Ishan Shivanand warns against judging spiritual teachers by what you see. His guru Babaji survived 20 days in a hut without food or sleep through unseen internal work, not visible actions. The same applies to healing: tears matter less than the hidden energetic and karmic shifts happening underneath.
Babaji always taught me, "Beta, jo dikhta hai, woh hota nahi, or jo hota hai, woh dikhta nahi." And when we look at a saint, when we look at a Siddha, we are so very perplexed and we are so very excited to be in his persona. That we somehow deviate from the actual vision and knowledge that he is trying to teach us. Because, you know, I would look at the superficial aspect of it. Babaji in the old times in Rajasthan would go inside a village, and inside there would be huts, and he would just get inside a hut for 20 days. He would not eat, he would just meditate, and he would come outside. And he would come out feeling fit, strong, and immediately after the 20 days he would start working. And I would feel that maybe, you know, it's because he was inside the hut and he did not eat or sleep or whatever. Maybe that was the reason of his strength. So I also would try it, and just before my exams, I would not sleep, I would not eat for 2-3 days, and when I would go to my exam, I would fall flat, conk. And I would not get as much marks as I desired. And I would go to Babaji and I say, Babaji, when you did the same, you achieved so much. But Babaji said, this is not all that I did. You did see me putting a finger in the bowl of gunk, but you did not see that in my mouth another finger went. Superficially, yes, I may not have been eating, But there were so many internal aspects to the situation that was happening there. And that is why when we are going to a specialist, we are going to a therapist, it may just seem that we are going to somebody and we are crying. But the fact is we are not just crying, we are releasing, a lot of karmic release is happening, a lot of energies are changing. And because that person knows what he's doing, we are getting a benefit. But superficially, we are only looking at the physical aspect of it. Now, why I am telling you this is because you and I, we are good people. We want to help the humanity. Now, how can we help the humanity? The easiest thing is when a person is sad, listen to his story and hear him cry, because apparently that's what saints do. They listen to people. But as I said, this is only the superficial aspect. What I want you to realize is that if a person is crying and we are listening to that person over and over again, then we are not helping that person. Maybe we are hampering that person's growth.
