I finished the program in Rajasthan with much success but without giving initiations on the last day. I came back to Vrindavan but left a question in people’s minds: “Why does Guru Ji not want to give initiations anymore?”
Some people thought they knew the answer. Maybe I only wanted to give initiations to special people, only to a few chosen ones.
This was not a fully unknown concept in the world of gurus. There is a short poem in Hindi:
Bhagati firati thi duniya jab talab karate the ham|
Jab se chhoda hai ise bekarar aane ko hai||
The simple meaning is: when you try to get something in the world, it runs away from you but when you don’t take interest, it comes to you.
There are many gurus and religious leaders here in India who know how to implement this poem in a way that gives them more success – a bigger amount of money and a higher number of followers. They say ‘I don’t have money, I don’t want any money and I never even touch money!’ but you will find that they are some of the richest gurus of all. Many also say ‘I don’t want any followers or disciples’ in order to show that they don’t have any ego. They want to show that they don’t participate in the competition of who has most followers. It is another type of ego, the ego of being the most humble one. In reality however they simply find another way to make disciples.
There is a traditional way for gurus of making someone their disciple. This initiation is a kind of ritual with much ado and in which they give a mala and a mantra to the disciple. Some gurus say publicly that they don’t do this but then those who come close to them and whom they actually want to make their disciples get the feeling of being special. Someday they just wave them aside from everyone else and give them a Mala or any other symbolic item, saying ‘This is for you’. And they may add a mantra saying it could be good for that person to say it. This person will feel like a chosen one and will definitely have the feeling of having a guru. Those disciples additionally say that their guru is special and not like all other gurus.
This usually makes an even stronger bond because you feel you are really special and uniquely chosen by a guru instead of receiving an initiation as one of thousands. It gets more difficult for the guru to do this, especially with a growing number of followers but they try their best to make everybody feel like standing out from the crowd. Gurus in every culture and country have made this principle to cash and turned it into money.
So when I announced that I would not give any initiations, many people remembered the time when I was in their town before, four years ago. In that time I had given initiation to everybody who wished for it. Now, after the cave, I obviously only wanted to give initiation to a few, chosen disciples. There were many who were ready to be the chosen ones and decided that they would have to find a way to get closer to me first and then wait for me to give them another kind of initiation. Maybe they would get an opportunity by coming to my Ashram, they thought. This kind of story did not take a long time to spread and this is how, just a few days after my program in Rajasthan, we welcomed and accommodated several Rajasthani people here in Vrindavan at the Ashram.
They had not really understood my intentions and what I really wanted. At the Ashram, too, it was difficult to make them understand. While they were here, I talked a lot with them, explaining that I really did not want to have any disciples anymore. They wanted to see the world through their own coloured glasses and were not ready to see what was in my heart and my mind. I am not sure what they thought of me in that time. Maybe they were disappointed because I did not make them ‘the chosen ones’. Maybe they felt it was not the right time and they would just have to come closer and try approaching me again another time. I doubt that any of them really could understand the change that I had gone through.
Eventually they left the Ashram again and left me thinking how I should treat this kind of problem. I had an invitation by an Indian family from Bangkok to come to Thailand and I decided to accept it. In August 2001 I left to Bangkok with the thought on my mind that it would be good to have some distance from India for some time.
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It is an interesting situation which may not have been very easy for your existing followers, either. What were they to think? Their guru just declared that he didn’t want to be a guru anymore – now what? I mean, as far as I understood the whole system, you follow only one guru and that for a lifetime. So they must have been confused as to what will become of them. I love to read those Sunday entries, they make me understand you and your philosophy as they explain how you came to where you are now.
Dear Claire, Yes of course, for them it was a big change, too. I don’t think they had ever heard of a guru who just ‘stopped’ being a guru. Some of them said ‘It doesn’t matter that you don’t call yourself a guru, you will always be my guru’. I had decided not to fulfill their expectation of placing myself higher than them. It is nice that you enjoy the diary entries! Much love