The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
Page 25
When I see Vashistha in my mind’s eye, I envision a picnic where everyone has fallen asleep under the shade of an old spreading beech tree, done in by too much food and pleasure and play. Only one person is sitting up, awake and alert, waiting for the others to end their nap. Everyone else is asleep. There is no escaping that jab of truth. Vashistha knows he is alone, but he isn’t a pessimist. His solitary watch hasn’t calloused over his love for other people. Essence is love. Not the love of passing emotion or the love that gets attached to one person but the sheer love of being here. By comparison, the emotional kind of love is confined, doubtful, full of fear, and driven by dreams that never get fully realized.
In pure essence, Vashistha knew that he had found the secret of universal happiness. That secret has three parts: freedom from all limitation, complete knowledge of creation, and immortality. Vashistha found all three. That such a condition is possible proves the existence of love, since nothing more could be wished for. Until the moment when these three things are achieved, every other awakening is false; the whole universe exists in the dream state, the pursuit of a cosmic delusion.
This delusion has now been presented to you in full. It consists of separation, fragmentation, the loss of wholeness. There must be a final “No!” that refuses to participate in the delusion, and Vashistha has said it, loud and clear. He is often the one teacher I reach for when I imagine that I am in trouble. Reading his words, I can feel myself rising to his level, not fully and not permanently, but with enough validity that I come away feeling reassured. There are times when I want CNN to stop running endless crises in the crawl space at the bottom of the television screen and start running these words instead so that people can be reminded about what’s real:
Whatever is in the mind is like a city in the clouds.
The emergence of this world is no more than thoughts coming into manifestation.
From the infinite consciousness we have created each other in our imagination.
As long as there is “you” and an “I,” there is no liberation. Dear ones, we are all cosmic consciousness assuming individual form.
It’s nearly impossible perhaps to take these noble sentiments into the rough and tumble of everyday life, but the basic thing that Vashistha wants us to do is to live from essence—and that is workable. The teacher I mentioned before, Nisargadatta Maharaj, lived such a life. As a young man he was raised on a farm to walk behind a pair of oxen pulling a plow. But spirituality intrigued him and he made his way to a guru who gave him one piece of advice: “You are the unborn and undying ‘I am.’ Remember that, and if your mind wanders from this truth, bring it back.” The young Maharaj went away, needing no more visits to gurus, and found his essence with that simple teaching.
The most exalted state of awareness comes down to realizing how commonplace it actually is to live a cosmic life. We do it all the time. One only has to listen to how matter-of-factly Vashistha looks around and sees infinity in every direction. His is the teaching to keep by your bed when you want to do something other than fall asleep:
To a suffering person, a night is an epoch. To a reveler, a night passes like a moment. In a dream, a moment is no different from an epoch. But to the sage, whose consciousness has overcome all limitations, there is no day or night. As one turns away from the notion of “I” and “the world,” one finds liberation.
CHANGING YOUR REALITY TO ACCOMMODATE THE FIFTEENTH SECRET
The fifteenth lesson is about unity. As a young man, I was driven to reach as far as I could, but over time I began to grasp that unity is not an achievement one can set for oneself in the way one can set winning a game or finding the perfect wife or rising to the top of a profession. Unity is more like music. Bach might visit a kindergarten class and inspire the children with hope that they can all be like him. In reality, few children will ever grow up with Bach’s genius for music. But they don’t have to. Music is a glorious pursuit on its own, comparing yourself to no one. Every moment of music making brings delight on its own, not just as a step up the mountain toward the highest peak.
Spirituality can bring delight at every moment—or at least every day—if it is pursued with the four things in mind that Vashistha taught. Let’s review them again, this time as they might be applied to our own lives.
Contentment: Look for a moment of contentment every day. You have a right to it because, in the cosmic design, you are safe and cared for. Be content not with your lot in life but with being here in the flow of life. The glories of creation are in your very cells; you are made of the same mindstuff as the angels, the stars, and God himself.
Inquiry: Don’t let a day go by without asking who you are. Understanding is a skill, and like all skills it must be coaxed into existence. To understand who you are means returning again and again to the question, Who am I? Each time you return you are allowing a new ingredient to enter your awareness. Every day is filled with the potential for expanding your awareness, and although each new addition may seem tiny, overall the accumulation will be great. It may take thousands of days to know who you are; it takes only one day to quit asking. Don’t let today be that day.
Self-awareness: Never forget that you are not in the world; the world is in you. Whatever you need to know about existence will arise nowhere outside yourself. When anything happens to you, take the experience inward. Creation is set up to bring you constant hints and clues about your role as a co-creator. Be aware of them; absorb them. Your soul is metabolizing experience as surely as your body is metabolizing food.
Strength: No one will ever be able to say that walking the spiritual path is the easiest thing in the world—or the hardest. The birth of the new is too intimately tied to the death of the old. Joy comes on the heels of sorrow, as it must if birth and death are merged. Don’t expect one or the other today. Use your strength to meet whatever is coming your way. Be as committed and passionate about spirituality as you can be. Strength is the foundation for passion, and you were designed to survive and thrive no matter how life unfolds. Be strong today in that knowledge.
Epilogue
SECOND BIRTH
AT A CERTAIN POINT life has no more secrets to reveal. You live as if there is one reality, and in return it repays you richly. The fear born of duality is gone, replaced by an unshakable contentment. Awareness has become fully aware of itself. When we reach this stage of freedom, life starts over, which is why enlightenment is rightly called a second birth.
Growing up in India, I never met an enlightened person. My family was deeply religious, particularly on my mother’s side. But when I was born the whole country was caught up in the turmoil of a political birth, as the English decamped overnight and left us to suffer our birth pangs alone. These were terrible times: Rioting and wholesale killing raged unchecked, as religious intolerance led to violence throughout North India.
When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a religious fanatic on January 30, 1948, the killer claimed another victim. A thread. The traditional costume of the Brahmin caste included a double thread worn over the shoulder. There were many evils in the caste system, but in my mind the double thread symbolized a deep truth—that enlightenment was possible. Until modern times, everyone in India knew that the double thread was the promise of a second birth. It stood for a legacy going back before memory began. Today, enlightenment is no longer the goal of life, not even in India. The most that any teacher can do is to open the door again; he can answer three questions in the age-old way:
• Who am I? You are the totality of the universe acting through a human nervous system.
• Where did I come from? You came from a source that was never born and will never die.
• Why am I here? To create the world in every moment.
To gain this knowledge for oneself is like being pushed through the birth canal again. You may utter a cry of surprise—and perhaps of shock and pain—at finding yourself in an unknown world. Once you accept this second birth, you continue to have thoughts a
nd feelings, but now they are soft impulses against a background of silent awareness, faint ripples that rise and fall without disturbing the ocean of being.
I can’t help feeling that enlightenment was never India’s prize to possess—or any culture’s. The second birth comes from looking at life as it already is, seeing it from the still point inside. To the degree that anyone does that, they are enlightened. The universe goes to the still point in order to create time and space. You go there to fetch a word or the memory of a face or the scent of a rose. At this very moment, the world is blossoming into its infinite variety before falling silent in amazement at the miracle it has just achieved.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEEPAK CHOPRA’S books have become international bestsellers and classics of their kind. Dr. Chopra is founder of the Chopra Center for Well Being in Carlsbad, California. Visit his website at www.chopra.com.
Also by
DEEPAK CHOPRA
Creating Health
Return of the Rishi
Quantum Healing
Perfect Health
Unconditional Life
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind
Journey into Healing
Creating Affluence
Perfect Weight
Restful Sleep
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
The Return of Merlin
Boundless Energy
Perfect Digestion
The Way of the Wizard
Overcoming Addictions
Raid on the Inarticulate
The Path to Love
The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents
The Love Poems of Rumi
(edited by Deepak Chopra; translated by Deepak and Fereydoun Kia)
Healing the Heart
Everyday Immortality
The Lords of the Light
On the Shores of Eternity
How to Know God
The Soul in Love
The Chopra Center Herbal Handbook
(with coauthor David Simon)
Grow Younger, Live Longer
(with coauthor David Simon)
The Deeper Wound
The Chopra Center Cookbook
(coauthored by David Simon and Leanne Backer)
The Angel Is Near
The Daughters of Joy
Golf for Enlightenment
Soulmate
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
Copyright © 2004 by Deepak Chopra
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Published by Harmony Books, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chopra, Deepak.
The book of secrets : unlocking the hidden dimensions of your life / Deepak Chopra.
1. Spiritual life. 2. Meditations. 3. Life skills. I. Title.
BL624.C4764 2004
158.1—dc22 2004011311
eISBN 1-4000-8314-1
v1.0