"The primary thing for us is therefore to make ourselves empty, so that the bowl may be filled up with the Master's Grace."

(Chariji)

He used to transmit, cleanse and transform them saying that his work was that of a sweeper or washerman. Whoever came to him would be cleansed through and through.

After his Manas was cleaned he would get a guide according to his samskaras.
The soul of a human being will be clean in proportion to the power of discrimination he possesses.

Cleanse your Manas (mind) with practice of Sadhana and then go through literature, otherwise Reality will be lost upon you.

Excerpts taken from Truth Eternal - Shri Ram Chandraji of Fatehgarh U.P.

The right course of training for an aspirant of spirituality, therefore, is to proceed along the path of realization under the guidance of a true and worthy master in the most natural way, with due regard to inner cleanliness or purification of Chakras and complete moderation in the exercise of the senses and other faculties.

The feeling of Vairagya in the real sense and with the lasting results can only be developed after thorough cleaning and due moderation.

In the evening again sit in the same posture, at least for half an hour and think that the complexities, the network of your previous thoughts and grossness or solidity in your constitution are all melting away, or evaporating in the form of smoke, from your back. It will help you in purging your mind and will make you receptive of the efficacious influence of our great Master. But it must be remembered that while practising these methods one should not force his mind too much but only sit in a normal way. This process of cleaning is to be repeated for about five minutes before meditational practice in the morning as well.

Excerpts taken from Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume I - Shri Ram Chandra

Worries are really the result of the unbalanced activity which had originally brought man into existence. Now if one keeps his entire attention located on them thinking that thereby he may minimise their effect, it is almost impossible. Ages may be lost in the pursuit, not to speak of this one life; on the other hand, he will go on fabricating greater intricacies by his own actions. If we keep ourselves concerned with the clearing off of the limitations set up by the expansion and contraction of the forces, our purpose may be rightly served. I have my own experiences of sufferings and miseries, and after pondering over them a good deal I have now come to the conclusion that suffering and disease are the boons of Nature in disguise which helps deliverance from the effects of samskaras.

God alone is in fact the real guide or guru, and we all get light from Him alone. But only he who has cleaned his heart to that extent feels it coming therefrom, while a common man engrossed deeply in material complexities feels it not. A capable Master, by applying his power through transmission, diverts the tendencies of the abhyasi's mind upwards, with the result that they begin to get moulded and grow comparatively calm and peaceful.

It has also come to my experience that God takes over some of the responsibility upon Himself even before the completion of the training. But when he takes over full charge of the abhyasi, the Master's work is practically over, though he has yet to go on with cleaning, if needed, in order to smoothen Nature's work. The heart is the field of work for the mind, and all the points which are in the body and the brain, almost all of them, are found in the heart and, by meditating on it, it facilitates in purifying all those points. It is seen that people do not get benefit from the evening practice of cleaning. The reason is that they do it in a faulty way. In fact, people first begin to meditate on grossness, and then think that it is going from the back side in the form of smoke. Really speaking, they ought to throw it out by thought-suggestion, in the form of smoke.

Excerpts taken from Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume II - Shri Ram Chandra

Swami Vivekananda stressed the importance of the cleaning process so that the defects may not be further strengthened by the power of Reality. That is to say, cleaning is important so that the Reality may not give power to those filthy things.
By the prayer, we go from outside noise to outside silence. By cleaning, we go from outside silence to inside silence.

Excerpts taken from Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume III - Shri Ram Chandra

It sometimes happens even with advanced sadhakas that souls appear in order to partake of the effect coming to them from the Master. This happened to me several times during my abhyas period. Souls from even other worlds sometimes come down for this purpose. Besides, I am sometimes drawn to other worlds for the purpose.

Silence of course counts much in developing the power of speech but it is better to try for the inner silence so that the words and actions may become charged with the silent force, and that is the spiritual stage which comes in the long run. When this spiritual stage comes in, the impressions of the past almost die and the divine impressions take their place.

Excerpts taken from Letters of the Master, Volume II

Raja yoga sets in when other things accumulated by wrong practices, are gone. Preceptors clean grossness out, but people enwrap it again. So, you have to seek the solution yourself, just as you have to walk on your own legs. Of course, energy is needed for it, for which our help is indispensable, and is ever available.

It is in fact not the rising of thoughts that is annoying to an abhyasi but his own over attention to them which brings him into direct conflict. The reaction thus caused makes thoughts all the more powerful and the trouble is aggravated. It is in fact not the controlling of mind that is suited to our purpose but its right moulding and the proper regulation of its activities. This can be effected not by the use of whip but only by purging out the evil through the process of internal cleaning. This is the only effective way for the transformation of the real being of man.

"In the West many disciples ask, what is the difference between different preceptors. I think that in the initial stages, the choice of a preceptor does not matter, since the sittings are specifically for cleaning of the heart region. The difficulty comes only later, after one starts the 'yatra' or journey …"

Excerpts taken from Letters of the Master, Volume III

Master has given many similar examples of grossness arising out of wrong approaches to worship. In some cases the grossness is deeply embedded, and so hard, that virtually no help can be given. I asked Master how this could happen, that he himself was unable to help. Master replied, "I will tell you. I have had some cases where the heart is surrounded by grossness so hard that it is like a rock. It appears as if the heart is embedded in solid rock. If you give transmission in such cases it will just come back to you." I asked Master whether, in such cases, nothing could at all be done. Master answered, "Well, if the power is used it can be done. But the danger is there that in breaking the grossness the person himself may be affected. The process will have to be very slow, and only complete co-operation on the part of the abhyasi can help him. In such cases I suggest that they pray sincerely to God daily for help. Later on the case can be taken up for deep cleaning."

" … Really speaking, at the earlier stages of sadhana under our sanstha it is very important to do this cleaning regularly. As the purification goes on by removing the impression of past samskaras, the possibility of progress is opened up.

He said, "You see, the dust that settles every day on the table can be easily dusted off. It is superficial and easy to remove. Suppose ink has been poured on the table and allowed to soak, then the cleaning is more difficult. So the nature of the impression makes the difference. We sometimes have bad thoughts, I mean consciously. We feel ashamed and push them down. Now the very bad or worst thoughts are hidden away deep inside the mind. So in cleaning they may come up last of all. You should be happy that these vile thoughts have been removed at last. But I am telling you it is important to remove the day's accumulation the same day itself.

We think we are free to think and act as we like but, truly speaking, this is a fallacy. We are conditioned in everything by the past. This is Lalaji's greatness that by this process of cleaning he makes it possible to completely remove the effects of the past, in stages of course.

Excerpts taken from My Master - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

…when we are very old we have a much bigger load of past impressions which he has to clean for us, and also what began as tendencies have become habits, have become patterns of life, which we can rarely change.

This is what happens to a very serious and very practical abhyasi who, without guidance, without connection to the goal, by great effort over very long years of time vacuumizes himself, and finds that everything he is throwing out is coming back into himself. In those cases where people have had Masters, and have been deeply connected to them by love, by devotion, by emotional attachment of a spiritual nature, all that they could draw from their Master was what the Master had within him…

It thus becomes obvious that by connection with a Master who has in himself the highest ability, the highest achievement, the highest goal that he has achieved for himself by such a connection, the Master can, by the mere and very simple process of emptying my inside, pour himself into me without any effort on my part. We call this pranahuti or offering of the life principle into life. So when we realise that the Master is the cleaner, the Master is the vacuumizer, the Master is the one who comes into me, and thus makes me like himself in every way, we find that He is the goal, we find that He is the way, and we also find that He is the Master who is going to take me through the way to the goal. So in the proper perspective, and with the proper approach to spirituality these three things - the way, the goal, and the guide - they all merge into one entity.

This is founded on old Indian philosophy which says that unless certain things come together love cannot exist. The first is purity. Purity of thought, purity of action, purity in our interpersonal relationships, purity of the house, not at the cost of the environment but while keeping the environment also pure, all this is necessary.

Excerpts taken from Sahaj Marg in Europe- Shri P.Rajagopalachari

Therefore it is said that if the world has one Saint of calibre it is more than enough, because he sucks into himself all the rubbish that we are throwing out from our lives. So, these are some very important reasons why the Guru - the Master - comes amongst us.

Excerpts taken from Blossoms in the East - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

What is the best time for the cleaning process?
…the appropriate time is when the day's work is over.

Can it do any harm if we say it [prayer] before cleaning in the evening?
It is not prescribed by Master and so we should not do it.

You always meditate in the morning according to the system prescribed by the Master. If you are having the evening sitting here, then there is no need to separately do the cleaning.

Excerpts taken from The Garden of Hearts - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

And along with that process of cleaning, you think that disease is also going out. It will have very good effect … you can use it for health also. That is this method has the only, this purpose, that you may realise God. Alongside so many things are corrected.

So the mind was there, now you began to think otherwise also, and that was the cause of sufferings. God is not responsible. But he is very kind. He does not want that that thing remain in you. So it is burst into the diseases or some difficulties. Only to clean it, I myself observed, after some ailments, fever and so on. I found myself better.

Really, Nature is very kind to us. If there are such things, which I have just explained, impressions of the past actions, now in order to clean that, they are burst out into disease.

Oh yes, heart is the nucleus of the human body. And it functions, it pumps out blood also. So when we are in meditation, or in the thought of God, now that effects the heart also. So cleaning is needed for your purpose, better for the heart. And blood moves into the body … with that idea. So it brings piety.

Excerpts taken from Babuji in Shahjahanpur - 1971-1975

Meditation, and the cleaning process, balance each other, support each other for our evolution. Meditation in itself, without cleaning, is to my mind useless. The other point is that so long as the samskaras are there, if you have more power, the tendencies become more powerful.

Morning meditation, evening cleaning, night prayer-meditation, they must be done every day irrespective of whether you have sittings with preceptors or not. The second thing is to try and develop Constant Remembrance, which will come in any case if the practice is systematic. Master has clarified when constant remembrance becomes established, then meditation loses its importance. Because cleaning removes the objects which we don't need, meditation regulates the mind and the two are put together, as one.

Excerpts taken from Proceedings of the seminar on Sahaj Marg Morauf - Munich, Germany, April 27th to May 4th, 1985 - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

The cleaning process of the Sahaj Marg practice has seen to that. It is as if the past never was. We have entered a present where our thoughts and actions are no longer creating a past which will condition the unborn future. The present is eternal without a past to weigh it down. Now begins the final approach to the realisation of our goal.

It has just three elements in its practice. These are prayer, meditation and cleaning. When a system is so simple as to have just two or three elements in it, then all the elements are essential to the system. If even one element is lacking or is discarded, the system will probably be ineffective in its functioning.

There is a push from the back and there is a pull from the front. But as life forms advanced on the evolutionary path, they managed to create a large past for themselves, a historical past which is not so bad, but also a past of impressions which Don has already told you we call samskaras. Now it is precisely this past which, instead of pushing us from behind, manages to pull us back from behind. So the samskara is a very important thing because it acts in an anti-evolutionary. Therefore the cleaning of the impressions of the past is of the highest importance in any system of Yoga.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume I - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

Our growth is for His sake, our ennoblement is for His sake, our spiritual elevation is for His sake; and if at all we are ever going to be divinised, that too is for His sake. So those who will remember this and who take it to their heart, will, I am sure, by His grace, develop very fast. But those who do it out of personal ego, "I want to be a rishi or I want to be a saint" - well, Master will help them too!

So there is no use in Sahaj Marg being practised and after this 45 minutes or one hour meditation we go around merrily doing everything that we were doing and then trying to clean away everything in the evening cleaning. So that is not what Lalaji or Babuji intended for us. They intended that Sahaj Marg should be a crystal introduced into our system, to make us crystallise into some sort of a spiritual personality which will practise what it preaches, first by itself, then for others.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume V - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

…we tend to live multiple lives, we are something to our families, something to our workers, something to our friends, something to our lovers, something to ourselves and something which we cannot even face within ourselves. And that is the ultimate tragedy that when a man becomes seventeen men or twenty-seven men or forty-seven men, he does not know who is ruling at that moment, because he has no control. Obviously if he had control it should be one. When all these multiple personalities become integrated into one, he is what he seems to be; and what he seems to be, is what he is.Therefore, progress also means chipping away all these unwanted personalities within us. They fall off by cleaning.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume VI - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

However dedicated our practice, however sincere our approach, we have no right to the goal. It is His Grace that He gives us this. Now, I asked Babuji, "… then why should I practice" By doing all this, in some way, we attract the Divine attention on ourselves.

It seems Lalaji made a remark, "Your condition is now so utterly vacuumised, that if you let anything enter into it, you will not be able to throw it out again." This is Lalaji's quotation. His Master said that his condition was so utterly vacuumised that if
he was a little careless or less alert than what he should be, and allowed some thoughts to enter his system, he himself could not remove it.

So there is no concept of sin, you see. There is no wrong doing and right doing in Sahaj Marg. Anything which leaves an impression is a samskara, a potential samskara and therefore a menace for spiritual development.

The highest spiritual blessings, the highest spiritual grace, the highest spiritual elevation, evolution - these are reserved for them on whom His gaze falls. And how to attract that? Only through love. All this talk of meditation, cleaning - yes, initially you have to do it, but unless in your heart, love for the Master can be created, our sadhana will remain a mere exercise in self-control...

Spirituality is a way not of making people go into the Central Region, but as Babuji said, to make Masters. To be a Master means to take on the responsibility, perhaps, of the whole universe itself. Such of those who are willing to undertake this tremendous responsibility, the work, they are the true abhyasis of the Master. They may not become; but are we willing, are we ready for it? It is to create this willingness and this readiness that all this sadhana is being practised, all the books are being read, all the meditation that we do, the cleaning that we do.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume VII - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

The minimum is at least to keep the contact with the Master, with the heart - your heart in contact with Master's heart. If that remains unbroken, we have this miraculous experience, that without sadhana, without ten maxims, without even cleaning, the progress goes on. The Sahaj Margi must be prepared to suffer more than anyone else. Many of the abhyasis ask, specially the new ones, you know - soon after they join Sahaj Marg, problems begin. But it is for our good. So whenever we have problems, miseries, diseases, sickness, loss, just try to imagine how much more it would have been, except for Babuji's Grace and His cleaning. Automatically our mind will be-come quiet.

If one progresses and the other progresses not, the fault must be with the abhyasis. Opportunity is given to all. It doesn't matter a damn whether you are the worst sinner in creation. Their[abhyasis] difference in samskaras doesn't matter; the Guru gives equal possibility to all. His attention to everyone is equal. The goal is the same.

But here, Nature in its immense justice and immense mercy says, "No. You may have taken a hundred thousand lives and the samskara is there of all these hundred thousand lives. But in the first sitting, in the cleaning process, it can be almost removed provided you are co-operative, and you have the Master like Babuji."

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume VIII- Shri P. Rajagopalachari

We vomit and therefore very often it is nauseating even to ourselves! Therefore yoga says, "All that you have brought, yes, it is something you did, that you thought, which created this pattern." Erase what is already written, like changing a computer program. It has immense possibilities. Its capacity is unlimited, that of the mind.

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume IX - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

They come here, I clean them, purify them, fill them and when they go home they should go home straight. Instead of that they are going sight-seeing, they are going to Patna, they are going to Kathmandu and to Benares and they are spoiling their condition even before they reach home. Please tell them that at least if they want to do all these foolish things, they should do it before they come here, so that I can clean them and they go home clean."

Excerpts taken from The Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume X - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

They may give us petty things like liberation, childish things, but if we want that which he got, we must create in ourselves that hunger, that longing, that absolute need, to love him in such a way that we want to become like him.

And Babuji adds the very, very important advice that if you go on dwelling on your guilt, you are deepening the impressions of what you have already done and making stronger and stronger samskaras. So, Babuji says, "Repent for what you have done." And a true repentance consists not in saying, but in determining once and for all not to commit the mistakes again. And what about removing the effects of the thing we have done? That is taken care of in the cleaning.

As far as anger is concerned, what is the need for it? Master's answer was that anger in its pure sense, not to be confused with rage or other violent ways of expression, I can't find the right words for it - it provides what can be considered the motor-force in cleaning up all that is wrong. That is, in its pure form, anger functions against all ungodly manifestations in nature. So anger should not be used against each other for destructive purpose, or things like that.

Excerpts taken from The Role of the Master in Human Evolution - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

This lady asked a question whether she should remember every event of the day and try to clear its impressions. But when we have a bath do we remember every dirty thing that we touched and try to clean it away? It's a general thing you see.
Somebody is afraid of dogs, somebody is afraid of snakes, somebody is afraid of the darkness, somebody is afraid of noises. What we are afraid of depends on the samskaras we carry inside us. Therefore when this cleaning is finished you cannot have fear any more. Therefore, when you become fearless, it means nothing here. No temptation, because temptation is also like that - from the heart. Temptation is not outside, it is inside. So temptation, fear, everything must go when cleaning is complete.

Master says that the cleaning process in the evening must be of twenty minutes up to half an hour, but independently of the time of cleaning I think that unless the feeling of lightness and calmness and of the removal of grossness has developed in the abhyasi during the cleaning, he must not stop until this condition has been acquired. The whole thing is a question of following what is prescribed by the Master. We must remember that, because something is good, more of the same thing will not be better, and some more will not be the best. This is why we get drunk and things like that. So it is not right to wait for the feeling of lightness?

Excerpts taken from The Fruit of the Tree - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

But within me there is God, luring me inside myself. The devil who is trying to tempt me to do things which I shouldn't. Therefore, essentially, the 'I', the superficial 'I', has to enter the war. Then we find that the He in me supports the 'I' in me, and the devil is exorcised. And in this process, especially in Sahaj Marg, the Master's help is there by helping us to exorcise the devil by the cleaning process, and by adding the transmission, which strengthens the He in me, and by the simplicity that is introduced in us which progressively eliminates the 'I'.

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume I - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

That is what the Master does. He delays the answer, gives you the time to meditate, does a little cleaning and removes the question from your mind.

And if you look at your heart and you find hatred in it, that will be your future, unless you remove it. You look into your heart and you find wrong tendencies, you know what is your future, wrong tendencies, wrong actions, wrong results. And if you look in your heart and find Him, that too is your future, that is what I am going to become. So, the spiritual science of my Master says, "Look into the heart, meditate on the light in the heart which is eternally present there, do the cleaning, so that all unnecessary things are removed, which too are only impressions of the past."

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume II - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

As I said in the beginning, "We are not taught not to judge, so that we should not be judged." But we come to the realisation that there is nothing to judge. Because inside me there is nothing, though there is the whole universe itself. And such a person sees the same thing in everybody, because the reality inside the heart of every person in the universe is the same.

Think of Him, all is forgotten. So you see, real safety, real health, real security, comes only by remembrance of the Master. But it makes an absolutely fundamental change in our existence because, for the first time, we have stopped thinking of ourselves. And if this change is not brought about in your life as an abhyasi, any benefits you may get from meditation and cleaning, they are only temporary.

I came to the greater understanding, that for a yogic relationship with the Maker, you see, with the Creator, we have to be in the presence of that which we want to learn or understand. And we must be clean, absolutely clean, to receive that. Otherwise it is like looking at something with coloured glasses on, and we can only see what this glass shows us, not reality which is beyond.

Excerpts taken from Heart to Heart, Volume III - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

People may say it is just imagination - to think that waves of bliss are passing through you and that dirt and disease etc. are going out as smoke from the back! But it has been proved that this really does take place. When you mentally think of this cleaning going on, the force of such a sincere thought sets certain centres at work so that samskaras are dropped off.

Excerpts taken from In His Footsteps, Volume I - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

I then had a glimmering of an idea, a sort of timid realisation, of what Divine or Universal Love really is. Such a love pervades everything in the universe because such a love does not need any qualities, or characteristics, to love, and it therefore exists independently of all qualities in the beloved - good, bad, indifferent!

Excerpts taken from In His Footsteps, Volume III - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

'I' am never imperfect. I am imperfect in my thoughts and actions. 'I' am never imperfect because 'I' my Master created, my God created. Therefore when we clean we are removing these imperfections, and here in Sahaj Marg the perfection also, because the law says, "You cannot get rid of the duality of existence. You cannot remove imperfection and leave perfection behind." You take both or you leave both. Therefore when we take away all that is in you which is not created by Him, then remains that which He created, which is the Perfect. So here there is no good, there is no bad, there is only the idea of perfection.

So we are here to learn how to take out the best from every aspect of life. Not to look at the worst, but to look at the best. Then we shall have a positive approach, a properly oriented approach in which we can really help others.

Excerpts taken from Love and Death - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

So we have this wonderful idea, this liberating idea that 'I' do nothing, it is my body which is working according to the pushes and pulls of the samskaras. So, such an observer becomes capable of saying, "I am not responsible, because I don't act. I don't do anything. It is my samskaras, not me." So you see the importance of cleaning. Once the cleaning is going on and on, samskaras are gone, there is no more automatic reaction to situations, and we really become Masters in that sense that now we can do what we choose to do, and not because we are bound to do it.

So don't think of rebirth as a punishment. God does not punish. The devil has no power to punish. In spirituality, there is no devil except the devil in each one of us. Spirituality says, push the blighter out. Send him out, you know, he doesn't have any space in your heart. During cleaning, you may have experiences of the past, your actions, your thoughts, which created those impressions. Every dream, every nightmare, is something in you which is being released.

So, if I am changing myself, the whole universe must change. And that is what philosophy says, that is what religions have preached: change yourself and the universe changes. So the secret of universal change is to change yourself. Now, to change myself, again we come to this problem of attitudes, desires, likes and dislikes, all because of samskara. So Sahaj Marg says, "Clean it out."

Do the cleaning, because as we remove the samskaras our personality changes. I don't mean that from inefficient we will become efficient, or that a bad scientist will become a good scientist, or that a bad gambler will become a good gambler. Not at all. We will approach more and more what Babuji calls human perfection.

Excerpts taken from Revealing the Personality - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

So I would like to tell you that these material pitfalls into which everybody can slip anytime, but for the help of God - because they are in your samskaras, they are pushing you inevitably, inexorably towards that particular pit - only the Master can save you by removing that samskara. But we don't go to him. We try to build fences, and a man comes and jumps over the fence. So forget these sensory pitfalls, worldly pitfalls. These are everybody's cup of poison, cup of misfortune. There is relief, but only from and through the Master. So, please try to understand spirituality properly. What is a Master? You need a Master precisely because there are things in you - you may be the best diamond miner yourself, but he can mine something from inside you - the dirtiest things which are lying hidden, which are not accessible to anybody, not even to yourself, after removing which you are richer than if you have all the diamonds of this world with you. Here, it is by un-becoming, un-doing.

Excerpts taken from Heart of the Lion - Shri P. Rajagopalachari

Hell is created by our own wrong thoughts, wrong actions, grossness. So if there is a hell, and Babuji has said there is, it must be, it is a creation of our grossness.

Therefore in Sahaj Marg we are taught, I mean, Babuji insists, that while we can hate what a man does or a woman does, don't hate the person himself or herself because the person is always divine.

I find this tendency in the West, which is rather unthoughtful and unnecessary, that when an abhyasi starts weeping, immediately you go and hug him or her and say, "No, no, darling, cheri," whatever it is, you see - kiss them - "Please don't weep." They must weep, you see. Promote it if possible. Leave them alone if you can't. If you have not the courage to bear it, leave them alone. Let them weep, because in that lies their salutary progress. It is inner cleansing at the deepest.

When you come back out of remembrance the tendency is there, because the grossness is there. Now, for a man who is clean, and in constant remembrance, nothing can happen. Either we are slipping in and out of remembrance, which is no longer constant remembrance, and we are subjected to this world. When we are here, we are subjected to this, the law of gravitation, let us say. And in the higher up people, they are fully clean, but they are not in remembrance. See the two have to go together. Clean system and constant remembrance. If the two are there, instant saint.

Excerpts taken from What is Sahaj Marg? A Preceptor's Guide, Volume I - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

…It is very necessary to understand that transmission by itself is of no use. If you put milk in a dirty vessel it is dirty, perhaps you cannot even drink it. If you continue to pour milk into it you are only making more and more milk useless. Instead of wasting a gallon, you are wasting two gallons, twenty gallons, two hundred gallons. The vessel must be cleaned first.

Because please be assured that by the power of the Master and his grace, anything can be corrected in an instant of time. All that it needs is the right thought, the will power to back it, and the subtlest suggestion that we should employ. It doesn't take time. That it takes time is our failure. All that we have to do is to try to bridge this gap between our failure and his greatness by creating in ourselves the love for the abhyasis that we want to transform them, wholeheartedly.

So when we imagine the grossness, or the abhyasi imagines the grossness is going out of his heart from behind in the form of smoke or vapour, also imagine, he should imagine, or she should imagine, the abhyasi should imagine, that something is coming into its place from in front and that is the Master's grace from the Master's heart, to replace this grossness that has gone out.

Have faith in the Master. Refer to him whenever you are in trouble. Meditate. It will give you all the answers that you need. When in trouble, clean yourselves. Even if you have a momentary spasm of anger against somebody or even against the Master, sit down and do a little cleaning. At that moment if you do the cleaning, it goes.

Sometimes it has to go through the cleaning process many times. Even an ink stain cannot be washed out in one wash, even when the stain is yet wet. The human grossness is so hard and densified, having been accumulated and compacted over millennia.

Excerpts taken from A Preceptor's Guide, Volume II - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

…character formation, for two reasons, is our business. One, because except for the rudimentary base we bring with us from the past life as a samskara, all the rest is the creation of the ego, which means ourselves - small. So when we have created, we have to work upon ourselves to destroy it. The second is: not being part of the samskaric pattern, it is not really amenable to removal by the cleaning process. That is why you find there is a peculiar, what shall I say, confusion that people are being cleaned, they receive transmission, the inner change is going on, but outwardly there is no transformation. So our friends don't accept Sahaj Marg. Society does not accept. It is all right for Babuji to say that if you look inside you will find there is almost a saint, but they say, "What of the outside? Should there not be a change outside patterned on the change within?"

Excerpts taken from A Preceptor's Guide, Volume III - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

And then progressively the inner condition which is also eternal, the inner presence which is also eternal, begins to be revealed. We may marvel, we may wonder, but we should not become self-congratulatory and say, "Ah ha! I have done this," because we have really done nothing. It's like a man polishing the mirror to remove the dust from it, and then saying I have created a mirror.

Failure is a stepping stone to success more than anywhere else in spiritual work because the more we fail, the more we think of the Master, the more we bring his presence into the picture, and say, "Master, please come to my help."

A preceptor doesn't work for his own evolution or her own evolution but for the evolution of others. A preceptor may live under very dirty circumstances in his house but if he keeps the houses of others clean, he is a good preceptor.

Excerpts taken from Proceedings of the Preceptors' Seminar - Shri P.Rajagopalachari

The above quotes form a short synopsis from the Sahaj Marg Educational Series titled Cleaning. To purchase the book, follow this link to the bookstore.