Sri Ramakrishna, in one of his inimitable images, says that a great incarnation is like a mighty ship that takes many thousands across the sea. Avataras like Jesus or the Buddha are like mighty liners that ply the seven seas, but you and I can be little boats, or at least canoes. In Tamil there is a word which has passed into English, kattumaram: kattu is ‘to tie,’ maram is ‘wood,’ so catamaran means tying a few planks together and floating on the sea. We may not have the Atman-power to propel a big ship, but we can improvise – pick up a few pieces of driftwood, tie them together, and get into the sea. We may be able to take at least our family with us across the sea of life.
It is up to you and me to keep our doors open, to put up a little sign outside, “Ready for receiving an incarnation.” But the hall inside must not be cluttered up. It must be completely empty of attachments to one’s opinions and self-will. If we can empty our house and put up the little board outside, the Lord will come, pick it up, and say, “I am here.”
Even ordinary people like ourselves can gradually blossom into mahatmas. Maha is ‘great,’ and atma is ‘Self.’ You and I are imprisoned in our little self. We just don’t like being free; we like thinking about ourselves, always on the lookout to see if others are denying us things to which we are entitled. The mahatma is the Great Self, the person who says “You and I are one,” and who lives in accordance with this oneness which is the divine principle of existence.
Even the desire to empty ourselves – to turn our back on our own pleasure and profit and to contribute to the happiness of others – is the result of divine grace. The desire to go against desires is one of the surest signs of grace. When desires come which formerly used to pick us up by the scruff of the neck and throw us from here across the Bay, we will now want to resist – not with weeping and sobbing but with a fierce joy, a sense of exultation.
But there is also the old momentum which now and then drives us to cling to some strong, secret selfish attachment. While we are progressing, resisting old desires, suddenly we see a little ego-hold. Immediately we cling to it. And this is the finest sign of grace: the Lord takes out his holy hammer and gives such a well-aimed, direct hit on the knuckles that we let go. Do not think that this happens only to you and me. Some of the greatest mystics have said, “How much you must love us, Lord! How many times you have hit us! If you had cared less, you would have given just one hit and said, ‘All right, he is a free man; he can choose.’” The great mystic will even say with joy, “Every time my thoughts stray from you, hit me hard. Take your hammer back as far as you can and bring it down hard.” All sorrow is lost when we can say this; everything becomes joy.
9. He who knows Me as his own divine Self, as the Operator in him, breaks through the belief that he is the body and is not born separate again. Such a one is united with Me, O Arjuna.
He who has known the divine birth of the Lord within himself, and who knows the Lord to be the operator and himself the instrument, will never again fall into the superstition that he is the body, neither in this life nor thereafter.
We are so enmeshed in identification with our body that it is beyond our wildest imagination even for a split second to see what we will be without our body. It is a very merciful provision of sadhana that it takes many years to get over the age-old, race-old fallacy that we are the body. If out of a playful sense of mischief the Lord were to deprive us of our body-consciousness during meditation tonight, if kundalini were to burst into a cataclysmic explosion and send us fathoms deep into our consciousness, we would not be able even to get up from our chair. So for practical purposes, there may be some disadvantages in instant illumination. To be able to function in life after realizing the indivisible unity, Sri Ramakrishna says delightfully that we need to keep the “ripe ego,” in which we still know that we have parents, partners, and children. But this selfless little ego does not get trapped in its role. It knows it is acting in a play, performing with complete artistry.
We should do everything possible to reduce identification with the body. This can be done in many ways: by not allowing the palate to dictate what we should eat, by eating what is nourishing for the body, and by getting plenty of physical exercise.
Body-identification is perhaps the greatest superstition ever to trouble the world. That the sun goes around the earth is a small superstition. That the sun sinks in the sea and has his bath in its waters, as an old poem in my mother tongue puts it, is a very small superstition that does no one any harm. But this superstition that we are the body immediately leads to disastrous consequences. When we talk about people being different, races being different, we are really referring to the body. Separateness and insecurity are at their worst in people who are excessively body-conscious.
Sometimes there is the misunderstanding that in talking about rising above physical consciousness I am striking a note of stoicism. But it is the person who is least body-conscious who feels most deeply the departure of dear friends. If I may draw upon a personal example, yesterday I received a letter from my village informing me that one of my old friends in India passed away last week. I know he cannot die. I know that he is eternal because he is the Atman. But at the same time I so humanly remember his body, his little ways, that even in my sleep last night I was troubled. My friend’s cousin, whom I also knew in India, said in his letter yesterday, “Whatever the scriptures may say, it is terrible to bear the departure of somebody who has grown up with you and lived with you.” Rising above physical consciousness does not mean losing my sense of endearment and love for the Lord disguised in my own family and friends.
10. Delivered from selfish attachment, fear, and anger, filled with Me, surrendering themselves to Me, purified in the fire of my being, many have reached the state of unity in Me.
Vitaragabhayakrodha: “Be without selfish attachment, fear, or anger.” The Lord says, “Throw these three away. They are your worst enemies, trapping you in the cycle of birth, death, sorrow, and despair. Every day, do everything possible to get over selfish attachment to people and to things. Do everything possible to get over being the victim of fear and anger. Surmount these obstacles.” In this the practice of meditation can be of enormous help. In the very depths of your meditation, when you are no longer aware of the body, when concentration is complete, you can free yourself from selfish attachments to money, to material possessions, and to people, whom you may try to manipulate because of lack of detachment from your own ego.
Pain often accompanies the development of detachment. If as a child I have not been told no by my parents, then when I become an adult, I will not be able to take no from anyone at all. In relationships with children, love often expresses itself in the capacity to say no when necessary.
The other day we went to Santa Rosa to buy shoes for our little nieces, Meera and Geetha. While Christine was buying the shoes, with my mother smiling approval, I noticed a very loving mother with a girl about nine years old, who had probably been spoiled by always being allowed to have her own way. To everything that the salesgirl brought she said, “I don’t want it. It looks ugly. I am not going to wear it.” Within ten minutes the mother was at the end of her tether. She was a loving mother, but she had lost control of the situation.
So the application of this verse comes even in small things. We should not allow children to keep demanding what they want; we should exercise our good judgment and fill their needs but not spoil them by yielding to their likes and dislikes all the time. It is better to cross our child a little, and give him or her the shoes and clothes we think best, rather than let the child go on saying “No, no, no.” It is not a matter of clothes; it is a matter of self-will. If we cannot say no to our children when necessary, we will actually be teaching them to have more self-will.
In every relationship, the cultivation of detachment is painful, because we must go against our self-will, opinions, and pleasures. Even in our most intimate personal relationships, it must be admitted that often there is this taint of trying to bend ot
hers to our will, of expecting others to conform to our image of what they should be. This is often what disrupts personal relationships between older and younger people.
I must say with infinite gratitude to my Grandmother, who had never heard of educational psychology, that after I left high school she began actively to help me rebel against some of the ideas with which I had been brought up. This was marvelous spiritual psychology, because when my spiritual teacher encouraged me to rebel against constricting ideas, it was no longer rebellion.
Without detachment, it is very hard for parents to go against their own self-will, their ways and upbringing, even though they know that their children are living in a different world and are exposed to a different climate. Only when we are detached in good measure from our own ego can we encourage our children to follow their own dharma, to grow to their full stature in their own way, by saying, “We will support you as long as you turn your back on what is selfish and self-willed.” Young people can respond tremendously to this capacity on the part of the older people to put their children first.
If only I can extinguish all that is selfish in me, erase every desire for personal profit, personal pleasure, personal prestige, and personal power, which is often at the expense of others, then the Lord will be free to fill me with his own love, his own wisdom, his own beauty. This is the significance of the word manmaya, ‘filled with Me.’
In the classical Krishna tradition this is expressed in a very loving manner in a story about Sri Krishna and Radha. Radha is a lovely girl who represents the human heart, longing for the Lord. Sri Krishna is always represented as playing on the flute. One of his names is Venugopala, the divine flute-player, who is always playing his magic melody to rouse us from sleep, to make us come alive. Radha is head over heels in love with Krishna. This is just what you and I are wanting all the time, though we don’t know it: to be united with him, which means to be united with our Self, to be always embracing him who is our real Self. Radha looks at Sri Krishna with great jealousy in her eyes, and Sri Krishna says, “Honey, what’s the matter? Why are your eyes so green with jealousy?”
Radha answers, “Look at that flute; your lips are always resting on it. When will your lips rest on mine like that always?”
And Sri Krishna, very mischievously, takes the bamboo flute from his lips and shows it to Radha, saying, “See! It is empty, so I can fill it with music. You are so full of yourself, dwelling upon yourself all the time, that I cannot send in even one breath.”
Mam upashritah: “Depend completely on the Lord within.” Once when we went to the park, we saw a big circular area in which there were a number of little electrically run cars. Children would get into them, and at the appointed signal, the cars would all go around. Then the little children would call out to their mother and father, “Look! We are driving all by ourselves!”
All we have to do on the spiritual path is to surrender completely to the Lord within, to identify ourselves completely with him. He is the perfect driver. But instead we keep doing all sorts of things without really going anywhere at all – stepping on the brake, accelerating, and honking the horn, which we are really good at. We just keep honking, making the loudest noise possible. The Lord within says, “Why don’t you let me drive the car? You just keep quiet. You can sit by my side, but don’t give me instructions about where to go or what speed to use. Just trust me completely.”
One of the names of the Lord is Parthasarathi. Partha means ‘son of Pritha,’ which is a name for Arjuna; sarathi means ‘he who drives the chariot.’ The Lord is Arjuna’s charioteer and can be ours also. He comes to us and says, “I am such a good driver, let me be your chauffeur. You don’t have to give me anything; you don’t have to pay my salary; you don’t even have to repair your car. Just give me the keys; that’s all I want. Come and sit down, be quiet, and keep repeating my Name.”
This does not mean that we should not take necessary precautions. Just because we are leading the spiritual life, we cannot afford to take traffic risks. We should not be under the impression that because the Lord is in us we can drive against the red light. If we were to ask Sri Krishna, “How do we show our faith in you during rush-hour traffic?” he would say, “It’s very simple. Don’t try to travel during rush-hour traffic. If you have to, check your car carefully and don’t ask the driver questions or get him entangled in arguments.” We show our respect for the Lord by taking every reasonable precaution and then saying, “I have done all that I can; now look after me.”
Madbhavam agatah: “He enters into my being.” As you drive out the love of material things from your heart, overcome selfish attachment to people, and free yourself of fear and anger, the Lord says, “I will fill you with love for everyone, love in which there is not the slightest trace of selfish desire for pleasure or prestige. And I will release the deeper resources in you to translate that love into selfless service.”
11. As men approach Me, so do I receive them. All paths lead to Me, O Arjuna.
In medieval India there was a mystic called Kabir, who was claimed both by the Hindus and by the Muslims. Actually he was neither, because once he had experienced the unitive state, no names could confine him. One of his beautiful poems begins with the lines:
Where are you searching for me, friend?
Look! Here am I right within you.
Not in temple, nor in mosque,
Not in Kaaba, nor Kailas,
But here right within you am I.
Tragically enough, in the history of religious institutions, there sometimes has been a gradual forgetfulness of the central teaching of the founder, and an increase in emphasis on dogmas, doctrines, and rituals which are not of primary importance. This preoccupation with superficial matters makes us forget that all religions are founded upon the same mystical experience of the indivisible unity that is the Divine Ground of existence.
In this verse, one of the most marvelous in the Gita, the Lord says, with his infinite love, that it does not matter what religion you profess. Be a Christian. Be a Jew. Be a Buddhist. Be a Hindu, Muslim, or Zoroastrian. The important point is to follow faithfully what the Lord reveals through your particular scripture with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and all your spirit, and you will become united with the Lord of Love. This verse is perhaps the most superb exposition of the reality of all religions, the reality of all divine incarnations. Here, once and for all, the equality of all religions is emphasized, and we are told that we do not have to change our cultural context or leave the country, religion, or society in which we were born to attain the supreme goal of life and become united with the Lord.
The change that the Lord wants is a change of heart in which we turn our back upon all that is self-willed and separate in us. When the time comes for us to enter the portals of heaven, we are not going to be asked to show our membership card, not even of the Blue Mountain Center. The Lord is not going to ask us to which religion we belong, which church we attended, or who is our favorite padre. What he is going to ask us is, “Do you love Me in all those around you? Have you put Me first in those around you?” And the only answer we have to make is that, to the extent possible for us, we have been trying our best to submerge our own petty personality in the general joy and welfare of our family, community, and world.
12. Those who desire the pleasures of this world, which are born of action, are really praying for them through their desires. For by action in the world the fulfillment of these desires is quickly obtained.
In this verse, the Lord lets us in on a big secret – that every desire is a prayer. When a person keeps on thinking, “I want money,” even though he may call himself an atheist, even though he may wear a button saying, “I don’t believe in God,” he is really saying to the Lord, who is within him, “Please give me money.” In this sense, the stock exchange is a temple. Everyone arrives early in the morning to perform the ritual. In the ashram, we meditate only one or two hours a day, but they meditate on money from
morning until night, going through all kinds of altered states of consciousness with the advance of the bulls and the bears.
One of the cogent ways of looking upon the smoker, too, is as a religious man. In many oriental religious traditions the worshipper will come stand in front of the shrine, take a sandalwood incense stick, light it, put it in place gently, and pray. And the smoker, too, performs his ritual. He takes out his little packet and ceremoniously strikes the match. He does not just take the match and strike it: there is a way of balancing it and lighting it very artistically; otherwise it is not right. It is not just lighting the cigarette and putting it between his lips. There is a traditional way, sanctified by centuries, which must be followed. The way the smoker really prays is: “Lady Nicotine, if I find favor in your eyes, give me cancer. And if I am not found worthy of that, please don’t deny me emphysema.”
In everything we do, whenever we desire, we are praying to ourselves, and if our desire becomes deep enough, it will give us the will and show us the way in which we can fulfill it. For example, there is the desire for fame, which Ben Jonson called the “fruit that dead men eat.” How many millions of people keep praying for fame! Even among our own ordinary friends, there are likely to be a few with the innate desire for attention. Right from the time that they are three or four, children can develop this desire. The little boy who has learned a nursery rhyme – “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall” – must recite it in front of his grandfather, his grandmother, and anybody else who is prepared to listen. As our self-knowledge begins to improve, it is very interesting to see in what ways we try to draw attention. In innumerable little acts, from morning until evening, the main motive seems to be to draw attention, prop ourselves up, and make ourselves secure. Sri Krishna will say, “Why do you want to draw attention? You are completely secure, because I am here all the time.” Even a temporary awareness that the Lord of Love is always present within us will immediately free us from this deleterious habit of doing things to draw attention.
The End of Sorrow Page 23
