Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00088)

The Removal of Sanskaras

Part III
The Wiping Out Of Sanskaras

Love for the Sadguru, or Perfect Master, is particularly important because
it invites contact with the Sadguru. Through such contact the aspirant
receives from the Master impressions that have the special potency of
undoing other past impressions,
Impressions from Sadguru transform life thus completely transforming the
tenor of his life. The recipient of the impressions may entirely give up old
habits of life and ways of thought. Such contact changes and elevates the
tone of the most depraved life. A person might have been leading a life of
reckless dissipation without ever thinking of anything other than the
fulfillment of mundane desires. He might have been caught up in the thirst
for possession and power, with no ideal other than that of acquiring and
hoarding money and making merry.
However, even such a person, who cannot by any stretch of imagination think
of freedom from earthly fetters, may find that the sanskaras he receives
from his contact with the Sadguru are potent enough to drop forever a
curtain on his old manner of thought and existence, and to open for him
entirely new vistas of a higher and freer life. The impressions received
from the Master might be equally beneficial to an intellectual and cultured
person whose vision is nevertheless circumscribed, whose imagination can at
best appreciate the beauty of art and literature, and whose altruism cannot
go beyond the limits of his neighborhood or the boundaries of his country.
Such a person would, on receiving impressions from a Master, be lifted to
still higher modes of life.
The Sadguru can raise the aspirant from the ordinary intellectual level of
consciousness to the level of consciousness where there is inspiration and
intuition, and then onward to the level of insight and illumination that
culminates in his merging
Wiping out all sanskaras through intervention of Sadguruinto the Infinite.
This rising of the aspirant corresponds to his progress from the mundane
sphere to the subtle sphere, from the subtle sphere to the mental sphere,
and finally from the mental sphere to the state of Freedom. The last step
implies complete wiping out of all sanskaras – natural or nonnatural,
positive or negative. To take the analogy of the string wound around a
stick, this process of the wiping out of sanskaras consists in cutting the
string with a pair of scissors. The erasing of all sanskaras, which is
implied in the final release of consciousness from all illusion and bondage,
can never be achieved except through the grace of a Sadguru.
But such active intervention by the Sadguru presupposes an unrestrained
relationship between the aspirant and the Master, which can be established
only when the aspirant succeeds in complete self-surrender to him.
Self-surrender implies
Need for complete self-surrenderobedience to all the orders of the Master.
When all your desires and actions are guided by him and are the result of
your obeying his orders, he becomes directly responsible for them. Thus,
when self-surrender is thorough, the responsibility for your release from
sanskaras is devolved upon the Master; and under this new condition the
Master annihilates all your sanskaras in no time.
Obedience to the Master as implied in full self-surrender is of two kinds:
intellectual and literal. Of these two types of obedience, intellectual
obedience comes first and is a preliminary to literal obedience, which is
more fruitful. When
Intellectual obedienceyou are intellectually convinced about the greatness
and Perfection of the Master, you have love and respect for him but are
unable to follow his orders literally. Reason being the basis of your
conviction, you find it difficult to divorce it from your understanding of
the Master and his orders. As the two are inextricably intertwined with each
other, your reasoned faith holds you within the limits of intellectual
obedience. This phase of the pupil is left undisturbed by the Master, and
all the “pills” of obedience offered by him are intellectualized in order to
suit the pupil’s taste and caliber.
Through intellectual obedience to the Master, you can annihilate all your
sanskaras, provided you are sincere in your logical interpretation of his
orders and in their execution. But the result comes much quicker if your
obedience is literal.
Literal ObedienceLiteral obedience is the effect of the rocklike faith and
deep love that the Master inspires in the pupil through his human appeal.
The overflowing radiance of the Master’s halo and the effulgence of his
purity and compassion are mainly responsible for creating in the pupil an
unswerving faith, which prepares him to follow the Master’s orders
implicitly – irrespective of their satisfying his critical spirit.
Such literal obedience is not even bound by the requirement that the real
significance of the orders should be within the intellectual comprehension
of the pupil, and it is the best type of obedience to which you can aspire.
Through such implicit and unquestioning obedience, all the crooked knots of
your desires and sanskaras are set straight. It is also through such
obedience that a deep link is created between the Master and the pupil, with
the result that there is an unhindered and perennial flow of spiritual
wisdom and power into the pupil. At this stage the pupil becomes the
spiritual son or daughter of the Master, and in due time he or she is freed
from all individualistic and sanskaric ties. Then such a rare one also
becomes a Master.
The Sadguru, or Perfect Master, has a position and power that is unique.
There are many souls in the world who are more or less advanced on the
spiritual path, but there are few who have crossed all six stages of the
internal spheres of consciousness
Role of Sadguruand become one with the infinite source of existence,
knowledge, and bliss. The Sadguru has not only experienced the different
planes of consciousness, but he actually permeates the very being of all
souls because of his having become one with the Infinite. He is the pivot of
universal activity.
In a sense, to him are due all your thoughts and actions, your joys and
sorrows, your frets and fumes, your strengths and weaknesses, your
possessions and surrenderance, and your love and longing. He not only
pervades all existence but is consciously conversant with the cosmic law of
cause and effect and the complex working of the sanskaras of individual
souls. The causes of individual happiness or misery, vices or virtues, are
as much known to him as the causes of cosmic changes and upheavals. Every
being is an open book for the infinite searchlight of his omnipresent
consciousness. Because of his union with the Infinite, the Master is endowed
with unlimited power; and in the twinkling of an eye he can annihilate all
the sanskaras of the soul and liberate it from all entanglements and
bondage.