Siddharth: Why did God make everything so complicated? This path to liberation is very complex…
Maharaj: It’s not complex at all. Everything is very simple. Although we think it’s complex. It’s just that in this world, grains of wheat don’t turn into bread by themselves, they need to be ground into flour, kneaded into dough, and baked into bread. Loaves of bread won’t fall on your head from above. In this world, everything is accomplished through work. To perform work, God has provided you with everything and given you tools: body and mind. You just need to get to work. Why were you given hands, why were you given mind? So that you could use them and do your work. You were given the higher mind buddhi for thinking and making decisions. Don’t you want to use this gift? After all, it was given to you to use. Look at mechanical watches, they don’t work by themselves. How many screws and gears they have. How many parts and wires in a mobile phone. Each part has its own meaning, its own purpose. And if you know how to use them, everything becomes simple.
Siddharth: You say it’s simple. But to me it seems like heavy work that requires enormous efforts.
Maharaj: You will experience difficulties as long as your manas is fixated on samsara. Yes, until then it’s difficult. But as soon as you turn the mind away from samsara, everything will begin to come to you naturally. When you wander through jungles without knowing the way, it’s very hard for you. You’ll wander until exhaustion. But as soon as you know the way out, it immediately becomes easy.
Siddharth: Sometimes because of attachments it’s very difficult to get on the right path, even if it’s already been shown to you. For example, even seva and nama-japa-chintan, which you recommend, seem very difficult for a lazy person like me.
Maharaj: A lazy person won’t achieve anything. You must overcome laziness. Mother Earth always says that holding high mountains is not heavy for her, but carrying a lazy person is very heavy. A lazy person is doomed to failure.
Siddharth: Well, actually in some matters I’m not so lazy. For example, I take up work with great joy and enthusiasm when I need to conduct an interview like this one now, or translate some interesting and useful book. But there are types of activities that simply don’t interest me. For example, sweeping floors.
Maharaj: This is pride speaking in you. You find it beneath you to sweep floors. Boring and uninteresting. This is understandable. But on the path of yoga, one shouldn’t hurry and try to fly to the clouds immediately. In conquering manas, one must act gradually, at the speed of an ant crawling along a path, moving from one twig to another, not rushing to the clouds like a bird. Don’t jump, don’t hurry, first master one thing, accept changes, then move forward. Such is the path of yoga – it’s not done in leaps and bounds, it’s a progressive process. You need to take on the work that life places before you on your path. You need to gradually learn new things and abandon old preferences and ideas.
Remember: when you do a good deed, even if it’s not very prestigious or interesting, by bringing benefit to others in a moment of need, you yourself attain happiness. The more good and mercy you create, the more good rains down on you. To those who do seva without expectations of reward, the Lord gives everything necessary and more. The fruit never remains in the roots, it grows and ripens on the branches in its own time.
During the Ashwamedha yajna ceremony conducted by the Pandavas, there was much work, everyone had to take on certain duties. And Krishna chose for himself the duty of clearing dirty dishes from tables and pouring water on people’s hands so they could wash them after eating. And this was the Lord Himself! For a sevak there is no unprestigious work. All seva is equally honorable and important – whether you serve in a temple or clean toilets. Seva is seva, in any form. Its value is measured by necessity.
Siddharth: The other day you said that seva can be very different. It can come from body, mind, word and thought. After all, what I do is also a kind of seva?
Maharaj: Of course, any kind of activity can be seva – whether it’s physical work, intellectual labor or work connected with word and communication. It can also be service for the benefit of plants, animals, birds, not just people. Singing devoted to God is also a form of seva.
Look at ISKCON representatives. They walk the streets, sing songs in praise of God, chant the mantra «Hare Rama Hare Krishna,» and this too is a form of seva. That’s why they have so many centers around the world. They are devoted to their path and always look happy. Indeed, when you serve the Lord in one way or another, you are happy inside.
You can do seva in thoughts too. Even if you repeat God’s Name silently – this is also seva. There are three types of seva – from body, from word, from thought. Though, no matter how you look at it, any type of seva is still connected with the activity of the body. Moreover, even if the body has no strength left, you can still do seva – sing mantras, bhajans and kirtans.
Siddharth: So there’s no direct path to God? For example, coming to a Guru and asking: Maharaj, please give me a direct experience of Divine presence! Maybe not self-realization, but at least a glimpse of God, so that through this experience I could, for instance, rid myself of pride and attain vairagya…
Maharaj: Everything is by Shiva’s will. And if you concentrate on God with love, devotion and faith, on repeating His Name, on seva, then He Himself will reveal His face to you. You will see Him and be able to perceive Him directly. You will have direct experience. But in our tradition, it’s forbidden to artificially induce this direct experience of God in people. It’s considered criminal to do this, for example, to advertise an ashram, to talk about how we can give such magical experience… This is a very personal experience for everyone. So we don’t do these tricks and don’t give direct experience of communion with the Divine. Look around you: how many flowers, trees, plants, what diversity of forms, what amazing play of colors – red, white, green, yellow! These flowers, these fruits that surround you – is this not a miracle, is this not a manifestation of Divine creation?! All nature that surrounds you is that very image of God that you so want to see for a moment.
Siddharth: Interesting, why in your lineage is this considered a crime? After all, there are Gurus who give disciples their first acquaintance with Divinity, this glimpse of «Anubhuti.» And thanks to this experience, the disciple receives a kind of reference point, a starting point, and now knows exactly what to strive for, which direction to go. For example, in these lineages they give shaktipat11.
Maharaj: Shaktipat is given only if the disciple is ready for it and worthy of it. It doesn’t happen that a Guru gives shaktipat at the very first meeting. One must walk a long path of sadhana, special preparation, accumulate special powers and endurance, reach a certain level of understanding. Only this way and no other. Sometimes after receiving shaktipat, unprepared people go mad. If a person hasn’t walked the path of sadhana, they can lose their mind, unable to bear the power