We continue with the third instalment of this very important text. The previous post in the series may be found here.
The Sufis have in all ages tried their best to train their consciousness. How did they train it? The first training is analysis, and the second training is synthesis. The analytical striving is to analyse and examine one’s own consciousness, in other words one’s own conscience; to speak to one’s conscience, addressing it, “My friend, all my happiness depends on you, and my unhappiness also. If you are pleased, I am happy. Now, to tell you truly, what I like and what not is what is in consonance with your approval.” It is to speak to the conscience as man goes to the priest to make his confessions: “Look here at what I have done. It may be that it is wrong, it may be that it is right; but you know it, you have your share of it. The influence of it on you and your condition is my condition, your realization is my realization. If you are happy, then alone I can be happy. Now, I want to make you happy–how can I make you happy?”
At once a voice of guidance will come from the conscience: “You should do this, and not this; and say this and not this. In this way you should act, and not in this way.” And conscience can give you better guidance than any teacher or book. It is a living teacher wakened in oneself, one’s own conscience. And even the Teachers, the Gurus, the Murshids, their way is to wake the conscience in the pupil: that which has become unclear, confused, to awaken it, to make it clear. Sometimes they adopt such a wonderful way, such a gentle way that even the pupil does not know.
There is an amusing story of a Teacher. A man went to a Teacher and said, “Will you take me as your pupil? The Teacher first looked at him, and then said, “Yes, with great pleasure.”
But the man said, “Think about it before you tell me yes. There are many bad things in me.”
The Teacher said, “What are these bad things?”
The man said, “I like to drink.”
The Teacher said, “That does not matter.”
“But,” the man said, “I like to gamble.” The Teacher said, “That does not matter.”
“But,” he said, “there are many other things, there are numberless things.”
The Teacher said, “That does not matter.” The man was very glad. “But,” the Teacher said, “now I have agreed with all the bad things you have said about yourself, you must agree with one condition.” The disciple said yes. The Teacher said, “Do not do any of these things which you consider wrong in my presence.” The pupil said, “That is easy,” and went away.
And as the days passed and months passed, this pupil who was very deep and developed and keen, came back beaming, his soul unfolding every moment of the day, and happy to thank the Teacher.
The Teacher said, “Well, how have you been?”
“Very well,” he said.
The Teacher said, “Have you done your practices I have given you?”
“Yes,” he said, “very faithfully.”
“But what about the habits you had of going to different places?” the Teacher asked.
“Well,” he said, “very often I tried to go to gamble or to drink, but wherever I went I saw you. You did not leave me alone; whenever I wanted to drink I saw your face before me. I cannot do it.”
That is the gentle way that Teachers handle their disciples. They do not say, “You must not drink, you must not gamble.” They never do. The wonderful way of the Teacher is to teach without words, to correct a person without saying. What the Teacher wants to say, he says without saying; when it is put in words it is lost. You can teach and help as much as you can without words. That is fine; that helps much more.
Now coming to the most important subject of the expansion of consciousness. There are two directions in which to expand; in other words there are two dimensions to expand. The one is outward, the other the inner dimension. One dimension is pictured as horizontal, the other as a perpendicular line. These two dimensions are pictured as a cross, the symbol of the Christian religion. But before the Christian religion existed, in Egypt and Tibet it existed; and today in the ancient pictures of Buddhist and Tibetan symbols you will find the symbol of the cross. One direction is inner, the other direction is without; what is represented by the horizontal line, without; what is represented by the perpendicular line, within. The direction of expanding within is to close the eyes and mind from the outer world, and, instead of reaching out, one should reach within. The soul has an action, to reach out, and upwards, and straight forward, or at the sides, or backward, or in an ellipse. It is like the sun; its light reaches out, it sends currents out. So the soul sends currents out through the five senses. But when the five senses are controlled, when the breath is thrown within, the ears do no more hear and the mouth no more speaks. Then the five senses are directed within. And when once the senses are closed by the help of meditation, then the soul, which has been accustomed to reach outward, begins to reach within; and in the same way as one gets experience and power from the outer world, so one gets experience and power from the inner world. And so it can reach further and further and further, until it has reached its original Source, and that is the Spirit of God. That is one way, the way of reaching within.
Then there is the way of reaching without; that is expanding, which comes by changing the outlook. Because we are narrow, our outlook is narrow. We think, “I am different, she is different.” We are making barriers of our own conception. If we lived and communicated with the souls of all people, of all beings, our horizon would naturally expand so much that we would occupy the sphere unseen. It is in this way that spiritual perfection is attained. Spiritual perfection, in other words, is the expansion of consciousness.
To be continued…