This Monk From India - The Divine Life Society

THE POWER THAT PROTECTS
“Oh, no, you did not lie. A friend came all right, and such a friend too! He was there from the
beginning to the end....When you say ‘A big Pranayama came to me’, it was He too. Nothing can
happen to a sincere seeker. The Guru will always be there to protect him.”
We went in, and during meditation time I thought about it all. Someone had said, “The Guru
knows your subconscious as you will never be able to know. He teaches you that you have to take
obstacles as a help to spiritual growth. He gives you the very tests that will help you to overcome
your very faults.”
How true it was! In that experience I had to face my uncontrollable fear of knives, which
used to be so great that I closed my eyes when I saw a knife in a film-show. It used to be so great that
I always put the knives out of sight even in my kitchen. And then my fear of black men....they seem
so mysterious to me. And most of all, the easy way in which I am repulsed by things or people who
seem ugly to me.
Swamiji often says that repulsion is lack of love. “Don’t find fault with the world outside,
find fault with your own weaknesses. If you surrender to God, He will free you from all the lower
emotions which result from a lack of love. When you overcome obstacles, you will develop will
power. The obstacles themselves will thus turn into opportunities for improving and developing
your will and you will progress faster. If you see the expressions only, if you see the manifestations
only and not the underlying Reality, then you will have likes and dislikes, love and hate, good and
evil. When you see the One in the many and all the expressions as expressions of God, then your
attitude towards everybody becomes alike. Ignorance alone is the cause for separation.”
I came to see that I was not treading the path with my own strength. How could I have
overcome my fears, my very terrible weaknesses in that experience I thought of Chidananda. He
had taken me by the hand, and there was no turning back. I had surrendered to him, how could there
be any danger, any fall But the very next night I was made to realise that I was yet far from being
the ideal devotee. Now, this is what happened.
In the Yoga Centre I was told, “You better disappear for a while. Harry will change, he will
see by now that he has spoken too much.” So I went to the country Centre that very afternoon. And
when night came, I was overcome by fear as I saw a black man in the corridor of my isolated
bungalow. I asked a friend to come and sleep in my room. As I lay on my bed reflecting, I came to
realise that the night before my strength had been great as long as I was upheld by the strength of the
Guru, the strength of Infinity. But now that I was left to the strength of my own individual
personality, I was not fearless anymore. I began to feel that I must not waste time anymore. I had
been so near to death. I realised that life could end at any moment. Then I remembered the story I
had heard Chidananda tell:
“A man was asked to go around the world and to come back and tell his Guru what was the
most extraordinary thing he had found in the whole of creation. After years, he came back and said,
‘The most incredible thing I have seen is that men everywhere see death around them and yet they
never think it will happen to them one day, and they forget to prepare for the journey’.”
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