BE THE LOVE YOU ARE
Questions And Answers With Arthur and Poppy Hillcoat
These questions followed the talks which Arthur and Poppy delivered at a meeting of Sathya Sai devotees in Ebell Club, Los Angeles, California on the 7th of Sep, 2003. Arthur and Poppy are from New Brisbane, Australia. They have been serving Swami for many years, since 1979. They have been to Israel, Russia and many other countries, spreading the Love and the message of Bhagavan. Arthur was a management consultant and served as chairman for the Sathya Sai Council of Australia. Swami also nominated him as a regional central coordinator. He was in charge of the Christmas program for many years and has given many talks at Christmas time in front of Swami.
Related Articles In Earlier Issues |
Talk By Mrs. Poppy Hillcoat |
Talk By Mr. Arthur Hillcoat |
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Questions and Answers
Q: How do I get close to Sai physically, like you?
That’s one question I can’t answer; because only Sai knows and only Sai knows why. But I will say this to you; don’t separate yourself from God by seeing Him away from you. Know that which is the important aspect; the Formless God is within you already. Coming to understand that will bring great peace and great love.
Know who you are. Maybe one day, because of the role that you are playing, you might find yourself close to Sai, but I can’t say that; but I would wish it for you. But even greater, I would wish for you, that you realize that that which you are searching for, is you’re very Self; and that is with you all the time - and that is the true nature of the Avatar; it is not different.
Q: Shouldn’t God intervene and stop the wars and the killing?
You see, while we focus only on this life, we can’t understand the big play. I’ll give you an example in a small way. Once a man was robbed outside a village somewhere in Puttaparthi. And the robbers blinded him so he couldn’t identify them. And in the interview room, someone said: “Oh Swami! How terrible! The poor victim! Then Swami looked at him - because He knows everything – and He said: “The poor victim? The poor victim blinded many people in the past life!” We must understand firstly, that the ledgers must be balanced. Every thing that we have done before must be balanced whether it is plus or minus. And it has to happen and all this must happen prior to the Golden Age coming into being. It must be that.
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Sri Arthur Hillcoat with Swami |
So we need to understand that all this is only happening on the sea of consciousness; that’s all. At the truest level, when you know the truth, when you see yourself for who you are; you will understand that this is not happening; it is only this dream that we talk about. When someone asked an old saint about this, he said this is all happening in consciousness. “Why does consciousness do this?” the man again asked, and the saint simply said: “Because, it is its nature to do so within the scheme of this big play.”
That which is God, is total awareness, but totally unaware of itself; and so that it may experience and know itself, it has bought itself into movement. And all these forms, and the trees; even the trees themselves are Formless God within; because nothing can exist without that! The hardest thing is to get away from the programming that we have had.
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In my early life, I was told that I wasn’t worthy of God that I was a miserable sinner; and God was up here on a cloud somewhere, with a big stick waiting to punish me if I did something wrong. What a terrible thing to give to people! What a terrible program to sell! But of course the ones who were teaching this didn’t know any different. They were only speaking on man’s interpretation; that’s all.
But Swami tells us something different. Yes of course, when I say this, please understand that even if we see it as a dream, please have love and compassion for those in the dream! If ever one gets to the point and says: “Well, it’s only karma!” - Then we have just lost a lot of ground. While we are born into this play, we must have love and compassion for every role that’s in the play and love everybody; it’s like that.
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Q: Krishna said: “He is dear to Me who asks nothing of Me.” Should we ask Swami for help with material things like job, wife, financial needs etc.?
There was a man that I knew some years back. He rang me up and was talking to me and telling me how bad it was in the world; as a matter of fact, he had even got Swami’s picture on the wall and he was so down in despair.
He said: “I am sick of it! I have been trying to get a job all this time and it’s not happening!” It wasn’t a time to tell him that that’s the way it was in his life until a job would come up. And he said: “But you said everything will be alright in life; and I’m not happy with this!” Well, I said: “I will come down and talk to you.”
And I went down and I said: “Look! You have really done everything you can; you can’t do anymore now, can you?” And he said: “No! I have done everything; I have put ads in the newspaper; I have been to employment places, I cannot get an hour's work!” Well I said: Don’t you think its time that you handed it over to God?”
He said: “But I’ve got to get it to work!” I said: “I know! But when you know when you have done everything else that you can, then just hand it to God! Don’t ask Him for anything; just say: ‘Lord, I haven’t got work. I have done all I can to get a job and it's not happening. So I must leave it to you and I will accept whatever comes.”
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Eventually he said: “I don’t do that!”
A week later, I got a phone call from him – just as stirred up as ever you see! I said: “I thought that you were going to hand it over to God?” He said: “I did! But He hasn’t done anything yet!” I said: “No Joe! You didn’t hand it over to Him at all! You handed it after Him but you held on to the corner - just in case! And you haven’t let go of it!”
So you see, what we need to do is to first put our problem in front of the Lord. Now, He might say He might fix it up quickly; or He might say: “This is not best for you at this time!” God knows best in every aspect of our lives. And if we let that go and leave it to Him, then you will be amazed what can happen in one's life. But while we are blocking that flow, we’ll be frustrated.
So, if you are going to ask Swami, ask Him once. And then say: “Lord, let thy Will be done. I will accept Your Will.” It’s hard to say to someone - like the chap I was talking about – he was so frustrated in trying to pay off the house, and the money is down! It takes a lot of courage to say: “Lord! I’ll leave it in Your hands.” That is what we need to do. Ask God once for something; but don’t nag after that.
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Q: Swami says: “All is reflection, reaction, resound. Isn’t there a way to reflect only love and not see anything else - not see disease, or evil, etc?
It’s a very good question! As we look within and come to understand more and more, we understand firstly that everything is a planned consciousness. But these bodies have been born into this play. And therefore, we can’t help but see the disease or that which is called evil; however, but not to dwell on it. See it for what it is as all a part of the Divine play; and it all relates to karma but as I said before, don’t get to the point where you say it’s all karma; so that we don’t have to be compassionate! But understand that disease - all these things exist – within this play and that they are going to be there.
But the more you become loving of others and of all things, it is beautiful. So you see God in everything. God is within everything. Nothing exists that is not God or within God.
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So what we try to do is not focus on the disease; not focus on what we see as evil in the world; see the Divine play for what it is; know that yes, one has to go through these things - into each life a little rain will fall - and sometimes we think it is the thunderstorm. But if we understand that it is there we accept that, we don’t get upset by it. If we focus on disease, if we focus on evil all the time, that’s the way our world will be!
But the beauty of it is, when we change and see every being as it is; and that every being is playing out their role in the world, and it’s perfect. There is nothing that comes to us in life that is not perfection - especially for us to learn and to grow and to be God like and to be able to love all people everywhere - even those we might call evil roles because they have to be played out also. As I said; see the behavior as not good, but love the person.
And don’t forget Krishna here as we mentioned a moment ago, Krishna asked a couple of people: “What is it you want to do? Do you want to have five easy lives before enlightenment or do you want two very savage lives - two years only - for enlightenment? They said they would take the two savage lives and go through much suffering and everything just to be with God. Try not to see things as evil; try to see things within this great picture that’s projected on the screen of consciousness by consciousness itself; and love everybody.
Q: When you say to stay away from the behavior which is bad, and love the person, do you mean that we have to be friends with the person but ignore this behaviour?
No. Swami made it very plain - don’t mix with bad people; you stay away from them! You might love the tiger too. I love wild life you know. I really love those elephants - they are beautiful! But you know I wouldn’t run up to another member of the family – another lion and put my arms around them! Because it’s in their life to bite and chew. You stay away from the behaviour but understand and love the person who they are; the indweller is God itself but the behaviour is bad; and don’t mix with the cobras either!
Swami has never mentioned to me anything about dreams. Sometimes we can get something through dreams; sometimes it seems they are garbled - we don’t understand what it means. Sometimes when Swami comes in a dream, you might not still understand what it was. And for those you might simply call it they got Darshan! |
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But there can be some dreams that give you an insight into your life, you know! Years ago, I had a dream. I was floating down the water way in the Himalayas in a flat bottomed boat. And in the bottom, in the water I could see bodies of soldiers and sailors. And what I said at that time to myself was: “Gee, I better be careful here. I don’t want to get mixed up in all this!” And the moment I said that, I was in a cabin in the mountains. And there was an oriental speaking with me mind to mind.
So I went out for some time, and it was time to leave. I got up and I turned around and I said: “How do I get out of here?” And he said: “After all you have been told, you don’t know what to do?” So from that I took a little courage and I walked to the side of the cave and opened the door. There I stood out in the middle of a big city with people everywhere. I just took that little tune to me: Not to get caught up in conflict of any type. Soldiers and so forth represent conflict. And once I realized that, I decided I mustn’t get caught up in all of this; then I was up in the mountains.
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But you see, for me it was that my role in life was to be carried out. I did have thoughts of sitting on a mountain top and gazing up my navel - so to speak, you know. But I realized that the role I had to play was within society - with people. So some things can give you a point. But don’t look for a dream every night; you got to make decisions sometimes too.
Q: How many years have you been with Sai personally?
If you simply mean just when you visit there; then at the beginning it was once a year for a couple of months; now it’s twice a year – about three months of the year. But the time that I have been with Him in total has been since I first went there in ’79. But you must understand that that’s one way of being with Sai; the other way is realizing Him within yourself.
Q: What is the biggest obstacle in practicing love for all?
So easy to feel love for your son or daughter, the same deep love to feel for others. Of course this is the trouble in the world; that is limited to that little family unit. I can show love for these but sometimes you are frightened to show love for anyone else in case it is misinterpreted and so you approach it steadily. When you are with Sai devotees you can be loving and kind fairly easily. But let it expand slowly; that will expand as you start to understand more and more.
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Let me say this just to finish. Make the effort to be what you are, the effort is only to understand that. The only thing to realize is that you are already realized! But programming in the world has got in the way of that and we have to see through those programs. Understand that you are Divine Love. Don’t miss this opportunity to be the Love you are. I love you!
Jai Sai Ram.
- Heart2Heart Team
