in the least! I came into the world only to serve you, not to equal you. It was your mistake that enabled me to equal you. I beg to be excused one hundred percent, but to tell the truth, what you say about my spiritual status equalling yours, I take with a grain of salt.”
“You don’t believe me? Don’t you know it is a great insult when you don’t believe your Master?”
“Master, you are my heart’s love. I believe you in everything else. Only when you say that I have equalled you in the spiritual life do I have some reservations.”
“Son, I wish to tell you that if you do not believe in everything I say and do, then it is as meaningless and useless as not believing in anything I say or do.”
“Master, Master, please don’t scold me. I believe you and I shall believe you implicitly in everything you say and do.”
The Master gave Gokul a broad and blessingful smile.
“Master, may I ask you for a favour?”
“Certainly, my son. If it is within my capacity I shall, without fail, fulfil your desire.”
“Master, in your ashram there are many who are literally dying to go out and open ashrams for you.”
“Gokul, I cannot allow just anyone to open an ashram for me. I know what their standards are.”
“Master, they are crying to open centres for you and you don’t allow them to do so, whereas I wish only to be at your feet all the time but you want to send me out to open an ashram. What an irony of fate, Master.”
“Son, there is a great difference between the Master’s asking a particular disciple to open an ashram for him and the disciple’s wanting to open an ashram for the Master without his permission. Those who open ashrams for the Master without his express permission, most of the time are carried away by their blind egos. In the name of the Master they secretly aggrandise their own egos and fulfil their secret motives most effectively. In this case, I am asking you to open an ashram of your own, in your own name and not in mine.”
“Master, in that case it is infinitely worse.”
“Not at all, my son. I know that you have realised the highest Truth, just as I did many years ago. Since you have realised the Truth, you are more than qualified to run an ashram of your own and kindle the flame of aspiration in thousands of sincere seekers, as I have been doing for the last two decades.”
“Master, for me to open an ashram of my own and not an ashram of yours, under your guidance, is simply impossible.”
“You give me the feeling that you are ready to open an ashram in my name.”
“Not exactly, Master. But if you want me to make a choice between opening an ashram in my own name or one in your name, needless to say I shall immediately agree to open an ashram for you. But if you want me to make a choice between staying at your feet like a most faithful dog and leaving the ashram to open an ashram for you, I shall without fail try to stay at your feet all my life.”
“Son, don’t you understand that if the qualified people do not offer their service to those in need of it, then this world of ours will never be flooded with Peace and Light?”
“Master, I fully understand it. But the human in me is as attached to you as the divine in me is devoted to you. It is simply impossible for me to go and live elsewhere.”
“Son, since you are so reluctant to listen to my request, I shall let you go this time. But I shall send you back into this world three times to work for God; whereas if you listen to me this time, it will be a matter of only a few years that you will have to work for God. For I will make this incarnation absolutely your last.”
“Master, is it so? Then I am ready to go out and work for God and for you for the last few years of my life. But you have to keep your promise that I shall not have to come back into the world, since you have told us that you will not take any more incarnations. I wish to be always at your feet. But Master, I tell you, just as it is difficult for me to leave you, so also will it be difficult for you to get rid of me, for I am your eternal dog.”
“Son, you are not my dog but my God, who can never leave me no matter how many ways I try to make you leave me. Son, it is not the disciple in you that does not want to leave me but the ever-affectionate God in you who does not want to leave me and can never leave me. Son, to lose to you is to win on an infinitely higher plane of consciousness, and to claim you as my Eternity’s Pride, Infinity’s Heart and Immortality’s Smile.”
“Master, Master, what is wrong with you? Why are you so upset?”
“You rascal! What have you done?”
“What have I done, Master? I have just sat on your bed, just for a fleeting second, and for that you have to be so upset?”
“You rascal! What kind of audacity do you have?”
The Master removes the sheet and starts tearing it to pieces.
“Master, Master, don’t tear it. Right now I shall go to the store and buy you a new sheet. Just leave it, please.”
The disciple goes to the shop and buys a new sheet. Then he offers it to the Master.
“Thank you, but don’t do it again.”
“Master, you have told us many times that you are the garbage collector and we can always throw our impurities into you. How is it that this time, when I just sat on your bed for a second, you became so furious? That means you don’t really take our impurities, you just say you do.”
“You fool! I always tell the truth. But listen: every night I speak to God on my bed. We sit there together and talk, and the cosmic gods sit on my bed, too. My bed is like a holy shrine. You have defiled it with your impurity.”
“O Master, I didn’t know that God and the cosmic gods sit on your bed. I am sorry that I have done it. But I am also proud that it is I who have sat on your bed where God and the cosmic gods sit every night! Master, you can punish me; no matter what kind of punishment you want to give, I will be happy to accept it.”
The Master becomes furious. “I will not give you any punishment, but you must not enter into my bedroom any more.”
“Master, Master, tell me one thing. I sat on your bed, true. So why do you want to discard only the sheet? What about the blankets and the pillow and mattress?”
“Yes, you are right. But what can I do? I don’t have the money to replace them.”
“Then, Master, I am going to the shop to bring you new blankets, a new pillowcase, a new pillow and everything new.”
The Master says to the disciple, who is a young man of thirty-eight, “Only you can do this kind of nonsense!”
“Yes, Master, I am very sorry that I have created such a problem for you.”
The disciple goes out and buys a new pillow, new blankets, a new mattress, everything new for the Master, and presents them to him.
“Thank you.”
“You are more than welcome, Master. But Master, what about the bed itself, the frame? There also my impurity has entered, has it not?”
“Yes, it has entered, but I don’t have the money to buy a new frame.”
“Oh Master, don’t worry. I am going to offer you a new one.”
The disciple goes out and buys a new bed and offers it to the Master.
The Master is extremely happy. He says, “I thank you most deeply.”
“Master, there is one thing I don’t understand.”
“You will never understand anything.”
“Master, it is my hand that has touched your new sheet, your pillow, your pillowcase, your blankets and your mattress. Everything that belongs to this new bed, my hand has already touched once. So, Master, are they not impure? The things that you are going to use now are all impure, are they not? How is it that you are going to use them? Is it just because they are new?”
“No, it is not because they are new. You people are impurity incarnate, especially you. But I have the power to purify everything that you touch.”
“But, Master, a few hours ago when I sat on your bed you got so furious. You could have purified it then instead of taking all these new things. I don’t mind spending money on you. On the contrary, it is a great honour for me to give you material things. But you could easily have purified your bed then and you would not have had to take all these things from me.”
“Look here, in this world when I use something regularly, that very thing embodies my consciousness, my light, my purity, my power. Everything that is divine is embodied by that particular thing. Now, I have been using this old bed for the last four years. The moment you sat on my bed, your impure, undivine consciousness entered into the pure, divine consciousness of the bed. Why should I have to go through the trouble of purifying the bed? If you had had a little respect and devotion for me, you would never have dreamed of sitting on my bed.
“True, I take your impurities, I take impurities from every disciple. But that does not mean that the disciple will consciously and deliberately desecrate the place or thing that already embodies my solid purity and divinity. One thing is for the Master consciously and deliberately to take impurities from a disciple; another thing is for the disciple deliberately, out of sheer malice, to destroy the purity of the Master’s belongings.”
“Master, I shall tell you my supreme secret. I had a most sincere desire. I wanted to offer you a new bed, a new sheet, a new pillow and mattress and new blankets — everything new, because I thought that if you accepted my offering everybody would come to know of it and everybody would appreciate and admire me, and I would be extolled to the skies. I would be able to say, ‘My Master is using the bed I offered to him. He is so kind to me.’ I thought this would be an easy way to get appreciation and admiration from my brother and sister disciples. For me to spend a few dollars is nothing. As you know, Master, you have blessed me with material wealth. So Master, that was the reason why I sat on your bed.”
“You fool! You deliberately deceived me. When you try to deceive someone you may at times succeed and you may at times fail. You succeeded this time with me. But if you had been sincere right from the beginning, if you had prayed to me to accept a new bed from you, do you think that I would have refused you? No. When you are sincere you get not only the thing you want, but also something more, something beyond your imagination.”
“Master, what would you have given me had I been sincere?”
“My son, if you had been sincere from the beginning, I would have said, ‘That is a splendid idea. And I shall give you my bed for your own use. Many cosmic gods, as well as God Himself, have sat and talked with me on this bed. Now I offer it to you with our deepest blessings.’ So, if you are sincere, not only do you get what you want, but you are likely to get something infinitely more, something far beyond your imagination. Be sincere. ”
Published in The Master Surrenders
