How I first met Beloved +yusa

My story of how I first met Beloved +Yusa in the 1980s resonates with all who knew him.

I was a spiritual energy healer in the Pneumatherapy tradition, all my professional life. At the time, I had a practise on the outskirts of Mumbai. I attended a meeting of theologians and lay philosophers in Coimbatore about the Christianization of indigenous Indian spirituality surrounding the persons of Jesus, the Maghadalene and Brother Thomas. There were several pompously dressed clergymen (most from them Thomas Christians) in the audience and people like me who had to keep to the side.

I had been lifelong student of the subject matter, forever searching for that truth that confounded the people vested in interests to secure their jobs and clout. I was seated next to this man in his sixties perhaps, nondescript and noncommittal but for a genuine smile that would break the fierce, tough looking face and body posture. As the meeting proceeded the pain the older man suffered became apparent. Every now and again he would move on his chair, often a grunt, occasionally a deep groan that came from the depths of his Muladhara. I could not help but look for reasons and sense energies, maybe I could help him, I thought.

However, after a while of studying the man’s pain and sensing his energies I came to the conclusion that the pain was triggered as response to things said on stage, there was a pattern.

The last speaker before teatime talked about the etymology of the name Magdalene which those of my school of thought learned was actually Magadhalene, because she was from Magadha in India, not some made-up village in Galilee. During this talk the pain, I think it was in his behind, of the man seated next to me became audible to others as well. He moved more on his seat. At one time I leaned forward and asked in Hindi, “Excuse me sir. Are you in some pain? Is there some way I can be of any help to ease your discomfort?”

He barely looked at me, moved again on his seat and said, something under his breath I didn’t hear. I asked for clarification. He held out his hand, palm upturned fingers pointing to the celebrity theologian speaker and said audible this time, “magadhIya, not lehin”. I did not understand, but I got the message that he was referring to the speaker or the topic, and that his pain was somehow associated with it.

During teatime there was the normal mingling of people urging their way to get tea. I stood aside and watched my neighbour, hoping to catch a glimpse of his gait to see if his back was perhaps not aligned, if that could be the cause of his pain. As I watched, a young man with gleaming eyes and beaming face approached him and bent down to touch his feet before taking leave. Another man of my age, brought him tea and then another and another came to prostrate and touch his feet. The Christian clergy from the Thomas Church and Syrian Church and others with their pompous terribly hot costumes did not receive the same attention. It dawned upon me that my plainly dressed neighbour was a respected member of some community. At that moment he turned and faced me directly from across the room—its that energy thing when someone locks into your energy from across a room (i fouled up, shouldn’t have done that).

For some reason I did not politely avert my eyes, I could not. As his gaze locked mine, I got it! Magadha-lehin is derogatory. At best, or worst, it is probably a nickname borne from her past as a prostitute, meaning “the licker from Magadha”. The right appellation was, magadhIya, one who hails from or belongs to Magadha. He had solved a problem that plagued the likes of me for a long time. “Why would Christians forward a name that makes no sense in Galilee and no sense in India of someone as holy as our Mother Mari?” was all I could hold in my heart. I could not even bare looking at the clergy, I believed they should know what they are doing is sacrilege but they comply because of the pay check from the Christians.

After tea, I really hoped the esteemed uncle would again be seated next to me. He was. I noted how he moved when he sat down and there was nothing amiss, no pain, no grunt. He looked at me enquiringly, so I had to explain. “I was looking for a reason for your pain, sir. I thought it may be your back, my apologies sir.”

He smiled that smile, the one that disarms and moves your soul to believe in the goodness of humankind. He said, “I have arthritis from old injuries, but no pain today. Karma has made me a student of proctology. When I suffer fools as today , it is as if I grow haemorrhoids.”

I became a student of the Master and served him for many years after that, benefitting more from the relationship every year. The phrase, “to serve a master” is such a misnomer, an oxymoron, because it is always a one-way street. We can never repay the hours and dedication, or the intensity of the master being totally in tune with the student’s development.

Many years after, I had myself become a teacher when one day as I had done before, I asked him advice on something, I cannot say about, but I can say the master’s teaching. Beloved +Yusa told me something I had come to learn, but was hoping it shall be different in that instance. He said, “Why do students never surprise their teachers? Because the teachers know. The spiritual teacher is attuned to the student’s spirit, and spirits don’t rest. Why don’t spiritual teachers finish up their enlightenment and go Home? Because they don’t have that priority; their being is engaged with the wellbeing of students. Therefore, select students very carefully, few are worthy of you stalling your final enlightenment, but just one worthy student makes it worth it.”

This brings me to the point of the importance of the work of teaching which is also the reason for this collection of transcribed talks and essays. Every great Teacher out there who benefitted humankind at large, had a teacher.

This brings me to the point of the importance of serving a teacher. I am not singular in this, as I know many who did the same things, to jump from one teacher to another from one discipline to another. Ever since I was a child, I knew I must study spirituality, so I did. I spent a fortune attending seminars and workshops with all kinds of good teachers, but also many quacks, fakes, charlatans and other types of con artists. And looking back I know how I misjudged some saints as falling short in my view, and how many I did not appreciate because I imposed my set of values and priorities on them.

It was not until I committed to a teacher and was accepted and stuck it out through countless testing times that I made actual progress. Once there was a commitment and that obstinate holding-on through tough times, and my stagnant growth times, I made more progress in one year than all my life with all those teachers I read and studied.

Beloved +Yusa was never an easy teacher, and no-one who studied under him will ever accuse him of mollycoddling and patronizing and the resultant compromising in bringing about the student’s full potential. You always knew with him that he has no expectation that you will stay and he knew when you had reached your limit even before you knew.

Beloved +Yusa took a long view of things, as the spirit views life on Earth. He fully accepted that if you don’t do it now, you will be back in a lifetime or two to try again, no hurry. I you don’t have an urgency for your soul, that is your prerogative. The teacher can only go at the stride you are ready for, and right there is the greatest tripping point for students. In our condescension, all too frequently we think we know already and want to move on while the teacher is waiting patiently for us to complete the learning that is at hand—often a learning we don’t even know we are dealing with.

Throughout history, people always gave their teachers gifts to thank them for their dedicated efforts to train them, often a piece of land. In days when it was still legal to do, not infrequently the gift was that of a daughter—all the while knowing it is merely a token of gratitude for the immeasurable light we received. For the modern student it may seem preposterous that a parent may gift a daughter to his Teacher, but as a Wayist you must own your own mind, think it through. In a time when girls were not sent to school and women did not get paid jobs other than manual labour, knowing the daughter will grow up in a school, in a holy household where she will be schooled and learn spirituality and mystical association with the gods is an important gift to the daughter. The gift bequeathed to the Teacher is also a gift to the daughter. But those were different times with different challenges than we have today. Today is not necessarily better. The slums of India have a population higher than New Zealand and Sweden. Hundreds of thousands of those children would give everything to grow up in a satisfactory household and get schooling to boot.

Inspired by Beloved +Yusa, whom I have been serving in the slums of Kolkata and Mumbai to this day.

+Surya

2019