The Necessity of the Company of Sages
Out of every person is projected a certain energy, and the quality depends on the person and his mood at the time. This energy can be sensed on occasion. If you walk into a room in which everyone is tense, you can feel the tension in the atmosphere, and you also become tense. Likewise, when you are at a football match, and your team is in front, the atmosphere is very happy, and it makes you happier. The most useful kind of energy that is projected out of people is spiritual energy. Large amounts of this only come out of very spiritual people, namely sages, because only one with a significant spiritual realisation contains a significant amount of spiritual energy.
Spirituality is not reading books, or sitting in an armchair and talking about philosophy, doing rituals or going to the temple; it is the generation of spiritual power and nothing else. If no spiritual power is generated, then our so-called “spirituality” is just a dead thing. If we never meet any sages, and only do spiritual practices on our own, we will make a certain amount of progress, but we will eventually find that there is a point beyond which we cannot go. What is necessary is an injection of spiritual power from a sage.
There are two main ways in which we may receive spiritual power. One is simply by being in the energy field of a sage and being mentally open to receiving spiritual energy. The energy will automatically spiritualise the aspirant, but it takes a long time in the company of the sage for this to happen. However, the effect is much greater if a sage consciously injects a large amount of spiritual energy into the aspirant. This kind of transfer of spiritual energy is a spiritual initiation. Self-realisation is normally impossible to achieve without receiving some spiritual energy. This is, of course, universally true, not just in India. In the Bible, the transfer of spiritual power from John the Baptist to Jesus Christ is clearly described. There are a very few recorded cases of people becoming self-realised without an initiation. In these cases, they had an initiation in their previous life and died shortly before achieving self-realisation, but this is almost unheard of. It would be foolish to think we are one of those cases unless we had remarkable and seemingly inexplicable realisations in our childhood and were inclined to be permanently in meditation or had incredible natural devotion to God. A spiritual initiation is not just some ritual; without this transfer of spiritual power from master to aspirant, it is nothing. The spiritual energy will, over time, automatically purify the mind. When there is a guru (spiritual master) and a disciple, that means that the passing of some spiritual power has taken place. Without this, there can be no guru and no disciple, just a master and an aspirant. Not anyone can decide to be a guru; he must have a deep spiritual realisation, or he will simply not have any spiritual power in him that he can transmit.
When we practise spirituality, a certain amount of spiritual power is generated within us, but when we go back into the material world, before having reached a certain level, we eventually lose a lot or all of it again. When a plant is still small, it must be protected by hedges, or it will get eaten or trampled on by the elephants. However, when it has grown into a big tree, the elephants can no longer harm it, so the hedges are unnecessary. In the same way, when we start the spiritual path, we must have a certain amount of protection from the perils of the material world, but when we have reached a high level, we can then go anywhere and will be able to maintain our spirituality. In practice, this means that, as well as steering clear of materialistic people and activities as much as reasonably possible, it is necessary to visit holy people now and again. When we do this, we absorb more spiritual energy, and also are reminded of and refocus on the importance of spirituality, as we are in spiritual company and hear spiritual talk. The great saint Ramakrishna of the nineteenth century said that people who live in the world need to do three things to realise themselves; meditate every day, go into solitude for at least a day now and again, and visit holy people from time to time.