R: Yukteswar, you are worshiped as a saint, but I feel you so close to myself that I have never been able to treat you like a saint.

G: Fortunately. I would be poorer with a few experiences.

R: I'm glad that I can give you something too. ─ (laughing)

G: The saints are made by human. They raise them above themselves, admire and pray to them instead of following them. No man has been ordained a saint in his life, and often the opposite has happened; this is a post-mortem confession. However, we would rather disciples follow our path with devotion than they admire us as saints. Anyway, you have always given me the respect, only you have added straightforwardly your opinion. ─ (laughing) ─ Furthermore, I revere you because your sincerity helped me to understand you. The disciples think they have to meet the guru's expectations therefore they are not honest with their master. They try to look more perfect than they really are. You have never tried to do this; you always indicated where you are exactly. The base for the development is to be aware of exactly where you are because you can move further only from solid foundation. I have always been rough honest with you. Telling the truth, I don’t wish better disciple for any master, though no guru could have endured you. ─ (laughing)   

R: I know your style, you praise with reprimand. Returning to our subject, who is the saint? Who can be considered sacred?

G: The confusion among the people is caused by mixing up the saint and the holy man. The holy man is who performs various kinds of resignations in order to follow a set of rules and conduct a God-pleasing lifestyle. In this case the emphasis is on compliance of rules and renunciation. Rules are traditionally given within a religious system. If one is fully devoted by keeping the rules and making penitence, he is a holy man. However, this does not mean that he has realized God. In Christianity, canonization is institutionalized and miracles must be performed to it. In Hinduism, the situation is different; becoming a saint is not institutionalized, if enough people begin to worship somebody as a saint or one is proclaimed by some authority, then he is accepted and it is spread. In fact, one can be considered saint if he has accomplished some form of God. At present, not all persons who are considered saints have realized God, and not all persons who have been realized by God are considered saint.

R: What is the role and mission of the saints?

G: Leading people to God. In this sense, it does not matter if someone strictly meets the definition, if they are believed otherwise, they can fulfill their role. People cannot determine who realized God and who did not, and what kind of realization was made, so they take decision according to other criteria and these are the miracles. People think that if someone can accomplish a miracle after his death, he is saint, because the most of people cannot.

R: How did you become a saint?

G: It had two components. One is that I have achieved the atman. But this would remain between God and me if others did not know about it. I owe it primary to Yogananda, who has become an international authority and has declared my accomplishment. In addition, I appeared for others, just as for you too, who believed in me because of this event.

R: In order to be considered saint, does one have to stay close to the earthly level? If one goes into God smoothly, will anyone notice it?

G: If one can go smoothly into God, there must be at least one disciple who will notice. ─ (laughing) ─ Otherwise, we stay on the earthly plane because it is our job and it will affect the material world.

R: Let's go back to the miracles. Is it already a miracle for people that one is able to show up after his death?

G: The miracle act always requires two people. The miracle maker and the miracle host. Therefore, without followers, no one will be saint because there is no one to be influenced. For at least a decade you didn't know who I was, but I appeared several times. Of course, I was not motivated that you considered me saint, but I was doing my job. There are many helpers whose names no one knows, they will never be ordained by men, but they act in silence. Even the greatest saint cannot do a miracle unless there is a person who will open to the miracle. Therefore, most miracles are related to healing, because this is what can be documented and incurable patients tend to open up to the transcendent and it can be performed miracles with them, through which God is quasi manifesting himself. The saint or servant is only an instrument in the hands of God. Some miracles have already happened through you, but no one has documented it or even nobody attributed it to you. People in critical situations can also turn to saints for help, and if they do, it can be a documented case. In many cases, however, people do not turn to a specific person, but help arrives, often through servants who remain unknown.

R: What can we call a miracle?

G: There is no miracle in reality. What cannot be explained to the people by the laws of the material world is considered a miracle. A miracle can happen when a higher world extends into the material world and overwrites the laws that are valid here. However, this is not a real overwrite of the laws, but in fact that the people are only partially or completely ignorant of the laws of the higher worlds. What a miracle for them is natural to us. When you met Krishna in Matura did you experience as a miracle?

R: No. But even my healing had happened. I went there to meet Him. It would have been a miracle if it hadn't occurred, because then I had failed in my faith.

G: You knew that you could only hope for mercy from Krishna, because everyone had refused you before, and you knew that you would receive it. There was no doubt in you. The miracle is, when someone giving up his doubts opens to an event, and this unhoped happening changes his attitude so far. Miracle is created by doubt and the consequent abdication of it; miracle and knowledge are mutually exclusive.

R: Many are trying to prove their connection with God or the Transcendent by miracle. Could it be right to do this?

G: As in everything, in this case also the pure intention is important. If the helper considers himself as a tool, he always knows whether he acts rightly or whether he can? What's the sense of doing a miracle with someone who wouldn't believe it anyway? According to Jesus, this would mean throw pearls to pigs. It is given somebody who believes in you, he is just opening for the miracle then you can do it. It's hard to do a miracle nowadays. There's more miracle maker than the miracle host! ─ (laughing)

R: My previous question also included the existence of false miracles. How can we find it out?

G: I advise everyone not to be afraid of miracles, because the miracle is in everybody. If one believes in an unsuitable person, the miracle can still happen to him, because the miracle is never done by the person, but is created by attachment to the transcendent. It happened to you as well that a non-self-realized person gave you a teaching which did not work for him, but it came into effect at your case.

R: It was misleading situation because it seemed that I’ve got the opportunity from him and I held on beside him almost to the end, while I owed the development for my connection with God. I was taught by many masters and I only found out later that they didn't even know what they were teaching. Therefore, they could not know what kind of effect of their teaching had on me.

G: If you had such a relationship with a master it is partly karma. You gave him the opportunity to redeem. On the other hand, many people teach as a medium and they do not know actually what they are saying and why. If someone later asks what they have said, they won't even remember it. I’d like to emphasize something else in this regard; no one steps accidentally on false road, meets with fraudulent masters, unfaithful priests, miracle maker fake-magicians. These experiences fit in his tasks of learning how to make difference. This is the path to adulthood. Just as one has to undergo bodily development, so he must perform psychical, mental and spiritual development. God does not protect anyone from his own mistakes. When you look at someone seeing that he is an unreliable, unacceptable personality, you have self-knowledge. This self-knowledge originates from thet you have faced with these characteristics in yourself, you made a decision and rejected them. No fraudsters will come to your door because you are not one; they have nothing to show you; you have no further duty with them.

R: Thank you for existence for us!

Margaret Rhasoda-Varga
UCCM head-master
(Meeting of worlds, excerpt)