Compromising without Knowing

 

Photo Credit: Collections of HDQ

Compromising without Knowing

In life, we go on compromising without knowing, not only with society but even with our family. Even the people we love demand compromise. Nobody likes the individual; everybody wants to overpower, dominate us.

The husband wants to dominate the wife; the wife in her own ways tries to dominate the husband. The parents dominate the children; the children also in their own way dominate the parents. It is a constant struggle going on in multiple ways, where nobody is allowed to be just himself, where to be oneself is a crime.

But to accept the challenge and to remain as oneself, in spite of all the odds, is a great joy. To keep our individuality intact, undamaged, in a society where everybody is trying to dominate us… it is not good to escape from such a society. In the Himalayas, in deep forests, we may think we are ourselves - but that is a false notion, because there is no context in which we can put it to the test. Society tests us every moment. And here, to be just ourselves, not out of arrogance, not out of our egoistic feelings… those people who are arrogant will have to compromise, because there are more arrogant people. Those who are egoists will find sooner or later somebody else who can crush them.

There are different kinds of powers. People slowly, slowly learn not to stand erect, but they start crawling on the ground. In this society, to remain erect and as oneself - without arrogance, without ego, but just out of our silence, just out of our awareness - is a tremendous experience and experiment.

Deep down, if one is a meditator, one knows the body can be taken away but one’s being cannot even be touched - our immortality is sure. There have been meditators, but they escaped from society, and there have been rebellious people who were destroyed by society. Two very great qualities that the world has not known before: the meeting of rebelliousness and meditativeness, the meeting of rebelliousness and religiousness. Rebelliousness and religiousness are two sides of the same coin.

There is no need to be afraid because there is nothing that can be destroyed within us. And that which can be destroyed will be destroyed whether we are in the Himalayas, or hiding in the monasteries. The body is going to be destroyed, so there is no need on the part of the body, on the part of the mind, to be ready to be enslaved. This happens because we are not aware of anything more than the body-mind structure. We should become aware of our immortality.

We should not escape from the world, we should transcend the world - living in it, going through all the fire because we know nothing can destroy us.

Real status comes only from self-realisation, not by sitting on a golden throne. If people bow down to us, remember they are bowing down to the throne, not to you. Tomorrow somebody else will be there. Yesterday there was somebody else and people were bowing down.