Master – The Master Surgeon

A Master is a person who removes the ultimate cancerous tumor that happens to our being, which I call Ego.

A Master does surgery on that tumor. He never allows you to be stuck or comfortable with anything less than the enlightened state. Even when we start progressing spiritually, at some point, without knowing it, we get stuck in some layer and remain there with suffering. In all these situations, the Master will push us again and again to move forward. He never rests until he transforms our whole life.

Whenever a surgeon comes with a knife, we think he is going to hurt us but the knife of a surgeon is not for killing. It is for healing. In Bharat, Gods have swords and many other weapons, that symbolically and metaphysically, represent that they are surgeons who will remove our ego. Goddess Kali has a big knife in one hand and a severed head in the other. The severed head represents the ego and the sword represents the knowledge or the wisdom that has destroyed the ego.

Let me narrate an incident that explains how the Master takes care of the disciples and never lets them get stuck at any level. Not only that, even when the disciples feel cozy and secure, the Master shakes them up and makes them aware that what they think of as security is actually just another way of getting stuck, and that they should move forward.

This is an incident from Sri Ramakrishna's life. He was a great spiritual Master from the last century who, in turn, had a Master called Totapuri. Ramakrishna used to meditate on a particular form of the goddess Kali and was living his life happily with that form. Suddenly, one day, Totapuri, an old monk, appeared and asked him to go beyond the form of Kali and not meditate on it. Totapuri was a Master of advaita, non-dualism, which is based on the formless reality that the individual is one with the Divine.

Ramakrishna was surprised. He said, 'The form of Mother Kali is so beautiful that I feel totally connected to it. Why should I not meditate on it?' Totapuri replied, 'Forms are always ephemeral; only if you go beyond it will you experience the eternal bliss of the Universal consciousness.'

When you meditate on a form, you feel comfortable. You can project your entire ego on that form and feel satisfied. If you want a caring and loving mother, or if you are missing a caring, loving father, you can always project that onto the form you worship and think of it as a caring, loving father or mother. The more strongly you visualize, the more the visualization will become a reality.

Ramakrishna felt what he was so strongly visualizing was reality. He was happy but it wasn't the ultimate truth. So Totapuri did not allow him to stay there with his ephemeral happiness but inspired him to go beyond the form into the formless, which is Eternal Bliss. He advised him, in fact forced him, to visualize destroying the form, in order to have the formless experience. Ramakrishna was an intelligent disciple. He did as he was told and reached Eternal Bliss.

The Master ensures that we are not stuck anywhere and that we reach the ultimate. That is why in the East, so much importance is given to the Master. The West only knows about teachers. The idea of a spiritual Master exists very meagerly in the West. However, in the East, gurukul, or the traditional schooling system that imparts spiritual education at the feet of great Masters, is very popular. Even the regular non-spiritual education was received only from Masters, not from teachers.

The difference between a Master and a teacher is this; a teacher is a person who knows intellectually, while a Master is a person who knows experientially, who has experienced what he is speaking, the truth. Ancient Hindu kings, if they wanted to learn archery, would go to a Master.

Everything, including art and science, has a sutra, an aphorism. At the age of seven, a child would be initiated into meditation, which he would practice until fourteen. If he had his first spiritual experience by then, he would study Brahmasutra, the great literary work which imparts advanced spiritual truths, and take up monkhood, sannyas. Otherwise, he would study the intricacies of life through the study of Kamasutra (the science of sex appropriate to married life) and enter into married life.

Everyone was happy, because they were properly guided by enlightened Masters to live a life that was best suited for them.

A teacher teaches through verbal language, while a Master teaches through body language.

It is known now that ninety percent of communication happens through body language alone. The direct touch and presence of a Master can transform and awaken a person by creating such a space within him.

• • Let me narrate a beautiful story which Vivekananda, a great Master from Bharat, used to narrate: There was a lioness in a forest, close to giving birth any day. One day she was searching for food. She saw a herd of goats and ran towards them. While attacking the goats, she gave birth to a lion cub and died. The cub was left orphaned with nobody to attend to him.

The goats looked at him, felt pity for the helpless cub and took it with them and raised it. And, of course, the cub started living like a goat, drinking goat's milk and eating grass! The cub believed that it, too, was a goat. You see, purely based on our upbringing, we have an idea about ourselves.

Anyhow, after awhile, a lion attacked the goatherd. When he saw the lion cub, he was astonished! He wondered how on Earth a lion cub was living with a goatherd, eating grass and drinking goat's milk. He stopped chasing the goats and went away.

The next day he returned, determined to find the lion cub. He watched the cub from a distance and when he found that it had strayed away from the goatherd, he simply picked it up and took it away from the goats.

The cub pleaded with the lion not to kill it. The lion tried his best to convince the cub that his aim was not to kill it. He also told the cub that it was not a goat but a lion. The cub was gripped by terror of the lion and refused to believe both the statements. He pleaded to be left with the goatherd. The lion left it but was determined to make it understand who it really was.

Over time, when the lion did not attack the herd, the cub started trusting the lion and allowed itself to be taken away by the lion. It even started getting attached to it. One day the lion took the cub to a nearby river for a picnic. He slowly took it to the river and showed it its reflection. He asked if it could see that his own reflection and that of the cub were the same. The cub looked at the reflection and remained silent. The lion took the opportunity and made him eat a piece of meat. The cub swallowed the piece of meat, and suddenly dropped his fear and let out a roar!

This is exactly what happens between the Master and us. When we see the Master, and he says we are not as we think we are, that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience, not only are we not ready to believe this, but we are acutely uncomfortable as well. We feel he is preaching his ideas and trying to convert us. We get frightened and want to run away.

As long as he is joking around, it is fine but, when he starts telling us some truths about ourselves, we get frightened. We want to be happy with our goatherd; we want to be stuck with our regular life of wife, children, work, pain and pleasure. So the master also plays the game and tries to raise in us the trust in him. He acts like a goat to make us comfortable and feel that he is one among us. After some time passes, he catches us and tries to give us the same truths. This time, we listen to him with lesser resistance, although we are still resistant but, by now also, we start thinking of the Master more than we can help. We feel an attraction to him despite our fear. We start remembering him, his presence, his words. He becomes almost a part of our being but still, we are not ready to accept what he says; we play a game of hide and seek.

At some point, when he sees that he has instilled a strong trust in us, he catches us and shows us that we are the same as him! He shows us that we, too, can realize the truth and eventually be like him. He forces us to experience that we are lions. That's what I call initiation, or the first experience! He forces us to experience that we are lions but, even after that experience, people deny it.

Eventually, the Master makes us experience our true nature and gives us the ultimate freedom. Then and only then, do we realize that we were always a lion! He only shows us what we already are but can't see. It is a beautiful game that he plays so patiently, so compassionately, despite our resistance and lack of trust in him.

We don't have to become something new, we just need to wake up and realize our true nature. The Master never allows us to stop at any step. Again and again, he inspires and takes us to higher levels of conscious experiences, till we realize we are That, till we realize our true potentiality, the Ultimate Truth.

-A small Zen story:

A disciple grew up with the Master from young age. He used to imitate the Master. The Master, while speaking, always did a certain action with his hand, by making a fist with the thumb pointing up. The disciple, too, would do the same when the Master gave discourses.

One day the Master took a sword and cut his hand off! The disciple had so much trust in the Master that, without any doubt, he felt whatever the Master did must be good for him. That very trust transported him to a higher level of consciousness and he suddenly experienced enlightenment. The other disciples, who took care of him, asked the Master why the disciple had to lose a few fingers to get enlightened. The Master said, 'People lose many lives to get enlightened, so losing a few fingers to become enlightened is not so bad!'

This is the ultimate trust in the Master. It is beautiful purely by virtue of its purity.

• -Another small Zen story which I want to tell: A Zen Master was walking on the third floor balcony of a building, with the disciple walking behind him, asking for guidance to become enlightened. Suddenly, the Master turned and pushed him off the balcony. The disciple was so deeply connected to the Master that he felt there must be something good in what the Master did. While falling down, he felt like he was floating. The story says that, when he touched the ground, he touched heaven. He became enlightened!

These stories clearly show that pure trust in the Master is enough; nothing more is needed. The Master never allows anyone to get stuck with ordinary experiences. Even though we may call it a spiritual experience, only when we stop

experiencing anything, do we enter into the real spiritual experience. Only in such an experience, the experiencer, the experienced and the experience all disappear into one; all three merge into the experience. Only 'we' remain. Even the word 'we' can't be used since there is no other. All boundaries are lost!

Unless that experience of tat tvam asi, 'That art thou' happens, the Master never rests. The Master is the ultimate Master surgeon who removes the ego at all levels, physical, emotional and spiritual. People have spiritual egos when they have a 'holier than thou' attitude. The Master will never allow you to be stuck in this area especially. He will push you forward till you experience the Ultimate. The more you allow his surgery to happen, the more you will realize the truth. A few people run away from the operating table during surgery. That is dangerous. Before surrendering to the Master, you can do the entire checking, verifying, windowshopping etc., but once you surrender to him and he starts the surgery on you, you have to allow him to work on you.

It will be painful, the surgery. Unless he hurts you, he cannot perform the surgery but the hurt is only because of your own tumours, your own ego. And he knows exactly where the tumours are. He will place his hands exactly where the tumours are. That is the problem!

So, let us pray to the ultimate Master, the divine Existence, the cosmic energy, to do the Master surgery on us to give us eternal bliss – nithyananda!

Q) How does an enlightened person react to the physical environment?

A) In the same way that an ordinary person does. There is a beautiful statement: before enlightenment, a mountain is a mountain, a tree is a tree, a river is a river; while seeking, a mountain is not a mountain, a tree is not a tree, a river is not a river; the seeker is confused about them. After enlightenment, again, a mountain is a mountain, a tree is a tree, a river is a river! After enlightenment, things seem to be the same; the enlightened person sees it all from a different plane. A normal person always sees things in a distorted way, as he wants to see them.

• -A small story: An old lady who was particularly obsessed about looking good, walked into the beauty parlour one day. She asked for the beautician and started chatting with her. The beautician was a very practical lady and told her not to be worried so much about her physical appearance and that it was enough if she looked neat and presentable. The old lady said, 'No, you don't know. My latest problem is I am getting wrinkles around my eyes.' The beautician looked at her and said, 'I have a solution for that!' The old lady asked her eagerly, 'What is it, tell me. I don't care how much it costs.' The beautician replied, 'Just take off your glasses when looking into the mirror!'

Everything depends on how you see it! Perception is what makes each one's world different from the other. You can make or break things with your perception. Depending on where each one is stuck, the world can cause havoc on them. An enlightened person, on the other hand, sees things as they are, with neither hatred nor attachment, with neither greed nor detachment. That is why they live a liberated life while they are living.