Page 174 - Wisdom Unfurled

can shape our destiny. The feeling gradually develops into faith and we begin to love Him and we submit to His views with due regard to His personality and proceed along the path under His guidance. The experience of achievements gained during the course convinces us of the extra-ordinary capacities of the Master and we begin to look upon Him as a superhuman being. Now our faith is greatly helpful in our spiritual progress. Describing the characteristics of such a faith, the Master says that it dispels clouds of doubt and uncertainty, removes obstructions and difficulties on the path and that faith in Reality, faith in the right course adopted and the faith in the Master to whom one has submitted is the rock on which the edifice of spirituality is to be built. Real faith will endow the person with an internal force strong enough to shatter all the evil forces that might be surrounding him and will help him to draw fresh divine impulse whenever the aspirant may require it.
Maha Viswasa
We will have a brief look at the state of Maha viswasa after attaining which the aspirant has to do very little by way of sadhana. In this condition, the aspirant comes to know that the Master is capable of doing any thing and everything for him, there is nothing beyond Him; he feels that he breathes because of the Master, he lives and moves and has his being in Him. He does not ask anything of the Master who knows all that is best for him, there is no prayer nor it is possible to meditate even as the aspirant sees the Master eye to eye, he breathes Him and feels that he is verily his Master and the Master Himself. There is nothing the Master will not bestow upon the aspirant on His own unasked and there is nothing which He will not give if asked for. In this stage the aspirant does not have anything to ask for and that is what the Master refers to in His article on the ‘Beggar’s bowl’, ‘there is neither the beggar, nor the Master is there only the extended arm appears now and then’. The difference between the first faith we form and this stage of the faith in its culmination is that the former belongs to the annamaya existence and the latter belongs to the anandamaya existence. The ‘self’ of the aspirant does not exist as ‘self’ at all, it is totally surrendered and the person has moved from the state of ‘dasa’ to ‘sarana’. The reason why one thought of the Master’s feet in the beginning would have been totally forgotten by the time he comes to the stage of Mahaviswasa; now the consideration is only about how to be His disciple, how to serve Him.
Unless a certain amount of laya (mergence or being in tune with His consciousness) is there with the Master one will not be even able to talk about Him not to talk of working for Him. It is His work to establish an order or Dharma not our work; we are utterly incapable and incompetent for the task.