So a Saint doesn't use powers to develop a following. If you are supposed to look for that characteristic in order to determine who is a true Saint, then how easy it would be for someone to fool you. I could go to Las Vegas, find one of those great illusionists who does those performances that's just mind-blowing, and I'll tell him, “Just let your hair and your beard grow for a year, and I'm going to put these orange robes on you, okay? And now come over here in this hut in the jungle and do the same tricks that you did there on the stage in Las Vegas.” You'll have hundreds of thousands of followers. It's just tricks, optical illusions, but looks like real powers to us. We can't figure it out.
So if some Saint, just like some people put some paste on their hands, because everybody wants vibhuti, blessed ashes. So people put a clear paste on their hand that dries clear. So if I show you my hand, you can't see it. But once it's dry and I do this, “See, I'm conjuring up something here. But really what I'm doing is I'm just rubbing off that dry paste, and now I've produced some ash.” Oh, this babaji produces vibhuti out of his hands. Thousands of people are flocking.
So these types of tricks are obviously deluding people into following the wrong person, and even if that person did have that power, so what? What does that do for you? You still have to do sadhana. Whether Guruji can do some miracles or not, you still have to do sadhana.
So is Guruji explaining to you how to do sadhana, what you have to do every day? See, so true Saints don't give material boons, they don't give shraap (curse), and they don't use an exhibition of some kind of power, real or fake, to attract a following. A true Guru also doesn't give shortcuts. The true Guru says, “Look, you have to purify your heart. This is what you have to do. Now do the work.”
