People Cannot Accept Bliss Easily

 

Photo Credit: Facebook||Rumi by Rumish Richa

People Cannot Accept Bliss Easily

Embarking as a spiritual practitioner is not prayer with sadness, seriousness. It is not prayer as a ritual, as a formality. It is prayer as playfulness. It is prayer as cheerfulness. The birds in the morning singing - that is prayer. They are not Christians, they are not Hindus, they are not Muslims; they don’t know anything about the church and the temple and the mosque, and they have never heard that there are scriptures - but their singing is prayer. The wind passing through the pine trees is prayer; although it knows nothing of prayer, it is filled with prayer.

Space is filled with prayer. The stars are prayerful, the trees are prayerful, the oceans are prayerful. Except for humans, the whole of existence is always in a state of prayer; only humans need to move towards it consciously - for a certain reason: humans are the only conscious beings. Hence humans have a choice: they can fall out of the natural flow of existence or they can become part of it. No other animal has that freedom. The birds in the morning are not singing out of their own choice, they are simply singing instinctively. The trees are prayerful and the mountains are prayerful, but that prayer is just a natural phenomenon.

Human’s dignity is that they can choose to be prayerful — but that can also become their fall because they can also choose not to be prayerful. Humans are always at the crossroads: each step and there is a choice, each step and we can go wrong or right. When sadness and cheerfulness confront us, always choose cheerfulness. When seriousness and playfulness confront us, always choose playfulness. And remember: we become whatever we choose. It is simply a question of choice.

A Sufi saint was once asked how he appeared to be happy all the time. He replied – when I wake up every morning I ask myself whether I should be happy or sad, everyday I choose to be happy – it is that simple! If it is simply a question of choice, then why shouldn’t every rational being choose happiness?!

If we know that it is a question of choice, we are bound to choose happiness always. People think that we are victims; that is wrong, we are not victims. It is not that situations go on dragging us into unhappiness and sometimes into happiness, that we are just at the mercy of blind forces — no, not at all, a thousand times no. Every moment we are choosing. Maybe our choice is unconscious, we may not be consciously choosing, but choice is there.

From this moment start becoming aware of it and we will be surprised: sometimes in the middle of our sadness suddenly the clouds disperse and it is sunny, because suddenly we see the point - that we have chosen to be sad and there is no need to be sad! Life is such a beautiful gift that one should not waste a single moment in sadness, in anger, in jealousy, in possessiveness. One should dance one’s way to God. One should laugh one’s way to God!

People cannot accept bliss easily; misery is okay. Remember that it is only a question of our decision; in a single blow one can cut the Gordian knot, and one can be free with a single quantum leap. Becoming a sadhak is not practicing bliss, it is simply renouncing misery. Bliss takes a lion’s heart.