Conversations with Sri Swamiji – 25

To many of us, spirituality means a whole bunch of complex things – To be in a spiritual path means that one needs to read numerous texts and master them, perform and practice certain routines regularly and so on.

It takes a Uttama Guru to make it simpler for us, and explain it to us in a way that we understand, with tremendous compassion and forbearance, no matter how obstinate the questioner is.

And when it comes to our beloved Sadguru Maharaj, he conveys it to us in simple and measured words, each of which is enormously pregnant with meaning, and he does it effortlessly!

I wish to narrate a nice conversation between His Holiness and me, on this subject…

When I met Sri Swamiji, I said, ‘As a neophyte in spiritual life, to begin with, I need to learn basics of Sanskrit and Divyaprabhandham, perform ‘thiruvaaraadhanam’ at home, learn some music, Bhagavatam, Ramayanam etc. – lots and lots to do! Certainly I can’t do everything with available time as I am a hardcore ‘loukika’ (involved in this worldly materialistic sense-gratifying life being a salaried employee). How should I prioritize these activities in the time that I have available, Swamiji?’

Sri Swamiji, after a moment of silence, answered, ‘In your life, identify a Mahatma and just maintain his satsanga. That alone is enough to give you liberation.’

Being an theistic-atheistic that I was, I asked, “What if I don’t have ‘vishwasam’ (faith) on that Mahatma that I have seen?
I was actually referring to our Guruji Himself, unto whom I didn’t have faith then… and I was trying to be frank with Him.

With compassion, He replied, ‘Did I ever talk about ‘Vishwasam? I just said, maintain his ‘Satsanga’.’