Facing Life’s Challenges

 

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Facing Life’s Challenges

We live in this world, and it offers us lots of challenges. When we are thinking that everything is going fine, something happens, and everything goes off balance. Some of the great teachers have said there is no point in wearing different robes and going away into the forest and sitting in caves and meditating. We are in this world; we have to sort out this world’s problems first and we have to live in this world and face so many situations. It is important how we face the world.

The moment we think everything has been sorted out, something raises its head. It is normal and it happens to everybody. When we think that now life is all fine, we are enjoying it, there is something lurking on the other side. This is not to paint a pessimistic picture of life, but life is like that – these are facts that we have to accept.

Life is full of ups and downs. We do not have to be afraid of it but understand that when we are on a high, be prepared. There might be a low coming! We have to first accept that it is like this. Then comes the next step of how we can tackle this. Actually, this fact of ups and downs, cannot be tackled. We can get temporary solutions but there are no permanent solutions. Can anybody completely tackle death? Can someone tackle old age? One cannot tackle it or hold it. Death has to come.

There is no doubt that there is suffering in this world. But happiness is also there. There seem to be some people who are not so concerned about their own suffering, which is inevitable, but they want to help and save others from whatever suffering they can. Where does this feeling come from?

There is some dimension in the human being which is outside the clutches of the ups and downs, of happiness and pain. There is, in human beings, some part of one’s core, of one’s consciousness, something which is not of this body, and which is not affected by any of these things, which by its very nature, is a spark of the divine and which by its very nature is full of joy.

Unfortunately, we look for solutions outside – we are looking in the wrong direction. If the search can turn inward, we will find that the satisfaction which we seek is actually within us. It is the spark of the divine which is in every living being but all living beings other than humans cannot go back and find it. 

When we understand this fact and say that in this world there is only one whom we can call our own, that is the Supreme Being whose spark is in us – we could call him God or nature or whatever we want. That is the only true friend we have. All other friendships can fall at any time.

It is not that the Supreme Being is not present outside. If it is all-pervading, it is everywhere but our contact is only through the inside and when the inside opens up then we become more and more selfless, the Lotus of the heart opens up, then everybody is our own. There is nobody who is not our own, whether the person is kind to us or cruel to us, it does not matter!

So, there are no permanent solutions – accept this fact and understand that the permanent solution lies within us – because within is divinity. So, while we work in this world, we should keep our mind centred inside – then we can tide over all the problems that we will come across.

Life – a Continuous Evolution

 

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Life – a Continuous Evolution

The most fundamental question to be remembered is that one has to be constantly aware – one can never take for  granted that suffering is over and there is bliss all around. If one takes it for granted that the suffering is over, then rest assured that the suffering will enter through the back door. One has to be constantly alert and aware.

Today, for the moment, there may be no jealousy, no passion, no anger, and so much love flowing naturally. When there is no passion and no jealousy, all the energies move into the direction of love. It is the same energy that becomes passion, that becomes jealousy. When there is no jealousy, no passion, all the energy is available for the flowers of love to bloom. But do not take it for granted. Do not think that the suffering is over for ever.

Life is a continuous evolution, and we have to be constantly alert, otherwise we can fall back into the old patterns very easily. And the old patterns have persisted so long, they have become so ingrained in our blood, in our bones, in our very marrow, that one moment of unconsciousness and we are back. We have to go on being aware.

We are never aware of our potential unless it becomes actual. We have seen a beautiful space of non-jealous love. Passion is a kind of fever, and it consumes tremendous energy. Fever naturally consumes energy — and passion is fever. When passion disappears, compassion arises. And compassion is cool. Passion is hot, it burns us. Compassion is cool — not cold. Hatred is cold, lust is hot. Exactly between the two is the golden mean, neither hot nor cold. Then we are in a state of cool warmth. Very paradoxical it seems — cool warmth. It is not hot, but it is warm; it is not cold, but it is cool.

A warm coolness is the right climate for the lotus of love to blossom. But do not take it for granted. Never take anything for granted! Each moment we have to conquer it again and again. Life is a continuous conquest. It is not that once and for all it is settled and then we can fall asleep and stay unconscious and there is no worry left. Again, we will be back in the same rut – unless we learn to live in awareness and manage the inevitable downturns of life.

When we have something precious, we have to be more aware. When we have nothing to lose, we can be unconscious, we can fall asleep; there is no problem. But when we have something to lose — and this is something precious — we have to be more conscious, be more alert. 

Comparison and Misery

 

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Comparison and Misery

Most of us in our growing years and some of us even today are compared to others – “look at so and so, see how well he studies, plays, etc and look at you – you need to become like him/her.” I am sure most of us have faced such comments in our life – all this does is give us a kind of inferiority complex, which is very difficult to get rid of later in life.

We too begin comparing ourselves with others, we too try and become like someone whom we are not. That comparison always falls short, and we always end up feeling stressed out, we feel that we are failures. We are comparing our happiness to someone else’s happiness, someone else’s bliss – when we are so concerned about other people’s bliss and happiness how will we find time to transform our own selves?

Comparison always brings misery, and misery becomes a great hindrance for anything to happen to us. So, the first thing is: if it is happening to many people, drop the old habit of comparing and being jealous. On the contrary, make it a point that, “If it is happening to so many people, it is going to happen to me also. Because they are just like me.”

We are all human beings. Nobody is superior and nobody is inferior. If it is not happening to us, we must be creating barriers so it cannot happen. The first barrier is comparison. The second barrier is… we say, “I want to feel you again…” The moment we start desiring something, desperately longing for something, our very desiring and longing becomes a barrier.

It has happened before because we were in a totally different space. We were not desiring it; it happened in our innocence. Now we are no longer innocent — we are full of desire, full of wanting. And with desire and wanting there is comparison on the side, that, “It is happening to others.” So, we are creating misery around ourselves. There is no need to compare. We should rejoice that it is happening to so many people. They are also part of us. If it is happening to them, we should join the dance.

Rather than being in competition and hiding in a corner with tears because it is happening to everybody; everybody is dancing… who is preventing us? Join the dance! And if one wants to cry, let the tears be of joy that so many people are happy — even if one is not happy, then too, it is something to be rejoiced. Rejoice for others. And drop the idea that it should happen to us again. The moment we drop the idea, it will start happening because we are innocent again.

It is pointless destroying oneself unnecessarily because others are happy, because so much is happening to them, and we are tense because something has happened to us before and we want it to happen again. Something much more beautiful will happen to us if we can drop this tension and this desire and this competition.

Manipulation

 

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Manipulation

All of us have at some point in our life manipulated others and have in turn been manipulated ourselves. It is not a very nice feeling once you know that you have been manipulated and have been taken advantage of. We have seen people in college, in office, amongst our friends, people who try to turn things to their own advantage by manipulating circumstances or manipulating other people. These are nothing but mind games and in the end the manipulator too becomes a victim of his/her own manipulation.

People use manipulation as a tool to get ahead in life, try to protect themselves – but all these actions just add to one’s karmic bank account. Once one becomes aware of being manipulative and expresses a desire to change – that is the first step – becoming aware of being manipulative! Once we understand that we are trying to be manipulative, then the base disappears. Manipulation is so useless and futile a thing. If we succeed, nothing is gained; if we fail, there is much frustration.

So, whatever the result, whether we succeed or fail, the ultimate result is frustration. We can go on manipulating only if we are not aware; it is an unconscious process. In some other thing’s name – love, helping people, creating order – we can go on manipulating, and the process can continue, but it needs something to hide behind, a good name. Once we start feeling the truth of it then we will see that we are phoney. To understand that one is phoney is a great insight, and if we remain with it… do not drop it, to become authentic, no – remain with the phoniness and we will find that it is disappearing, evaporating.

Once we understand that something is untrue, we cannot live with it; it has to go. So do not do anything about it, because whatever we do will be phoney, it will again be a subtle manipulation. Just go on understanding that this is phoney and accept it. Be phoney consciously, and the next insight will be that when we try to be phoney, when we consciously try to manipulate people, one day suddenly we will see that we are incapable of manipulating.

We have diagnosed our own illness. In the inner world the diagnosis is the treatment, there is no other therapy needed for it. Now try not to forget it. Do not drop it – go on manipulating, but now watch and do not do anything to change it; remain with it. One has to pass through it to get rid of this tendency.

Mercy and Ego

 

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Mercy and Ego

Mercy can be of two kinds. It can be very egoistic, then it only appears as mercy but is not; unless mercy is absolutely egoless it is not authentic. And the difference is very subtle: from the outside there is no difference at all, but one can feel the difference inside.

If mercy arises out of one’s bliss, then it can never be an ego trip. If we share our bliss, we feel thankful to the person who receives it, we feel humble. Bliss never makes anybody egoistic; on the contrary, dropping of the ego is the basic requirement of being blissful. Unless one drops the ego, one is never blissful. Bliss happens within us like a flame of light and mercy is the radiation of it. When our bliss starts reaching to others it is mercy, compassion.

The person who is merciful towards the poor, the starving, the ill, and is using it as a means of attaining heaven, of attaining God’s grace, is exploiting these people. In fact, this type of man will never like the world without the poor, without the ill, without the starved, because how will mercy be displayed then?

So, these people who go on serving the poor and the ill are the people who would like the poor and the ill to remain thus forever. They would not like the world to be really happy because the happy person does not need our mercy. They would not like the pain to disappear totally, the suffering to be gone forever — then who will need us? Then we will feel absolutely futile. That was the meaning of our life; we were dependent on those people.

If the world is happy and people are enjoying themselves and are blissful, who cares about the other world and heaven? — we can make heaven here. When we start serving people out of bliss, then that is spontaneous; there is no goal to it, it is unmotivated. And when it is unmotivated it is beautiful.

There are many saints and ascetics who have served humanity selflessly but have never got the Nobel prize – Ramana Maharshi, Shirdi Sai Baba, Osho, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Gurdieff and so on. But Mother Teresa go the Nobel prize for serving the poor. Why? How has she contributed to world peace? By serving the poor of Kolkata, the beggars, the widows, and the orphans, how has she served world peace, the cause of peace? By serving them, by helping them to continue to live, poverty has not been eradicated. 

In fact, these are the people who function as agents of the status quo, of the vested interest. Console the poor, serve the poor, give them little bits and they remain as they are. Tell them “You are suffering because of your past karmas,” tell them “You are suffering because God is testing you,” tell them “You are suffering because God is purifying you.” These are beautiful strategies to keep the poor poor and to keep the rich rich.

Inferiority and Ambition

 

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Inferiority and Ambition

Ambition is nothing but the strong desire to be successful, to have power, to have great wealth, etc. Where does this desire come from? Most of us come from humble beginnings and get educated, get a job and then ‘progress’ in life as we start fulfilling our desires. After our basic desires are fulfilled we keep wanting more and this sense of ‘more and more’ comes from a sense of inferiority. The sense of inferiority comes from our nature of comparing ourselves with others and the desire to do better than the ‘others.’ This is a never-ending cycle.

The more inferior one feels, the more ambitious one becomes. Through ambition we want to prove ourselves in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes that nobody would consider us to be inferior.

The mental states of inferiority and weaknesses within us – the lameness and blindness – want to be hidden. We are running to hide them and to prove that the whole world is wrong, that we are alright. We have proved our might, and we are trying to prove to others that we are not weak or wanting. This is the race of the inferior mind.

The education based on ambition is, at its root, based on violence. Ambition is not a dignity to the personality; it is an inferiority of the personality. Everybody in the world is afraid of being nobody. Everybody wants to have a name, to be a VIP. Everyone wants to have a position, a good reputation, and a house of their own. Who is creating this madness? It is created by our education.

Education which teaches us that we are enough as we are; that we do not have to be anything else, we are just as good as we are, when we get this kind of education we may change for the better. Explore all the possibilities that are present and enjoy the experience. Do not get into any kind of race with anybody. It is not necessary, there is no reason for doing so. If education can make every person aware that one is enough as one is, and can enable him/her to experience the bliss of it, if education can make facilities available for the full growth of what one has – facilities for growth, not for ambition; facilities for love, not for competition; facilities for self-awakening and consciousness, not for conflict with others – then such education will be able to bring about a fundamental revolution in the world.

As long as education is not able to do this, it is not in the interest of man; on the contrary it is harmful to man, it poisons the human mind. Whatsoever we have is enough. What is lacking in anyone? If a person does not become ambitious, the world is not lacking in anything.

Misuse of Power

 

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Misuse of Power

We are all aware of the famous statement – “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And we have seen this happening throughout history and even in the modern era. Politicians refuse to let go of power and hold on to the same by fair means or foul, in the bargain looting the taxpayer and lining their own pockets – this is a global phenomenon.

We can look at this in another way – everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion, but they have no power; so, such a person remains a saint. To be violent one needs to be powerful; to fulfill one’s greed power is required and similarly to satisfy one’s passions one has to be powerful. So, when we get power all the sleeping dogs begin to bark. Power comes as a nourishment, as an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts; we are already corrupted from within – power only brings that corruption out into the open.

It is not power that corrupts us, we carry corruption within ourselves; power simply gives us the opportunity to do whatever we want to do. Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity to raise its consciousness. Power in the hands of Genghis Khan destroys people, rapes women, burns people alive. Whole villages are burnt — people are not allowed to get out. It is not power… Genghis Khan must have been carrying all these desires in him.

It is almost like when rain comes, different plants start growing; but different plants have different flowers. Whatever is hidden in our seeds, whatever is our potentiality, power gives us a chance — because most human beings are living so unconsciously that when they come to power all their unconscious instincts have a chance to be fulfilled. Then they do not care whether it kills people, whether it poisons people…. Power is misused because we have desires which are ugly, which are an inheritance from the animals.

Even parents use power. Teachers use power, husbands use power, wives use power. It does not matter where we are. If mankind comes to understand the deep psychological roots and changes man’s unconscious so that there are no seeds, power can go on raining but there will be no flowers of corruption. Otherwise, power is going to be misused always. And we cannot take power from people’s hands; somebody must be a mother, somebody must be a father, somebody must be a teacher.

The only way is, to cleanse people’s unconscious with meditation, fill their inner being with light. It is only meditation that gives us a clean heart, which cannot be corrupted. Then power can never be misused, then power can be a blessing — it is going to be creative. Then we are going to do something to make life more lovable, more livable; to make existence a little more beautiful.

Judging People

 

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Judging People

We need to understand why and how we judge people. It is impossible to judge people whom we really do not know, so we end up judging the behaviour and thus judge the person. Only the behaviour is available for judgement, the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. We can judge the act, but we cannot judge the being.

And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad. In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody – why bring one’s wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.

Just by seeing a smiling face we cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to us. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody. So, the first thing to understand is that we can look only at the behaviour and the behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And we do not know. Our judgements are going to be wrong. And we know it – because when people judge us by our acts, we always feel that they have judged us wrongly.

Every act of judgement is an act of ego – judging people shows a kind of arrogance – it is like saying we know everything; we are great, and the others are nothing. When we judge others, we are mostly criticising them with an air of superiority, our problem is that we constantly criticise others, that too without really knowing the person. We are no different from the people we are criticising.

Never judge anybody by their action – but that is the only thing available to us. So, what to do? Judge ye not. By and by become more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside his/her own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when we love, something at the deepest core remains private. That is man’s dignity. That is the meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become public.

If we tear a page from a novel and we read it and we judge the novel by it - it is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. We may have taken a negative part, an ugly part. But we do not know anybody’s life in its totality. A man has lived for forty years before we come to meet him. Those forty years of context are there. The man is going to live forty years more when we have left him.

Those forty years of context are going to be there. And we saw the man, just a single instance of him, and we judged him. That is not right. That is just stupid. It will not have any relevance to the man himself. Our judgement will show something more about us than about the man. “Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged” – that’s what Jesus says.

Seeking Attention

 

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Seeking Attention

An attention seeker is someone who acts solely in a way that is geared towards garnering the attention of other people. The attention they get makes them feel better about themselves, boosts their self-esteem, and it does not matter if that attention is good or bad.

Today, we see a generation of attention seekers who express their happiness, their sadness, the details of what they did today, the food they ate, and the people whom they met by posting them on WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. Particularly for their problems, rather than seeking a solution or speaking to a friend, they tend to post it and tell the whole world out loud that they are sad.

There is nothing wrong or right in seeking attention, but one should be judicious about what one is posting on social media. Today, one may think it is the thing to do, later you may delete the post, but social media is such an animal that  one really does not know whether the post has been permanently deleted. Someone else may have saved that post, which may come to bite you in the butt when you least expect it to!

Attention has always been a psychological need; it has to be understood. Why do people need so much attention? Why in the first place does everybody want people to pay attention to them? Why does everybody want to be special? Something is missing inside. We do not know who we are. We know ourselves only by others’ recognition. We do not have any direct approach into our own being, we go via others.

We go by what others say about us – if someone says you look good, fantastic, you feel that you are looking great, feeling on top of the world. If someone says that you do not look good, there is something wrong, you immediately feel that you are ill, you feel depressed. We simply live on the opinion of others; we go on collecting opinions. We have no direct or indirect recognition of our own being, our own existence! We accumulate a bunch of opinions in our subconscious and hence keep seeking attention for validation of such impressions for the situations we face in life.

When people pay attention to us, we feel wanted, loved even, because in love we pay attention to each other. When two persons are in deep love, they forget the whole world. They become engaged into each other’s being absolutely. They look into each other’s eyes. For those moments all else disappears, exists not. In those pure moments they are not here.

Love is attentive — and everybody has missed love. Very rare people have attained to love because love is God. Millions live without love because millions live without God. Love has been missed. How to substitute that gap? The easier substitute is to get people’s attention.

Domination and Ego

 

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Domination and Ego

It is best if we do not try and influence others, unless advice is being given selflessly. Also, we ourselves should be alert and ensure that no one is directly or indirectly influencing us. The ego can do both, but it cannot remain in the middle. When the ego tries to influence, then it feels good dominating others; also, the ego feels good when it is being dominated by others. Like Osho would say, “the masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, and the slaves feel good because they are being dominated."

There are two types of minds in the world – the mind of those who dominate, typically the masculine mind; and the mind that likes to be dominated, typically the feminine mind. You will find males with a feminine mindset and also females with a masculine mindset – so this is not restricted to the male and female only.

These are two types of minds: one which likes to dominate and the one which likes to be dominated. Both the ways the ego is satisfied, because whether one is dominating or one is being dominated – it is always ‘I’ which is either dominating or being dominated! ‘I’ is particularly important in this game. If someone dominates ‘you’, then ‘you’ becomes important, simply because the dominator depends on ‘you’ for his domination to succeed. Without ‘you’ where will he be? Without ‘you’ his domination does not exist. Without ‘you’ he is nobody.

Ego is fulfilled at both the extremes, only in the middle does the ego die. Do not be dominated and do not try to dominate. Just think what will happen to ‘you.’ ‘You’ are not important in any way, not significant in any way, neither as a master nor as a slave. Masters cannot live without slaves and slaves cannot live without masters – they need each other, they are complementary. Just like men and women, they are complementary. The other is required for their fulfillment.

It is best not to be either – then the question arises – ‘Who are you?’ Suddenly the ‘you’ disappears because the ‘you’ is not significant at all; nobody depends on ‘you’, ‘you’ are not needed. One always has this great desire to feel needed, to feel important.

We all feel good when we are needed, it gives us this sense of being important. Even when this feeling gives us misery, even then we love this sense of being needed. It is best to meditate under the guidance of a living Master and learn to drown our ‘I’ – sense and there by our sense of domination and ego.

Stress and Strain

 

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Stress and Strain

Stress is not a part of our life – stress is nothing but our inability to manage our own system. Stress does not happen because of the nature of work – the Prime Minister says he is stressed, so does the owner of a conglomerate, so does the employee, the unemployed, the family man, the student, the teacher – everyone is stressed out. Why? This means that one is suffering because of the job – then one should quit – will that be the solution?

Obviously not – stress is not about the job. It is just that we do not know how to manage our body, our mind, our emotions, our energy – we do not know how to manage anything. We function by accident, so we feel the stress. If we get into a car and turn the wheel one way and the car goes another way, we will be stressed, isn’t it? That is how we are today. We are blundering through life without understanding the purpose of our existence. Stress is not because of the nature of the activity that we are performing or because of life situations. Stress is simply because we do not know how to manage our own system. What is stressful for one person, another person just breezes through it, isn’t it?

When we learn to accept life situations and manage and control our reaction to such situations we begin to transform ourselves. We change the context of our life – meditation and yoga help us do that. We may not be in a position to change the content of our life, but we can definitely change the context of our life.

There is this story where three men working in a place. Another man came and asked the first man, “What are you doing here?” He replied, “I am cutting this stone, can’t you see?” He asked the second man the same question, the response was, “I am doing whatever that person tells me to do so that I can fill my stomach.” The third man when asked, responded with great joy, “I am building a beautiful temple here.” All of them were doing the same thing, but their experience of what they were doing was worlds apart.

Every human being, every moment of his/her life could be doing whatever he/she is doing in any one of these three contexts – and that will determine the quality of his/her life, not what he/she is actually doing. How simple or complex an activity is, does not change the quality of our life. With what context we do it changes the quality of our life.

If we look at our ability to handle various situations in our life, is it better when we are feeling happy or unhappy? When we are joyful, we are willing to take up any number of things and do it. When we are stressed, we don't want to do even the simplest things - it sets up a different kind of momentum within us.

Hypocrisy

 

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Hypocrisy

There are more than 300 religions in the world, methods of worship as Swamiji says, they are all alternatives available for the human being; but how many follow the true religion of mankind – humanity? All these so-called religions tell us that their religion is the best and some of these Abrahamic religions are so insecure that they do not believe that their flock will stay with them all the time and indulge in conversion of innocent tribals in Asia and Africa through force, deceit, or temptation or plain simple bribes. We can pick any kind of fanaticism, neurosis and keep ourselves engaged all our lives – this will not give us the time or space to dance, sing and celebrate!

All the goals that we create for ourselves create a split deep down within us, a hypocrisy. We are what we are at the time of our birth and as we grow we try and become something that we are not. In the beginning it is just an effort to be that which we are not, and later on it becomes a pretense as we actually think that we are becoming something which we are not. Encountering continuous failure is something we are not used to, so we create a façade, a pretense, a persona, and we start living behind that. People will look at our mask and they will believe it, and once they start believing, we too start believing.

It is a very strange game: we start it, and soon we will be caught in it ourselves — in our own lie! And once we are caught in our own lie we will try to hide the truth, to evade the truth, to repress the truth; we will begin investing more and more in our lie. We can try to be unnatural, but our nature will assert itself in a thousand and one ways; it will come up again and again. We will have to hush it; we will have to repress it.

We have created such a strange humanity, and the whole rationale of this whole mad earth, this mad humanity, is religious, spiritual. Search for the truth, search for God, search for the peaks, and we have lost ourselves in the search. There is only one search — to find oneself — and for that we need not go anywhere else. For that we have to withdraw from all our desires, ambitions, goals. We have to come back home.

Don’t try to become like your Guru; every person is unique and has the potential to be his/her own Guru. The Guru always shows the path to find your own true nature, to become your own Guru. There is no point trying to impersonate someone when you can be the original you and not just another replica of someone else!

The Mind is Greedy

 

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The Mind is Greedy

The average mind is nothing but greedy, it symbolises greed because it keeps wanting more and more. It never seems to be satisfied. So, unless the mind disappears greed keeps hanging around in one form or another. If you look at it in another way, it is nothing but the constant fear of the emptiness of the mind – it is an effort to somehow stuff the emptiness. It can be stuffed with food, relationships, love affairs and the mind can move away from materialistic stuff and become spiritual. But it remains the same – the greed is greed. One can be greedy for money and power, or one can be greedy for meditation – it is all the same.

One can be greedy for power or for paradise – it is all the same. In fact, the greed for paradise is far more subtle. The ego of the meditator – “I am into spirituality, my spiritual experiences, my guru,” and so on – I, my, mine! A spiritual seeker can easily pretend that he/she is not greedy – but deep down the desire for liberation, the desire for spiritual experiences is nothing but subtle manifestations of greed. One needs to be really careful.

This greed arises in the mind – greed itself is not the problem – the mind is. Worldly greed is gross, it can be seen; spiritual greed is subtle, it is hidden and not visible. It is far more deceptive and dangerous. Greed is just a symptom, not the cause. Working on the symptom won’t give the desired result – the cause is hidden somewhere else, and we will be fighting the symptom.

So, never fight with any symptom; always look for the cause. The work has to be done where the cause is. And the cause is one and symptoms are many; then the problem is remarkably simple. There is no need to fight with the greed, anger, sex, etc. They are all symptoms of an empty mind which is constantly hankering to fill itself because the emptiness creates fear. It is frightening that one is empty, that one is nothing. Although that nothingness is our nature, we don’t accept it; we go on rejecting It.

Start accepting emptiness and you will be surprised: just by that acceptance, the strength of the symptoms will become extremely weak. They will start disappearing; they will start dying on their own accord. First, accept emptiness; second, start rejoicing in it. And then the third experience will be there – that emptiness is your nature; there is no way to fill it. There is no need to fill it because it is you!

Family Problems and Conflict

 

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Family Problems and Conflict

It is human nature to love, but it is also true that human’s have faced conflict both in the home environment and outside since the beginning of time. We have always asked ourselves – when there is conflict and discord in one’s immediate family, either with parents or siblings, whatever the reason then how does one arrive at some harmony?

When we say parents and siblings we need to remember that we did not choose them, unlike in marriage where there is a choice. In our relationship with our parents and siblings we cannot blame others, whereas in marriage we can always make excuses. We should realise that the family (now we have nuclear families as against joint families in the past) is a good training ground for one to find one’s limitations. We are cocooned with a set of people – which means we get to know them very well and we get to step on each other’s toes too. There are things that one hates bout some of them, but still, we have to live with them and hold our peace. This is unlike our social media family of 10000 on Facebook, where we can just click and unfriend or block someone.

Our real family – whether nuclear or joint – is a beautiful place for us to grow beyond our likes and dislikes. Our likes and dislikes are the foundation for the compulsiveness within us. When we limit ourselves to likes and dislikes, we ensure that consciousness stays away from us. Our behaviour is defined by our likes and dislikes – as our reaction becomes compulsive based on these likes and dislikes.

Just as the butterfly stays in its cocoon till the time it is ready to fly away, so is it with our family, we live in the family cocoon and we have to stay in close quarters whether we like it or not; till the time we learn to transcend our likes and dislikes, become conscious and then leave the cocoon. On the other hand we could stay in the cocoon unconsciously and keep stepping on the toes of other family members and live in continuous stress.

Once we accept people for what they are, whatever their idiosyncrasies, then we consciously transcend our likes and dislikes. When we transcend our likes and dislikes, unknowingly, we become conscious. Unknowingly, we turn spiritual, and this is the best way to turn spiritual. The best way to become spiritual is to consciously evolve to a point where we are not compulsorily reactive anymore. Family is a good place for us to train ourselves towards that. We are not trapped in this forever. Whatever kind of family we live in, it is only for a certain period of time. We must use this period of time to transcend our likes and dislikes.

Family is not the problem. Our wanting to be with what we like is the problem. Don’t choose what you like. See how to make what is there wonderful. What comes to us is not our business. What we make out of it is our business.

Helplessness

 

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Helplessness

The feeling of helplessness is good because prayer arises out of this helplessness. And that helplessness helps one to drop one’s ego. When we feel we can do something in every situation then the ego never drops. It is only when we face such drastic situations where we feel totally helpless, completely impotent; we would like to do something, but we cannot do anything…it is simply impossible to do anything.

Just see the helplessness of man…..neither birth nor death are in our hands. Once we realise this, prayer arises. Prayer is a cry, a deep cry which comes from the depths of our helplessness. And prayer makes one religious, makes one come closer to oneself.

But man has created a façade of power. We try in many ways – our doctors, our medicine, our this and that, this is nothing but a power trip. It gives one the feeling that everything is in control – and nothing is in control. It is just a mask. It is not that only we feel helpless, in many instances the doctor too feels helpless but cannot show us his helplessness.

Science has created a pretension, and it has helped the human ego so that man feels less helpless; prayer by and by has disappeared. It is not necessary that one needs to know ‘how to pray.’ Helplessness – just feel the helplessness, then something will start rising within – bow down to earth or look up into the sky. Some words will start forming and the words when formed surprise us – because they are coming from the core of our being. It is at this time that we become like a small helpless child – and the plea coming from our helplessness becomes a genuine prayer. The helpless child calls for its mother or father, similarly we too call Paramatma for help.

Don’t be worried, as imagination takes over and we start visualizing various scenarios. Imagination is a faculty, and it is more potent than reason. Imagination is as real as anything else. It is more real than reason because it is more primal. Reason is just the latest arrival; it is just a child. Imagination is ancient – we share imagination with animals, with trees, with rocks. We don’t share reason with anybody, it is local – human.

Imagination is a pictorial depiction of one’s feelings, it is not verbal. It is as real, more real in fact, than the verbal mind – because it is more deep-rooted in our being than the verbal mind. The verbal mind is just a superficial layer.

With this imagination, portray a powerful prayer which comes from the depths of one’s heart, that is when we realise that the power of prayer which lies at the core of our being is the ultimate call which comes from complete, unconditional surrender.

Stop Running

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Stop Running

“Miles to go before I sleep” – are lines from Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ – these lines depict the state of most people today. They are running, chasing their goals and dreams, and these goals, dreams keep changing and man never stops running.

People say that they want to stop, but they are not yet tired – so they say one thing and they do just the opposite. Because to stop running means to stop ambition. To stop running means to stop desire. To stop running means to drop the future completely – to live here and now. Then there is no running. If there is a then and there, one runs; one has to run.

To stop running is difficult as that means stopping the goal-oriented mind. To be in the here and now without any goal, without any desire, is the greatest renunciation – just to enjoy oneself as one is.

If one is really tired there is no problem, one can stop running this very moment. We need to understand that trying to stop is not going to help, because even the effort to stop can become a running. That’s the whole problem with the mind. One can start running to stop running. One can start warming up and running because one must stop running and start doing this and that. We can create desires and goals saying, “Unless I stop running, I am not going to be happy.” Again, we have created a goal – in the name of a no-goal.

It is a question of simple understanding. It has nothing to do with any action. Action cannot be stopped by another action. Action can only be stopped in a non-active understanding, in a passive understanding. So, just see the point – that there is nowhere to go. Just see the point that for the whole of our life we have been running and we are reaching nowhere. We are simply wasting the time that is available to us to enjoy and delight in. We go on sacrificing the present for the future, and the future never comes.

So, delight in small things: eat and enjoy, love and enjoy. Go for a morning walk and enjoy. Sit while it is raining and enjoy. Lie down and enjoy. Each moment, small things, tiny things, of no importance for the ego, but very very important for life.

Enjoy gossiping, chit-chatting, singing, dancing, anything. Whatsoever one feels like doing, do it and enjoy it. Don’t make it a means to some other end. Let it be the very end itself…. Then it will happen.

Feeding the Ego

 

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Feeding the Ego

The most obvious and simple thing in existence is the Truth. This has created great difficulty as the mind is simply not interested in the obvious. The mind does not get excited by the simple, because deep within the mind there is nothing, but the ego and the ego gets its food, its nourishment from the most difficult of challenges. The more arduous, the more torturous, the more difficult an achievement is, the more the mind becomes fascinated. It is ready to go to the farthest star, not even bothering what it is going to get there; that is irrelevant.

There is a remark by Edmund Hillary – the first man to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. After he had descended, the whole world’s media was there to ask him about his experience, and what he had gained from the climb. For a long time, people had been trying their utmost to conquer this mountain and they had been consistently failing, so many people had lost their lives in the attempt; so, at that time this was an achievement worth mentioning – conquering the tallest mountain in the world; this had a nice ring to it.

When Hillary was asked what he had gained, and why did he climb the mountain – he was at a loss for words. He said, “Just because it was there as a challenge to humanity – that was enough for me to risk my life. I have not gained anything; I have not experienced anything.”

If one thinks about it, what was the objective of climbing the mountain, it was nothing but an ego booster – I went where no one had gone before. He did not stay on top for more than two minutes – for which several days of preparation was spent in the ascent and the descent. He risked his life for those two minutes.

This gives an insight into the working of the human mind. It just goes to show that something which is easily doable cannot be considered as an achievement. That which is not easily available, the farther it is, the more the nourishment to the ego, greater the food for the ego. The ego has absolutely no interest in the obvious, that which is easily achievable!

That’s why for thousands of years, millions of people have lived on earth and moved on without knowing their own being. Lots of people have travelled far and wide on voyages of discovery and of conquest, but in the end they forgot one thing – when they could not conquer their own self; how could they conquer the world?