23. Guilt of following another master

Another common guilt is the guilt of following more than one master. Understand, feeling conflict about following different masters is nothing but a conflict inside yourself. There is no real conflict between the real masters. All masters are embodiments of the same energy. The energy is one and the same, there is no need for any conflict.

I always tell people: go around, pluck flowers from any garden and make a nice garland for yourself! But the problem is, people go around to many gardens, but don't pluck flowers from any garden, instead, they collect only thorns! If you are doing only window shopping, you don't learn from any master.

When you sincerely go to many masters, you will learn from all of them and become more intense. Once you become intense, it is better that you stay with only one master so that you start going deep with any one ideology. But if you don't learn anything from any master, it is better to stick to one. After all, what are you going to learn from so many masters that you can't learn from one? It means you are only a window shopper. Going to the first master itself is wrong if you are doing just window shopping. You will only be troubling him and troubling yourself. If you feel the master is only a teacher and not the path, just leave him.

The thumb rule is, if he is really your master, your heart will simply fall, you won't even think of anyone else!

Meditation techniques

1. Relive to relieve

Re-living is relieving. The best way to relieve yourself of guilt is to relive it. Sit in a meditative mood. Close your eyes and one by one bring to surface each of your guilts. Relive the wounds completely. Do not console yourself about the guilt. Open your eyes and write it all down in detail. Write in as detailed a way as possible. You will see that you are free from all the guilt feelings that you are carrying.

2. From head to heart

Sit down and close your eyes. Take slow and deep breaths, just for a few minutes. Along with it, feel that your head is being pressed into your heart, into the chest region. Become totally headless. You have no head now. You are headless.

Feel that you are breathing from the heart. Feel that you are seeing through the heart. Feel that you are smelling through your heart. Feel very clearly that you are breathing through the heart. Listen through the heart, see through the heart and feel through the heart.

Stand up. Have the consciousness from the heart and let your movements be as slow as possible. Don't walk. Just move your body around slowly. Remember that you are moving from the heart. Your center is the heart, not the head. Again and again, forget the head. Move from the heart. Remember you are a headless being.

Stand in one place. Now increase the speed slowly, very slowly. Remember to move from the heart, not from the head. Forget your head. You are a headless being moving.

(After few minutes)

Sit down where you are. Just be without the head. Sit only with your heart. Relax.

(After few minutes)

Slowly, very slowly, open your eyes.

3. Be a witness

The sure way to handle any emotion including guilt is to be a witness. Just watch it. Hindus* call it being a sakshi, Sufis* call it sahada. Don't do anything. Anything done under the impact of a negative emotion is bound to be wrong. Later guilt will arise. Just be a watcher, a witness. See it. It is there. You are not it. You are only the witness. You will be surprised how it goes away. It cannot be there forever. By its very nature, the mind will change state. In a few minutes the guilt will go and leave no trace behind that it ever existed.

Hindus - Followers of the Hindu religion, estimated at over a billion people. Sufis - Followers of Sufism, a mystical dimension of Islam.

LIVING ENLIGHTENMENT