Good and bad sanskaras are both bindings. If you have good sanskaras, you may take birth as a great, rich man; with bad sanskaras, you may be born as a miserable leper, and so on. But you cannot get freedom without a Master. You do not know how many bad sanskaras you have, and how many good ones you need. But the Perfect Master knows, and he will work with you to balance them.
Once, when Buddha was not yet realized [unveiled, God-conscious], after he had renounced his kingdom, wife and child, and had gone into the forest, where he remained doing penance and fasting, he encountered an old woman who was advanced on the Path. She told him that he was bound more than ever before! Before, they were fetters of iron, now they were of gold, but both were binding, all the same. Then, she told him the secret.1
Good and bad are mere terms. Hitler sincerely thinks he is doing good, and the world thinks he is doing bad! What is good for him is bad for the world. Good and bad are just man-made expressions. Real freedom can only be obtained when you give up all desires. You have to renounce them all to attain freedom.
Nadine was observing silence according to Baba's instructions, and now communicating through hand signs.
When mentioning some recent quarrel between her and Norina, Baba commented, "You must observe silence, not only of the tongue, but of desires, of hatred, of bitterness, of greed, et cetera, too!"
Returning to the subject of sanskaras, Baba recounted to the women this true story:
There was a man who was a great murderer. In his life, he murdered 99 people. One day he felt very depressed and sick of it all. So he went to a Perfect Master, and frankly and openly confessed before him all his crimes, adding that he was feeling most dejected and wanted to end it all. The Master told him to go sit by the side of a certain road and think of him. The murderer did so.
One day, while he was sitting there thinking of the Master, a rider came by, stopped before him and told him to move aside. The man refused, and the rider started lashing him with his whip. Reverting back to his old ways, the man [pulled the rider from his horse] stabbed and killed him. And at that very moment the man realized God!
Footnotes
- 1.On another occasion, Baba explained that an old woman unveiled Buddha by giving him pudding to eat after his many months of fasting. The woman was a Perfect Master, who played the same role as Babajan did for Merwan.