Excerpt from Sri Chinmoy's book, The Master and the Disciple.
A spiritual Master comes to you with a boat. He says "Come! if you want to go to the Golden Shore, I will take you. Moreover, once you get into my boat, you can sing in the boat, you can dance, you can even sleep; but I will bring you safely to the Goal.”
For millennia we have been swimming in the sea of ignorance. When we become awakened, we want to swim across that sea into the ocean of Light and Delight. If we know that there is a boatman, and that there is a boat which can safely carry us to our goal, then naturally we will try to get help from him. A genuine spiritual Master knows the way and is bound to help us reach the goal. Like a boatman, he will carry us to the other shore.
If anybody helps you in the outer world—a lawyer or a doctor, for example—he will charge you something. But when the Guru takes you to your goal, he will not take anything for himself. You don’t have to give even an iota of your wealth to the Guru because he has his own infinite wealth. Eventually you will see that it is all the same wealth. His goal, your goal, everybody’s goal is the same: Infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. The spiritual Master says, “You are hungry. I have an infinite supply of the divine food that you want, so I don’t have to take any of yours.”
In human life, if people see that someone has taken help, then they may say, “Oh, he could not do it alone.” But a person who is really hungry for God will say, “No matter who offers the food, I am hungry and I want to eat immediately. This is the food that I have been crying for all my life and he is supplying me with it. As long as he is feeding true Divinity to me, let me eat.”
If you feel that by accepting a Master you are avoiding your own responsibilities, you are making a mistake. For at that time you are separating yourself from your Master. Those who are my very devoted disciples do not feel that they are strangers. They feel their oneness with me. They feel that I have more capacity than they do, so they identify their little capacity with my greater capacity. When they enter into my capacity, they feel that it is their own capacity that they are entering into, for inside me they see all love and concern.
It is only by feeling your oneness with your Master that you can make real progress. If you feel that you are a stranger or an intruder in your Master’s heart, or even if you think that you are just a guest, then you will never succeed in your spiritual life. How long can you stay at your friend’s place as a guest? A few days or a month, and then you will have to go away. Even if you feel that you are coming as a friend, still you may go away. But if you feel that his house is your house, then you are safe, eternally safe.
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