Baba gave me everything—by taking everything away. For that I am so grateful. He shone the truth so brightly that it forced ignorance to run away and die. Wrong knowledge was the food he devoured daily. Our job was not to resist his taking away every delusion we held so dear. And sometimes he grabbed something away from us that we had no idea we were holding onto. In the moments afterward, we cried like small children who have lost an object only we found precious. If we surrendered, the joy and relief were beyond thought, and we were bathed in bliss.
[A] mirror is not kept clean for its own sake, but in order that a man may see himself in it. (Jnaneshwari XVIII.lxiv.1338)
Baba Loved and lived in the Absolute. For our sake, he emerged into relative reality and willingly engaged with our diminished, impure selves. He created dances so that we could see our shrunken condition for ourselves and work with him to get rid of them. So many times, the same lila had to be played out again and again. We just refused to let go of who we weren’t.
Baba was so patient. So patient. I don’t know how he did it. He would carry out a dance over years and still we would refuse to accept the truth. For me, he always had to take it to the extreme to get me to see. And when I finally surrendered, there was so much joy and freedom; I looked so silly to have been holding on for so long. All he wanted to do was to take away what kept each of us from being Muktananda—the Bliss of Freedom.
The Guru tirelessly gives by taking away our wrong understanding. He then incinerates it in his own body so it cannot return. He chooses to take on our karma in order that we will realize the Truth within ourselves.
Truly, the Guru functions as a mirror in which you see your own reflection. In the Guru, you see and attain your own Self. (The Perfect Relationship 87).
Baba always showed us the bliss within us. He was always pointing us in the direction of our own Self. Once we were lucky enough to have the experience of the Self, it was then our responsibility to work with Baba to clean everything that kept us from the Self. So Baba showed us the goal, showed us the path, guided us along the way, and removed the obstacles before us. He revealed how we really can never “attain” anything; rather, we must remove what keeps us from re-cognizing and realizing the Self. How could we not appreciate, honor, and pranam to such a Being?
His joy in Me is like the light reflected back and forth between two polished mirrors. (Jnaneshwari XVIII.lv.1133)
It gave Baba great happiness, though he didn’t have any need of such happiness, to see us give up more of our wrong understanding and find ourselves closer to Muktananda. His goal was that we all realize the Self. And the only way to do that was for each of us to give up the ignorance we clung to so tenaciously. Baba worked for all of us. He Loved all of us. In taking away everything we needed to let go, he gave us everything—so that we, too, could be Muktananda.
By means of a mirror one object may seem to be two; but in point of fact, are there really two? (Jnaneshwari IV.vi.46)
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