Beyond Psychic Powers (Part 8)

These people are so foolish that they don't understand. They are saying that you are God, but you have to meditate to remember. But how is it that God forgot? God means "the One who knows everything." They have failed to ask this one simple question: "Dear God, how did we forget we were God?" They don't appreciate that, in essence, we are spirit, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul. But we are not the Supreme Spirit. This is their unfortunate mistake. So we are trying to enlighten them. We are concerned for the people who are lost like this.

QUESTION: What is the greatest power a living entity can have?

JAGAD GURU: Let me again quote from Are Mystic Powers Perfection?

The greatest power is the power which cures the greatest sickness—and the greatest sickness is materialism, i.e., the soul's desire to be the Supreme Soul, to be the enjoyer. Only the pure lover of the Supreme Lord can cure this disease. The so-called psychics can work in the physiological realm only, with gross and subtle matter, but they cannot purify a person's heart from all material desires because they themselves are covered by material desires. Indeed, not only do these people fail to cure the materialism of their followers, but they increase their disciples' desire to be the Lord, Master, Guru, Enjoyer. In other words, they increase the disciples' desire to be God. After all, they are themselves playing the role of Enjoyer, God, Dominator—and by nature a disciple looks up to the Spiritual Master, or leader, as being the one to emulate, and so tries to achieve a similar position as him.

The goal of the so-called guru or teacher is to push for psychic powers and to look for disciples. The charlatan guru says he's God, and he tries to flash out all his disciples with all his psychic tricks. So you have all these gurus and disciples jockeying for the post of Supreme Mystic Yogi or God. All of them are envious of one another. None of them knows the Supreme Lord, or tastes the nectar of love for Him.

In a place like Manila, for example, there are thousands of so-called gurus who are trying to make others think that they are God by the amount of psychic powers they have. They have to start revving up their psychic powers and keep their posts so that they can keep their disciples by these little psychic tricks. All these different guys challenging each other—who is the real God? Who is the stronger God?

Actually, this is a highly unsatisfying life for both the gurus and their disciples. They are always in anxiety and are always envious. Our hope is to free them from this game of having to impress their followers that they are God. We should be working together in the service of the Supreme Lord, not trying to be God, trying to develop psychic powers. We are not against these people. Rather, we feel sorry that they have so much suffering because they are envious of the Supreme Person.