The Power of Devotion: Nisargadatta Maharaj's Example

Yeah, just confirming that. That is why throughout the world we've had people like Janabai, we had people like what we call mystic sages who have just not had any education, not had any proper spiritual training, went to no gurukul, learned no shastra, learned no scriptures, and yet in their simple love for God they exceeded the great scriptural ones by miles. Look at Maharaj, an uneducated man. He was only told, 'Stay with the sense I am. Just stay.' What does that mean? So his Guru told him, 'Stay in the sense I am.' Just that presence 'I am' is God's presence. If it was just some human, then nothing would happen. So because there was godliness about it, spirituality about it, that is why just remaining in the innocence, in the patience, in the love for following his Guru's direction, this man spent three years continuously just staying in the presence of 'I am'. Three years. And he says it so humbly: 'All I had to do is I just followed my Master's words. In three years, just three years, I found it,' you see. All of us get frustrated in thirty minutes, maybe three sometimes, maybe. So he must have had all those challenges, all the Maya tricks, but three years he just, no questions asked, stayed in God's presence. Uneducated man, bidi seller, not even cigarettes, bidi seller on the streets of Mumbai. And then what he started to share from his inside is one of the highest books on spirituality we can ever read. That is the power of devotion, surrender, patience, courage, faith. Imagine the faith. It sounds very simple in retrospect, but three years in full faith he followed the Master's direction: 'Stay with the sense I am.' Simple street vendor in Mumbai, and now people call him Maharaj, emperor of spirituality.

So this path is universal, does not discriminate. God is available to everyone. And then he did something funny. So what happened is that after his book became famous, a lot of Westerners started coming to him from Puna and other places. So then some were asking, 'But I heard there's another session that happens in the morning. What is that session and why are we not invited to that?' So that was the bhajan session. The devotional aspect would happen, would be sung. So he would say, 'No, no, that's not for you. You won't understand.' I'm sure some Indians also would come in the morning and say, 'Why have we not been invited to those?' And I'm not generalizing in terms of Western or Indian, but he just realized who's coming after reading the book and who's coming just from his lineage of Guru Parampara and the devotional path as well. So then he would have two separate sessions for the Jnana and for the bhaktas. Maybe we should do that sometime. Very—what the point I'm making is that through such a simple pointer, to exert yourself, surrender yourself fully for three full years, then you become a great sage who can share Jnana, you can share Bhakti, you can lead the disciples in the way they need to be led. Such a beautiful, beautiful story.