Theo. – We have been sharing views for more than three years now. I’d like to know what matters most, for you.
The Elder answered readily:
– Giving one’s heart to the Lord.
Theo. – And that’s all?
The Elder – That is “All”.
Theo remained deeply silent, and the Elder finally added:
– Once your heart has been offered to the Lord and accepted by Him, “it is finished”. Let God do the rest.
Theo. – It looks so very simple! But since I have become a trainer, I realize it is not that obvious. Even though the aspirant has been connected to Master’s heart and to the Source right from his/her first initiation, cleaning appears to be an endless job and progressing on the yatra takes time, a lot of time. Even if the Master gives them an access to the cosmic region, the aspirants will abandon the world of unity to go back to the world of duality. It is somehow as if they were locked up within it: the Lord offered to liberate their souls, but they’d rather be back in prison.
The Elder – It may be so, but from that very moment, the door remains open and the windows have no more bars. In the cosmic region, said to be a world of unity, the difficulty lies in the fact that, in order to realize our union with the Lord (Saguna), we must make way for Him. It is either He or we. There is no room for both. But as you already know, God is pure love and He will never impose Himself.
Theo. – That is the problem: on one side, we have that famous freewill, which is essential because we are the Lord’s co-creators, but we also have to go through the eleven circles of the ego, and before that, overcome the five circles of maya! The mere idea of it seems to make it look just insurmountable.
I’d rather stick to a yatra with its ten chakras needing to be purified and illuminated. How many tens of years will it take to realize God and, moreover, the Centre?
The Elder (kindly):
– Don’t forget that Babuji said that seven months would be enough.
Theo. – I know. Lalaji even said that you just had to turn your head from one side to the other side and it would be achieved. It makes you dream!
The Elder – In fact, the Master can take his disciples to the central region by carrying them in his mental matrix.
Theo. – The best way for crossing the seven rings of splendor, for sure.
The Elder – For humankind, God has opened a new access to the Ultimate, to Him. It seems to correspond to what Babuji called the “vertical”, which consists in giving one’s heart to the Master, to the Lord, or to God. And that can be done whatever our spiritual advancement along the yatra.
The Elder plunged into silence, and Theo read the signal. He gently closed his eyes and immersed himself into the space of his heart. Then it was a great surprise for him to see that the Master’s heart was there, instead of his own: it was a marvel but it did not last. At the centre of Master’s perfectly still heart, a heap had formed; it was at once complex and balanced, gross and subtle, and after a while it rose up with a column of light in which it finally dissolved. It took an undeterminable time, at the end of which he was immersed in the Lord.
Theo wished he could have stayed there forever….
The Elder whispered:
– Forever right now!
A long time elapsed before Theo gently opened his eyes again. They were full of light and gratitude. He dared hardly move, to avoid breaking the spell. He was dazzled…
Theo. – Is that what it means, giving one’s heart to the Lord?
The Elder (softly):
– ‘That’ is what He has accepted.
Theo. – But it was the Master’s heart that was there, instead of mine! What will happen when my own heart is there again?
The Elder – Is that what you really wish?
Theo. – Of course not! I’d like it to remain so forever.
The Elder – Then, so be it. The Lord has fully accepted your heart, which now is His.
Theo. – Are you sure? I hope it won’t be like last time when you initiated me and had me go through the whole yatra. I thought I had arrived, when you just explained that it would require a lot of work for me to integrate what had happened to me. When I became a trainer, I better understood the difference between approaching a chakra, a dimension or a region, and establishing a spiritual position.
The Elder – Acquiring the position is our job. As for the approach, it is Master’s blessing, for the aspirant.
Remembering his own experience, Theo nodded silently.
The Elder went on:
– Master’s work consists in prescribing us a practice and in helping us progress spiritually until he can initiate us a second time in order to make us become his disciple. Nevertheless, the final goal is to take us to God and leave us in His hands.
Theo – And what will happen, then?
The Elder (smiling):
– Then, as Babuji would say, the journey begins. It is now God who will initiate us. The Master has fulfilled the work he had been assigned by the Lord.
Theo. – God is taking over!
The Elder – He is, and that is forever. From now on, God will reside in the space of your heart. Your heart, which is no longer yours, is now His heart.
Theo. – Hence it means that the ego is no longer active either, that my heart has been thoroughly purified…
The Elder – And that ‘your’ heart is in the condition required for receiving the grace constantly.
– So, turning your head from here to there, that is true, isn’t it?
Theo said, quite amazed, as he moved his head from right to left.
But then, what is the direct way Babuji mentioned?
The Elder – It requires your soul to accept that Master’s heart should take the place of your own heart so that the Lord may reside there.
Theo. – That is what Babuji used to call, “Giving one’s heart to the Master.”
The Elder – Indeed, and it is the first step. The second step is the thorough purification of your heart, so that the Lord may descend and abide there.
Theo. – I always had a feeling that there were subconscious obstacles within me and that cleaning samskaras would never be enough.
The Elder – Cleaning the heart is a must, on account of all the complexities and the impurities that have accumulated there and created grossness. Samskaras will go on feeding tendencies. All the work we have done so far was an unavoidable preparation.
Theo. – Sure, but that won’t affect the tendencies that are deeply anchored within us.
The Elder – These profound and constitutional tendencies are presented to the Lord deep into your heart; then, they will rise up through the central channel up to Him. There, the tendencies will be transcended and disappear into Him.
Theo. – At the centre of my heart, I felt that a sort of structured, light and transparent mass was forming, to be disintegrated a moment later, as if all its particles were evaporating upwards in the form of tiny bubbles, until there was nothing left. Is there a meaning to it?
The Elder – The last tendencies, the ones that come from great depths, had gathered at the centre of your heart, and they rose up while dissolving in the Lord’s channel.
Theo. – Is that a process similar to cleaning?
The Elder – I’d rather call it a transcendence, the Lord’s transcendence. It concerned the last tendencies, the ones that prevented the Lord from abiding permanently within your heart.
Theo. – For my heart to become His? But what were these tendencies like?
The Elder – No idea! I only know that they are not in you anymore.
Theo. – How did you do that?
The Elder – Metaphorically! I asked your soul of light, from your right…
Theo. – … you mean the chakra of love and devotion, atma-chakra…
The Elder – … and I asked your soul of darkness, from your left, to meet up and mingle at the centre of your heart, vertically to the central channel. At the centre of the heart, only sattvic and balanced elements can stay. Once darkness and light have mingled and balance has been established, the process of transcending the Lord will start and a sort of aspiration will occur within the central channel. The structure thus formed will then dissolve itself while rising up to the Lord, and the space of your heart will retrieve its original purity, thus giving the Lord the possibility to reside there.
Theo. – It involves a lot. I have the feeling that it is a sort of place of retreat, an enclave within me where I can take refuge, like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. My heart becomes a rejuvenating place.
The Elder – The Source is within you, and your heart is all purity and simplicity.
Theo. – It becomes a true sacred place, a sort of Embassy of God on the Earth.
The Elder – Except that God Himself resides there. He can guide your life, your spiritual evolution.
Theo. (surprised):
– I thought the goal had been reached. Could we wish anything better?
The Elder – There is nothing better, you are perfectly right. But do you think you are ready? Have you attained human and divine perfection?
Theo (laughing):
– Far from it…
Then he kept silent and started dreaming:
– But what of Master’s heart replacing mine for a while?
The Elder – The Lord needs to be incarnated in those who have already given their hearts to Him for quite a long time, in order to start up what is also called the ‘Way of the Lord’. For the mutation to be possible, the heart used for it must be as pure as the Lord’s heart.
Theo. – So, if you want the Lord to come to your heart, the Lord must already be there!
The Elder – Remember: “God will look for Himself within ourselves.”
Theo. – And there He is.
The Elder – The Lord uses a heart that He has already transformed and He substitutes it to the disciple’s heart for the period of the operation.
Theo. – It makes me think of a heart transplant, a softer and a subtler one, though.
The Elder – It is all done through love, fearlessly, and the soul of the person concerned is fully accepting the operation. God can only descend in a heart that is perfectly pure, and that is why He uses the heart of a realized being who has already totally surrendered to Him.
Theo. – And once it is done?
The Elder – The initiator will withdraw his heart and let both parts of the soul, the light and the dark ones, resume their original place. But, above all, the initiated person’s heart has become the Lord’s heart.
Theo. – And the work is achieved.
The Elder – It is achieved when the Lord has completed the initiation of the beloved’s soul…
Theo interrupted him:
– And there you are going to say that the work is only beginning, aren’t you?
The Elder (going on):
– God is in place, His proper place, the place He should always have been given. And that is the moment when we are able to fully participate to His creation and to its evolution.
Theo. – And it is the moment when we really become co-creators together with Him, isn’t it?
The Elder – Yes, it is, and it is also the reason why our own evolution will continue in all the plans of the being.
Theo. – You mean in all the dimensions, whether they are gross, subtle or causal, don’t you?
The Elder – Even further. Three evolutions will run on within us, to talk more vividly.
There is an evolution in the sphere of manifestation (maya), where we participate to the divine Frame with all our brothers and sisters, i.e. with all the connections established with one another, and also with all that exists in the animate and the inanimate world.
There is also our own cosmic evolution, in a harmonious compliance with the spirits and the great beings residing there.
And that divine evolution, which generally happens through a spiritual Master. Today, it has happened through God Himself, when He opened for the humankind a new way to a direct evolution. That is a blessing, an immense grace!
Theo. – I am totally amazed. So, the hearts dedicated to the Lord will then be able to directly receive His grace, and I can only imagine what will happen then.
The Elder – Daaji said that a transmission was worth thousand meditations and that a grace was worth thousand transmissions.
Both friends kept quiet, in wonder, awed by such prodigious perspectives for the evolution of humanity.
Theophile the Elder
An excerpt from Dialogs with Theophile the Elder
Theophile the Younger’s Initiation