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| Baba Muktananda and Siddha Nityananda |
(from "Bhagawan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri"):
Baba Muktananda: Although the Guru has great gifts to give us, he can give them to us only when we become worthy of receiving them. I can tell you this from my own experience. For several years I kept coming and going from my Baba's place. When I was there, I would become restless, so I would leave and go somewhere else for a while. The reason for this was ego and pride. Nityananda was a being who loved to challenge others, and I was a person who was too proud. At his place people used to line up, waiting for hours to receive something from him. He was always established in the supreme state. Sometimes he would return to the normal state of awareness in a particular mood, pick up something, call someone close to him, and give him that. Whatever prasad he gave people was like a wish-fulfilling tree that would fulfill all their desires. I waited to see if I would receive anything...Nothing - not even a glass of water.
Sometimes he would pick up something and say, "Come here" and I would go running. Then he would say, "Not you. I am calling someone else." In that way, he would insult me in front of everyone again and again, and I would die. The bigger my ego was, the worse the insults became. This went on for several years. He kept working on me, and I kept coming and going. I would leave, but then I would miss him and come back. He would work on me some more and I would leave. But I would remain tranquil, thinking, "If I get something, that's fine; and if I don't get anything, that's fine too/" The more my Guru tested me, the more I advanced in my sadhana. No matter how much he tested me, I did not look for faults in him. Instead, I looked for my own faults. I asked myself, What do I lack? What are my shortcomings?
Finally, after a long time, he gave me something, and through his grace, I attained what I had been seeking. But it was only after I had become a disciple that I was able to receive a gift.
We cannot attain the full grace of the Guru unless we become disciples. The great saint Brahmananda said, "Become ashes at the Guru's feet, and then you will meet God." We have to allow the Guru to work on us, we have to dissolve our ego and pride at his feet. We may adopt a particular Guru and keep his picture on our wall and feel something when we look at it. We may have certain experiences when we meet that Guru. But if we want to be totally transformed, if we want our heart to be washed of all the filth that has accumulated there, if we want to attain everything that Guru has to give, we have to offer ourselves to the Guru without reservation. This is what it means to become a disciple. Just as you give a piece of clothing to a launderer and let him do whatever has to be done, you have to give yourself to the Guru completely and permit him to remold and reshape you in whatever way he likes.
What does giving yourself to the Guru mean? It does not mean having to stay very close to him or having to give him all your money or having to leave your family and your family and your job and follow him wherever he goes. Nor does it mean becoming small and wretched, expecting someone to take care of you. To give yourself to the Guru means to constantly try to imbibe the Guru's instructions.
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