Chapter 43 pp 405-410
By 1976, we had moved into a beautiful house in Kew Gardens rented from some very beautiful people, te Mores. Now, quite a few of the Satsang people would make the trip to India. Their reactions were fascinating. So were the stories of Thakur they brought back. Each person seemed to have his favourite man and strory. Kerry Brace, a quite, thoughtful graduate of Johns Hopkins University, fell in love with Bor’da. He, along with David and Gisela Lichtgarn and Jeff Renert developed a small group in Hartford, Connecticut for whom Bord’da and his inspiration were effective in bringing meaning, purpose and faith into their lives and those around them. Their faith was absolute and their conception demanded complete and total commitment.
My sister, Janet and her daughter, Hune, from Tulsa, along with my nephew, Chris Houserman from Wilmington made the pilgrimage. Jone combined a perceptive intuition with a strong scepticism. She enjoyed everyone in Deoghar, but her favourite Satsangee was in Bombay, It was Gopal Bhai Deshai, the younger of two brothers whose home in Bombay was the stopping of place going and coming for many of the American visitors to Satsang. She insisted that Gopal Bhai gave her a new insight into Thakur.
“I think Thakur wanted to make us all Thakur.” Gopal Bhai said one day. “Discipleship is a step … the first step only. Sometimes we forget this. Somewhere Thakur said, ‘My life is my materialised maxim. If you want to follow me, then do as I do … often, in our zealous attempts to prove his divinity through his miracles, this gets lost.”
“Do you really think it’s possible to do as Thakur did, Gopal Bhai ?” Chris got into the act. Gopal Bhai was waiting for this. “Your Christ said somewhere, “You are to become perfect as our Father in heaven …” He didn’t say, ‘Hey, do me a favour will you and try to be a little better …’ He didn’t say, ‘please, oh, please show a little mercy.’ No, no. He said, you are to become like God.”
Chris subsided before this awe-inspiring demand for perfection. Gopal Bhai became more reflective. “Maybe this time we can try to follow him to please him and not just turn him into God and worship him in hopes of getting something we probably don’t deserve … at least we can try….”
“He’s made as good an effort as anyone,” was June’s judgement. “I’ve never seen a man who reacted almost the moment you expressed a desire --- whether for ivory elephants, or Indian sarees or some information on India.” For June as for so many others, the Bombay stop-over in the home of Gopal Bhai, Krisha Bhai and Bhabi enroute to and from the ashram was a high pointing their pilgrimage.
Yet another dimension of Thakur’s inspiration was uncovered by a French friend of Andre. His name was Yves Le Cadre and he was from Paris. His insatiable inquisitiveness and boundless energy took him to Burdwan town. These he met Gurudas Bannerjee and his son, Rhitesh. He accompanied them to the education-through-agriculture experiment in Midnapore. He was impressed with the clear conception and steady, unpretentious conviction of both father and son. He was curious about the experiment that was running under a group leadership.
“Don’t you feel the lack of a member of Thakur’s family tends to weaken your cause?” Yves asked.
Bannerjee, short, grey-haired and with those soft, sparkly eyes that are a trademark of many of thakur’s older disciples, nodded : “we lose in some ways and gain in others. Thakur said on occasion that the problem with his family at times is that they desire the regard he got, but do’t want to do in the way he did … well, it may be true that some of our people, obsessed by this remark, are unbalanced, but it will change in time …”
Bannerjee stopped and looked at Yves’ for several moments silently. Yves’ transparent sincerity seemed to elicit a candor from this old disciple. “Ideally, the disciples should maintain unswervingly their devotion to Thakur’s family normally, even their dog or cat. On the other side, thakur’s family should be dedicated to emulating Thakur. Then everything would be automatic. Unfortunately, we expect Thakur’s family to be exactly like Thakur and they expect us to be perfect disciples. “Of course,” a smile wrinkled up his face and made him look like a child. “… go anywhere you like in the vast and varied Satsang world, that Takur has created and look deply. You will find that all of us – whether sons by birth or by culture know, deep down in our hearts, that the only real goal, the only valid achievement, is to learn to love him without expectation … and …” his voice became softer as if talking to himself, “… perhaps, in the midst of all the pushing and pulling, the giving and taking, all of us are gently at times and roughly at other times, being nudged toward that dream of the future he often described: the day when man could walk across the face of the earth and never feel he has left his won home.” The glow in his eyes as he spoke has remained a vivid memory of Yves visit to Satsang in India.
There was one other favourite hang-out for the American disciples of Thakur when they visited the ashram. It was the little room nest to the antique world war two field generators which served as emergency power for the ashram. It was Ajoy Nath Ganguly’s headquarters and was usually filled with tools, books and drawings. Ajoy was very Western, possessed of a heightened sense of service and was perhaps the most comfortable for Americans to talk to, Hay Gordon gave this description to the group in New York of a typical discussion with this engineer-saint.
“Ajoy-da, why at this moment when India needed technological skills more that religious sentiment, ded you leave the English Electric Company and come here?”
Ajoy shifted the stack of blue prints on his drawing table so he could see Jay’sface. “How many have asked me that question since I’ve come here to Thakur’s laboratory ----“
“----Laboratori” Jay laughed. “I’ve heard Satsang called a lot of things but this is the first I’ve heard this description. Then I guess all of us disciples are just laboratrory specimens ?”
Ganguly ignored Jays’s with and went on. “What is man? What is his quest ? Where Lies his ultimate fulfilment ? You can find a politician, a philanthropist on a treet corner or in an air-conditioned office who pretends or may even believe sincerely that he is out to do good to mankind. To them these questions are not only unanswered, they are even asked !”
Where is man’s good ! Have you tasted the peace and happiness in your life – the conditions you want to create in society ? The few I’ve found who aren’t scandalized by my candidness inevitably say, you have to get rid of this enemy or that evil before you can even think straight to face the problem – so the world of confusion and malice goes rolling on.”
“What’s the alternative, Ajay ?”
“The only alternative is to find out what is good for man in an experimental way, on a laboratory scale – before you can put up something for people to follow. That’s why I call this a laboratory. To how many people I have said Thakur was a man who had not restlessness for spectacular achievement, yet could say, “I know the answer.” Always remember, Jay, the immutable order, applicable to man in all pursuits in every age is real religion. The untiring exponent of that kind of order is always the prime mover of civilization.”
Jay never failed to conclude with the statement that his won understanding of Thakur had become more practical because of his contact with this big and loving engineer.
Previous posts
Chapters 1-35
http://www.divshare.com/download/16350072-0aa
Chapter 36 pp 348-360
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-tea-cup.html
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-tea-cup-pp-356-360.html
Chapter 37
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-teacup-ch-37-pp-361-367.html
chapter 38
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-tea-cup-chapter-38.html
Chapter 39
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-tea-cup-chapter-39.html
Chapter 40
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-teacup-ch-40-pp-380-390.html
Chapter 41
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-teacup-ch-41-pp-391-394.html
Chapter 42
http://thakuranukulchandra.blogspot.com/2011/12/ocean-in-teacup-ch-42-pp-395-404.html
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