Shukdev's Letters to his mentor 5

Dear Mentor,

They come for fortune and profit. "Give me a son; make my business prosper; heal my mother; take away my poverty!" They come to take boons from this poor man, this king on earth. This sadhu who cares for nothing for himself, but prays for the welfare of those who come, and what they pray for, by his grace they shall have. I have come to learn of God, where he dwells, by what means he may be known; how can this busy mind and anxious body find the calm eternal? And that which I came for shall be granted me - not without work and effort, not without the pains that desire brings and pleasure fosters.

God is inside. I have felt life's current and floated upon the vastness of the Mother's ocean. But still, through action, sloth, or calm there is the "I" who knows not who he is or why he enquires of himself, "Who am I?" This earth is moving helter skelter toward a purification the likes of which occurs very seldom and those who live through t show the scars of intense struggle for survival. This I know intuitively as do many of my generation.

But this awareness is hard to bear for I know not its source, or what role I shall partake in it. I am still a prisoner of my unfinished desires and the anxiety of body's time. But I have tasted the stillness where God dwells and I am being taught of the futility of this ego. See that the world is a mess because the mind is a mess of the many that reside here and the only way to change the whole is to transform the hearts and minds of the individual, but what work can one do but upon oneself?

I can only discover who "I" am and by that know the truth for it exists everywhere and nowhere always and never, beyond thought and of thought. As the heart about God and tears will surelly fall. You can tell I'm dying. Throw me no line, offer me no rescue,

j.