The Story of a Camel
Questioner: I think I am very much convinced that the best approach to life is to put all efforts towards becoming receptive to the Master and Naam. Naam inside and the Master physically outside. But so many impressions, you might say, tumble around in my mind and they control me still. The impressions still tug so much, even though I am convinced intellectually that this is what I want.
Kirpal Singh: There was one Majnu, who was very fond of Laila, a princess. Once he left his home to meet her, riding on a female camel. That female camel had a child left behind. Majnu rode on the camel, absorbed in the thought of Laila, and the reins were relaxed. The camel returned home, because she was attached to her child, was she not? Again he started ... They say it took him six months to reach Laila. Why? This is a reply to your question.
Questioner: He relaxed the reins.
Kirpal Singh: Naturally effort becomes nature. Even though we know this theory intellectually, we are still identified with the body and are dragged like anything. As a matter of inference we know we are not the body. But when you daily rise above your body at your will, then you will come to know that you are not your body. But at present you may take six months or six years to reach the goal. Do you follow? That is nature. When you do anything, repeating it daily for say a few months – for example if you go to some place daily – after five, six months, if you are going the other way you will feel drawn to the accustomed place and your legs will automatically move in the direction they have been accustomed to move. This is due to habit.
Questioner: So do we gradually outlive these so many impressions? Through meditation and living, do we just expend them?
Kirpal Singh: Yes. What is that by knowing which nothing more is left to be known? By tasting which nothing more remains to be tasted? By knowing that happiness, no other happiness will vie with it. That is within you. How important it is to meditate. It takes five, six hours in the school, then homework for two or three hours. Eight hours a day working for one year gives you one step, one part. How much time do you put in now? Fortunately you are here, so you are putting in four-five hours. But even that is not the actual time you are putting in. Your physical body is sitting of course, but that time only counts in which attention was not relaxed, was not slackened; continuously dwelling on one subject. So forget the past births, if there were any or not. Ever since we were born we have been attached to the body. We have been working at the physical level; we have never thought that we were not the body. Even now, although we have come to the conclusion that we are not the body, all the same we are working at the level of the body. Only remember this story of a camel, you see. [chuckles]
Habit has turned into nature, you see. We are to unravel it. All right, good night to you all.