I will tell you a small anecdote from the life of Bouddha. Anand was his main disciple and, by the grace of Boudda, he realised the state of nirvana.
He was so overwhelmed by the experience that he wanted to share his experience with everyone else. “It is so wonderful, everyone must have it,” he exclaimed to Bouddha. In reply, the compassionate Bouddha told Anand, “Yes, I am ready to give nirvana to whosoever asks for it or wants it.” Anand was very happy and he went to the city from door to door telling people that Lord Bouddha was willing to give the wonderful gift of nirvana to anyone who desired it. He came back from the city very disappointed and perhaps quite puzzled. “Why is it that nobody wants such a wonderful gift which Lord Boudda is willing to give to everyone? A gift, which will take them out of darkness and suffering forever?”
I often wondered myself why can’t other people see the Divine in everything, everywhere, for there is no one else, nothing else! Perhaps it is an inherent incapacity with most people because they have not as yet reached that critical point of evolution where this faculty is naturally born. The entire growth of the world is a question of consciousness. To talk of the Divine to people who are not ready is a complete waste of time and energy. The religions, as practised now, have no spirituality or much living experience behind them. In the true spiritual life, that is a life based on living experience, there is no division or separation. The spiritual beings would spontaneously feel one with all others who have the genuine experience as well as with the rest of the world who may not have much experience. This oneness is the very foundation of spirituality. One does not see others as separate from oneself, one feels an unbounded love for all, one wants to do the highest good to all and for all. So, when such feelings of great love come over you, it means a great progress. In the spiritual life, the outward action is of less importance, that is to say what you do outwardly for others. The attitude of absolute good will for all, if it can become the very substance of your consciousness, is ideal and will have much effect on the general consciousness of the world. But even this is not enough. By our surrender, full of love and devotion to the Divine, we can become aware of the precise nature of action in harmony with our being, or it can be stated that as our surrender grows, the Divine more and more takes over our life and its activities and utilises the more and more perfected and awakened instrument for his own purpose in the world, for the divine manifestation. It is a simple experience to feel that our life and the circumstances of our existence are being organised by a most luminous and friendly Person, as our trust and faith in the Divine grows. We have to begin this yoga with the ultimate aim of a total surrender to the Divine. It is a progressive process. It is the constant attitude of surrender that is long and difficult to acquire and maintain. With every act of surrender comes a new liberation, a closer intimacy with the Divine and a greater widening and deepening of the consciousness.
Women have suffered torture, oppression, suppression and subjection through the ages. But in the bargain they have developed an attitude of submission and surrender, an acceptance without question, qualifying them in a very favorable way for entry into the divine life. Women throughout the ages being denied the intellectual development per force captured the intuition. They are truly intuitive through the heart centre in the psychic and the vital regions, that is to say in the feelings, sensations, impulses, everything dealing with the heart.
We all have to learn to be quiet, peaceful, silent in the mind, untroubled, unagitated, patient in the heart and the vital being, then we will be able to proceed on our journey towards the Divine.
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Niranjan Guha Roy -1977