Finding and Sharing Eternal Bliss

 

Photo Credit: Shrimad Ramchandra Mission

Finding and Sharing Eternal Bliss

The spiritual search starts as a seeking for eternal bliss, as a seeking for eternal liberation, as a seeking for divine light and divine life. But the centre remains within us. In the beginning it is a self-centred search. Whatever we are seeking, we are seeking for ourselves. This self-centeredness ultimately will prove a barrier, because we cannot be in total ecstasy if we are self-centred.

This self-centeredness is a deep hindrance, but in the beginning, it is bound to be so. It’s natural that one should start the search for oneself. There is no other way. We cannot start for someone else. It has to be self-centred in the beginning, but it must not be so in the end. In the beginning it is okay. In the end it is dangerous. A point comes where our self-centeredness must cease. Only then our being will flower into total bliss.

It is just like this - we take breath in, we inhale. This is half a breath. We also have to exhale. That is the other half. And both breaths – inhaling and exhaling – make it a circle, a total breath. If we think only about inhaling, and we see no point in exhaling – “What is the use?” – we will die. Inhaling, which is necessary for life, will become dangerous for life if there is no exhaling. The breath must be released.

The same happens when we start receiving blissful moments, when we start receiving ecstatic moments, when the eternal starts pouring into us. The first thing is inhaling – we will inhale blissfulness – but then, exhale it. Otherwise, we will die of our own blissfulness. That blissfulness will become poisonous. Exhale it, distribute it, give it to others. When we feel that we are filled with bliss, express it. Share it; don’t try to conserve it within the self. This is just like a pond which does not have water flowing into it – it is good till the water is fresh, it gives joy to those who bathe in it; but after a couple of months the water starts becoming stale and becomes a breeding ground for insects, thus causing harm to those who bathe in it. The water has become poisonous!

Don’t force it, don’t make it a point that it is our own. Don’t try to own it; allow it to be shared with everyone. Really, celebrate it in such a way that the whole existence shares it. A flower blooms and the perfume spreads. The winds take it away, far away, to the far comers of the earth. We should allow our perfume, our bliss, to be carried far away from us, to be shared, to be shared by existence itself.

Why? Because then bliss has become total: inhaling and exhaling both. It becomes a circle. And the more we distribute it, the more we get. The more we throw it away, the more we find it, because now we are in contact with the infinite source.