Many of you may have seen enlightened masters from India on media and be intrigued by their presence and puzzled by their purpose on planet earth. When we don’t understand the context of the masters’ advent on planet earth, we often use the societal conditioning to judge their actions. It is time the world understands a little more about the mystery of enlightened masters.
According to my Master, who is a living incarnation, Paramahamsa Nithyananda,(fondly known as Swamiji), he explained that there are basically three types of enlightened people: The first type is the mystics. They are the ones who are realized but have not necessarily come down with a mission. They live happily with themselves. It doesn’t mean that they have to live in some secluded cave in the Himalayas. They might as well be your next door neighbour. You never know!
The second type is the Masters. They are the ones who have realized and have a mission as well. They go around carrying their message to awaken humanity. They are very much like scientists, except that they are of the inner world. A scientist is one who creates a formula to recreate the same experience which happened to him in the outer world for others to experience. A Master is one who creates a formula to recreate the same experience which happened to him in the inner world for others to experience.
The third type is the Avatars – incarnations. He is above the other two. In fact, avatars are the first two and something more. They do live happily with themselves and they do have a mission. The only difference is that they can put you into the experience straightaway without any formula. All that you need to do is approach them with a deep receptive mood. In fact, even if you don’t have this receptive mood, he will ensure that the experience happens within you.
Someone once asked Swamiji:” Who exactly are you? What are you?”
He replied beautifully: “I am nothing but an invitation for all you guys – for all who are searching, I am the ultimate invitation; for all of those true seekers who want to find their way back; their way back to the source. I am the answer to the ultimate question. You might be wondering what the ultimate question is. It is the question which each and everyone of you has deep within but that which cannot be put into words, cannot be verbalized, because it is not just a question; it is a deep craving to return back to the source, to merge with the source. And because you cannot verbalize this single craving effectively, it expresses itself as hundreds of illogical questions and desires.
Actually, it is a quest, not a question; it is an urgency, not just an urge to know. It is a deep craving, a deep thirst coming from your being; it is the thirst which you have bubbling in each and every cell within but which you cannot find the words to express. I am the answer to this. I am the answer to this inexpressible thing in you; to this quest which you are struggling to fulfil.
Be very clear about one thing: when I say that I am the answer, I am not saying that I can give you the answer. It is more like if you are ready, you can simply take it!
It is like this: I am a lake available to you, a lake of bliss. You see it. The lake cannot jump on you without your effort. You have to jump in. I am ready for you all the time, but you must make the effort to jump; you must take the initial leap. The lake can never jump on you.
You may be thinking, ‘How does he expect me to jump into him?’
Yes, this is a different type of invitation! It is an invitation to a journey where the first leap is the final one because the first leap takes the longest time. And this leap will take you on a long path, on a long journey. And finally, you will see that your journey will end right where you were but on a totally different plane. You will understand how many steps you moved forward on this path to actually reach this new and liberating plane. This is how far you have moved away from yourself. It is amazing how you have simply forgotten your way back to yourself!
So, I am your reminder. I am the reminder of your home.
Understand one thing clearly: I am neither present as you see nor absent as you think. You may see me here talking to you, laughing with you, cracking jokes and what not. But be very clear: I am in a thousand other places with a thousand other people at the same time.
When a person remembers himself, when he knows himself, he has simply disappeared! He is no longer there. The body may be there, but he has gone. There is only the presence; a vibrant presence. This is the presence which can quench your thirst. This is the presence I am talking about.
In one word, I can say that I am the ‘invitation’. I am for those who have a deep longing in their being to know themselves. I am for those who feel that unless they have found themselves, everything becomes meaningless. It has to become your only concern, that you are ready to drop and lose everything for it, but you are unable to drop this one thing.
There will always be desires; there will be thousands of them. But as your being ripens, all of them will simply vanish and only this longing to return home will persist. This will be the only longing. Once you start experiencing just this one thing, you have found it. Then you have found whatever is of any value to be blissful, to be full of ecstasy.
You may have been near many masters, near many realized souls. But at all those times, you were not ready and alert to receive them into your being. You were not aware of your longing to know yourself. The longing did not become a longing. It was still under the cover of illusory desires.
Now, the fire is there in you. This fire needs to be kindled, made more intense. You need to feel the urgency to intensify it, to take quick steps before it dies down, not miss it one more time. When the fire is awakened and kept burning, totality and fulfilment happen and bliss flowers.
So, the invitation is simply to awaken you, to put your being aflame. So just let go and jump. What is there in it? Your whole journey is to lose yourself, to merge with Existence, to drop the questioning mind and merge.
Only when you lose yourself, you have really found yourself.”
I can totally relate with the divine invitation because I am one seeker who has a deep intense longing to know my true Self and to find my way HOME to my kingdom. When a seeker finally meets the master, from the core of the being, he or she will know if that master is the ONE who is going to lead him/her to the Ultimate. There begins the Guru-disciple relationship which is a deep connection between the realized and the unrealized. When the alchemy of inner flowering happens, there will be no difference between the two, only a deep merging exists – the unrealized ones suddenly realise that they were always realized, just that they were not awakened to it! This is the beauty of the Guru-disciple relationship. Namaste 😀