Daughter of Fire Read online

  Unconsciously, of course, I cannot know….”

  “I will take care of this,” he said with a strange enigmatic smile; he closed his eyes.

  ”Do with me everything you deem necessary to make me fit for the work, because I well realize, as I am now, I am useless for the work you may want me to do.”

  He turned to face me with a smile: “I told you I was out of my body last night. All I can say is that you are being prepared for this work.”

  Suddenly his face assumed the strange expression he always has when functioning on a different plane of consciousness; the bottomless look in his eyes, the inward look, which does not see things of this world.

  “Do you remember your previous life?”

  “No.”

  The reflection of endless infinitude in his eyes, beyond space, divorced from time, seemed to penetrate right through my very being.

  “But it must have been a bad one, because I came with bad tendencies into this one.”

  “We all have plenty of bad tendencies,” he said, and then as if speaking from very far away, his eyes completely veiled with a kind of blue mist, he added very, very slowly: “The time may come, I don’t say that it will come, BUT IT MAY COME, when you will have powers and will know many things.”

  I said that I suspected I was evolving on Hatha Yoga lines because in this life, elderly as I am, my body could do all the exercises relatively easily without ever having learned them, and I love doing them.

  “That’s why you forgot everything!” Again this young boyish laughter. I knew what he had meant. But for some reason I felt hurt.

  Told him once, I remember, that I was afraid of clairvoyance, and if one is afraid of something, there could be a suspicion of a past memory in the unconscious, of something gone wrong. One is never afraid without a reason lurking behind it.

  To have any kind of powers can lead one astray.

  There was a time when I lived with this book, Mahatma Letters. I don’t remember how often I read it. And I brought it with me to India. I took the book out of my handbag and opened it, showing him the pages where parts of the letters and the signatures of the Masters are reproduced. He took it, put on his reading glasses, and looked intently at Master M.‘s letter. Then turned the page slowly and looked intently at Master K.H. ‘s letter. His face bore a strange expression, very alert and as if listening.

  “This one,” he said, pointing at Master K.H. ‘s signature, “this one is greater than the other.”

  I was thinking that, for all the opinions I have heard, it seemed to be the reverse. L., who is an expert in graphology, when I told her about it, did not agree with his opinion. It seemed to her that Master M. has more genius. But it is a well-known fact that from the spiritual point of view, it is not absolutely essential to be a genius. How many greatly spiritual people were great without being geniuses in the proper sense of the word.

  “You told me that you understand that you will have many difficulties and are prepared to face them. So, you do it from your own free will. Remember that. You will suffer injustice and will be hurt where it hurts most. Where you are most afraid of being hurt.

  You do realize that?”

  I said that I did. I knew what I was doing, but I also feel that I HAVE NO CHOICE.

  Then he asked me why I pledged myself; was it a vision?

  “If you mean by a vision that I saw or heard something with my senses, no. But if you mean by a vision a clear mental image and a certitude without any possibility of doubt, then, yes.”

  “This must be a link from a previous life… not necessarily the last.” He said it thoughtfully, narrowing his eyes to a slit. Again his face assumed this special expression which so much fascinates and even slightly frightens me.

  4th November, 1961

  WAS THINKING this morning that seven years ago, on the 23rd of October, for the first time I came to 50 Gloucester Place, the Library of the Theosophical Society. I remember the door was painted green.

  It is still green today.

  Seven years later, also in October, I met my Teacher. And on the 2nd of November, 1956, I went to see the originals of the Mahatma Letters in the British Museum. Now, on the 2nd of November—is it just a coincidence?—according to what he told me, something was done to affect my evolution. Strange… or is it?

  Slept badly and restlessly, but it was much better than the previous night. The effect of whatever it might have been, seemed to wear off, on the physical plane, at least.

  When reading a book sitting in the veranda after lunch, quite out of the blue, a strange sweetness pervaded my heart. It was such a subtle feeling. As soon as I tried to analyze it, it kept vanishing, reappearing again, peeping out from behind my thoughts. This feeling, so light, so elusive, had nothing to do with my environment, and it had nothing to do with him either. At least not directly. It goes beyond him, to something infinitely sweet, so infinitely dear…

  closer to me than breathing. I caught myself thinking. Yes, that’s what it is… and it is just like the beginning of falling in love. Falling in love with what??

  6th November

  “How DOES ONE GET LOVE, Bhai Sahib? How does one get humility?”

  “How do you smell the scent of flowers? There is no effort from the part of the flower, neither from your side; you just smell it, effortlessly.”

  “L. told me that since she knows you, she always sleeps well; I hardly slept for the last three nights.”

  “The way of training is different; the time will come when you will say: I did not sleep for years.”

  “Can one see Prana?”

  “Yes, but not with the physical eyes. In Dhyana the flow of Prana is reversed, but not so in sleep. Reversed, in the sense that all the sensorial energies are intraverted, absorbed in the heart, instead of being extraverted. It is a movement within, instead of without, as in the waking state of consciousness, or in sleep. For the first few times the Teacher has to do it and put the Shishya in Dhyana; later he learns how to do it himself. Realizing Atman is one thing, but to realize Brahman is something else.”

  “Can it be done in one life?”

  “It can be done, AND IT IS DONE in one life. From the moment the training has begun, the progress continues. Sometimes one gets the Realization on one’s deathbed. When I misunderstood you yesterday and thought that you were sixty-five and not fifty-five as you are in reality, I had a doubt in my mind… “

  “What doubt, Bhai Sahib?”

  “You see, of course, it is not appropriate to tell people how long they are going to live…“

  “Oh, Bhai Sahib!” I interrupted, “please do not make the training much longer, now that you know that lam ten years younger! Do not give me the realization on my deathbed!”

  “No, for those who are pledged for work, it is done quicker. You know, of course, that all the Karmas have to be burned up; I told you that before; you will have to suffer injustice, you will be attacked, it will hurt.”

  “Yes, I know, and I am prepared for it!”

  Speaking of a well-known Indian Saint, now deceased, he said: “He was not a maker of Saints. There are very few in the world who are makers of Saints. He was not a Master of Consciousness; he was the Master of the Unconscious, hut he could not translate it into daily life.”

  “I had a dream, Bhai Sahib; may I tell you? I was in Pushpa’s car, her husband was driving. We came to a bridge on which was a huge heap of furniture. Ugly, old, dusty, heap of furniture. The car had to go over it in order to cross the bridge. But the heap was too steep, the car could not take it. So, the driver turned the car to the left into a narrow lane, the entrance of which was barred by a large lorry.

  Putting the car into a low gear, he slowly approached it, very slowly and deliberately perforated the radiator of the lorry standing in front with a pointed bar sticking out of our car. Out of the perforated hole petrol began to pour swiftly. Pushpa was holding a vessel under it.

  ‘Good,’ I said; ‘this petrol will serve
for our car to go over the bridge.’ And I woke up. Old furniture will mean the old conditioning which has to be overcome?”

  “The convenience is not yours, the car belongs to Pushpa. It means she is helping you by letting you stay in her house. She is helping you in this way. With the petrol taken from another car, the one in which you are traveling will be able to cross the bridge.

  Soon,” he added, “there will be no furniture on the bridge and the car will cross over easily.”

  Tuesday, 7th November, 1961

  Divali, Festival of Light

  TODAY WE WENT to the Samadhi (here meaning ”grave, place of rest”) of his father, seven miles from Kanpur. With a large lorry we went. It was fun. The whole of his family, many other people, neighbors came too—all in the lorries a policeman arranged for our transport.

  The Sufi’s tomb in a white mausoleum of simple and sober proportions is rather large, open on all sides, supported by columns.

  The floor is paved with red tiles. It was all lit with candles and small butter lamps. All around are fields, groups of trees in the distance.

  The sky was still pink after the sunset, softly pink with grey clouds. A strong, spicy fragrance was in the air, typical of the Indian plains.

  Many people were here. Old disciples of the Guru and far too many children. The atmosphere was very good but not so dynamic as sometimes in Guru’s place. Too many people and too much disturbance, children running about making noise. L. said that I think this way because I don’t understand. The grave of a Sufi is a highly magnetic place.

  After coming back we sat in Guru’s garden for a while. During supper I nearly fainted at the table; everybody commented on me getting so pale—was afraid to fall down—it would have been very awkward. But it passed soon.

  8th November

  BECAME AWARE of much peace, lately. It came gradually like a thief. I hardly noticed it at first. It is a different kind of peace from the one experienced for the last few years. Before, it used to be a feeling of peace, plus joy, all laughter, and life was good. Now, it is like a deep, still pool, full of silence and darkness. Very deep and very, very silent. It is such a neutral feeling that I quite understand that it could be a background to anything at all—for instance, joy can be impressed upon it, or love, or spiritual dryness, or loneliness.

  Anything can go with it, any other feeling or state without even disturbing it. It has no color, seemingly no substance, no other feeling except a stillness, a tranquil peace. It makes me think of the depth of the ocean, always calm, even when huge waves are raging on the surface.

  Slept well last night. Was it because L. told him the evening before that I nearly fainted? But we thought that he did not hear what she was saying. A crowd of people came pushing in and she was interrupted.

  7 Echoes from the Past

  9th November

  SLEPT WELL. Very well. I wonder if the effect of what the Guru gave me a few days ago is wearing off? Peace is with me though. In the last few days, when I could not sleep, I was in a sort of half-state which seems to be the preliminary state of Samadhi, and is called the “Sleep of the Powerful” in the Scriptures… so L. told me. It was filled with images, mostly of him, or his face, but chiefly only his eyes—all sorts of confused dreams which seemed so real, so intense, larger than life. And there was great restlessness of the physical body. But in the mornings there was no tiredness whatsoever, quite on the contrary, great energy. Every morning I went on the flat roof to do the yogic exercises at dawn, Surya Namaskar (ritual prostration before the rising sun) and the rest, and watched the sun rise serenely behind the feathery crowns of distant palm trees.

  As soon as a noisy, talkative man had left, and we remained alone with the Guru, I took the opportunity to ask him about the ice-cold feeling on the top of my head each time when doing the Bhoot exercise (standing on the head).

  “Do you take something after the exercises, as I told you to do when you began to do them a few weeks ago?” he asked. I said that I didn’t. Milk and butter on an empty stomach disgusts me.

  “Then take a cup of hot tea with a bit of butter in it, to prevent the dryness of the brain.”

  In nearly all books on Yoga they speak of “dryness” to be avoided—I wonder what it means? It certainly must have a meaning, which we people in the West don’t understand. Personally I don’t believe for a moment that the so-called brain-dryness can be prevented or relieved by a bit of butter in a cup of tea….

  “You think your Kundalini is asleep, but it can wake up at any moment.”

  He looked straight through me, with this unseeing look of his, when he is not looking at the physical body. It is like a bottomless dark pool, eyes covered by a bluish veil, eyes which do not seem to see.

  I had better have this tea with butter after all; one never knows ….

  Then he began to sing. I love it. It is so disturbing. I do not know why. He has a pleasant voice and always sings in Persian or Urdu. As soon as his voice fills the room, it is as if I am transported to another plane of being. The brain stops working. I do not seem to listen with the mind, but with something else. These songs of his, monotonous and in a language I don’t understand, disturb something very deep in me. It is like trying to get hold of long,forgotten memories, buried in the remotest past-glimpses which are awakened by his voice and are somehow connected with him. It is as if I knew this sound so well, that it was part of me, of the “me” which I could not get hold of, or ever understand. Memories, so vague, so dim, so fleeting, like the whiffs of mist I saw amongst the pines on the slopes of the Himalayan hills. When one tries to pin them down, to concentrate on them, they dissolve into nothing just like the mist; it always disappeared before it reached you, because it was so tenuous that when it was all around you, you could not see it anymore.

  He translated the song: “When you are burning with thirst, do not search for water, remain thirsty.”

  It made me smile. Since yesterday I have a burning desire for Truth. Deep. Strong. Endless. As never before. It goes on and on and on, the whole of my being streaming forth into an endless river of longing.

  He began another song, a long sad one. In the refrain, repeated softly and as if with resignation, the name of Mustafa occurred again and again. The melody was beautiful, as vast as the sands of the desert.

  “When Lord Mohammed’s followers came into power, Mustafa (another name for Mohammed) was buried without a Kaftan (a long outer garment). Why? The answer came 1200 years later. It was given by a Sufi Saint, Sarmad. The ruler Aurangzeb Alambhir said to him: ‘What sort of a man are you; you have nothing to put on, look at you—you are naked! But I am a King. I can dress the whole nation if I wish; my own garments are rich and wonderful!’

  “Said Sarmad: ‘Who made you a King and me a beggar is the same God! Those who are defective, those who are sinners, are supplied with clothes and worldly possessions, but those who are Saints, do not need all this, for they are Beloved of God!’

  “The body of Mohammed threw no shadow. His body was not really physical, so, it had no shadow.

  “‘Suf’ means ‘wool.’ Wool is warm. If the heart is warm, then there is love. When you see a Saint whose heart is soft and warm, he is a Sufi. The Teaching is given according to the state of evolution of the disciple and according to his temperament and conditioning. As he progresses, more aspects of the Truth are revealed.”

  10th November

  WHEN ASKED, told him that I sleep well. He laughed.

  “Well, L. told me the other day that you nearly fainted; I had to do something about it.”

  I protested violently. Said that it was nothing to speak of, and I like this in-between state which left no tiredness in the morning. I was full of energy—please, I wanted it back. I reproached L. for telling him, was furious and nearly quarreled with her, telling him that if he does not give me this state back, he will find me sitting at his doorstep at four in the morning. He shook his head in silent disapproval. L. was annoyed with me and sai
d this is not the way to speak to the Guru.

  Later, about midday, there was such a wonderful fragrance in the air, like flowering trees, some wonderful scent coming from afar, and all around in the garden… a gentle breeze full of oxygen, like a lovely, fresh perfume. I drew his attention to it. He ordered me to go around in the garden and try to find out from where it came. But everywhere I went, it was eluding me; there was only the kitchen smell, or of toilets, or of dust.

  “Come with me: is it here or here?” he kept asking. But it was nowhere, it was gone. He wanted to know what kind of fragrance it was, and added that he could smell it too, and had I ever noticed it before?

  Told him that I smelled it in Kushinagar, the place where Lord Buddha died, and also at Samadhi of his Revered Father, the other day. Then I was thinking that it was the smell of the Indian plains. But never had I smelled it in his garden before.

  In the evening we were alone, he, L. and myself. He asked L. how she spelled her first name and the surname. She wrote it in block letters; he looked at it for a long time with closed eyes and then told her a few things about her future. Afterwards he asked me for my maiden name, and I too had to write it down in block letters, and he had some trouble how to pronounce my surname, Karpow.

  “Why do you want our names?” laughed L. “You can know by other means everything about us!”

  “Why should I use my Siddhi (yogic power) if I can do it simply by analyzing your names?” he asked, giving her one of his sideways looks.

  He was right. According to spiritual Law one should never use one’s Power if it can be done by ordinary means. Slowly, as if speaking with difficulty, he asked me how long I intend to remain in the Theosophical Society. “For ever after,” I said, and it seemed even strange that this question should arise at all. Life without T.S. seems unthinkable. I seem to be part of it, quite naturally.

  “Yes,” he continued slowly as if lost in thought, “it seems to me that you are intended to, I do not say that it will be, or you shall, or are going to do it, but you are intended to do much work. Very much work. Great work is in store for you. There is much work for you to do… yes… and you are going to be very old.”