Maharishi on Picture of Guru Dev
This explanation by Maharishi was related by Raja Steve Rubin as part of the 12 January 2009 celebration. _____ It's a very beautiful question and very sweet, the question was and still is, Guru Dev must have been fully enlightened. Now after leaving the body nothing remains in the Relative, just Absolute. Then how do we invoke and to whom? And if nobody is to be invoked, then what is the use? Some such similar question I asked Guru Dev once, what happened was naturally people come to the ashram from all over India to pay respects to Guru Dev, once or twice a year according to their own convenience. And when they would come, they would narrate all sorts of stories - the child was sick, or they had a law suit, all sorts of difficulties, and then thinking of Guru Dev, that thing disappeared. And hearing all these things for a long time, one night I asked Guru Dev,"What is this?" These people don't even write to Guru Dev, Guru Dev doesn't know they are in difficulty on the surface of life, and then how do they report they had a vision or some thought of Guru Dev, and then from that time everything started to be smooth? If they wrote a letter and the difficulties came to the notice of Guru Dev and then they got out of their difficulty, I could understand it, but they don't write letters. They just have the devotion to Guru Dev and they have some thought of Guru Dev, And Guru Dev reply was, "It's the department of the Almighty and He does it." And it took me about 2 years to understand because I quite remember the time what is meant by it's "the department of the Almighty." And now I understand it is this. We have the picture of Guru Dev, as when we do puja, and that form, that photo, that picture is the physical expression of the form which had a mind that was fully enlightened and omnipresent. So once we see the form, our eyes associate with the form very naturally because the physical and mental run parallel. And once the form is in our vision, in our awareness, then naturally our mind gets in tune with the mind which occupied that form once upon a time. The form was occupied by a mind, that mind is an all-time reality, eternal, the barriers of time are no barriers to it, continuum. The body is no more, but the form is there, and once we tune our eyes, our vision, perception, cognition to that, because that was held up by a mind that was enlightened, naturally our mind gets in tune, and because that mind was and is and will forever be omnipresent, immediately our mind gets in tune with the omnipresent, and right away the help comes from where we are. The help comes from Absolute Being, which is the nature of our own mind, but that image, that picture becomes a positive and concrete medium to have that mechanics performed for our mind. So help comes from our own Being because it comes through that form naturally our devotion to that. It's the department of the Almighty which does it, not the individual, it's the department and it's only one way, it's not two ways, it's one way. The help is not given, it's received. It's received by our ability to attune with that, and that ability develops with devotion, surrender and service, these three things. Automatically one is elevated to that level, and help doesn't come from outside, it comes from right where we are, from our own being. But those unaware of one's own being have those mechanics to help them. This is true of all the saints of the times throughout the world.
