So you think there can be no glory in dispassion? You're wrong

 

It is often believed that glory and dispassion are contradictory and cannot co-exist. Glory and luxury without dispassion is a nauseating pomp and show. Such glory does not bring fulfillment for anyone; it is shallow.

Alternatively, the dispassion that is afraid of glory is weak. True dispassion is oblivious to glory. The glory that comes with dispassion is something that is true; it is permanent and authentic. When someone chases after glory, they are shallow. Movie stars, politicians and religious leaders who try to hold on to their status, to their glory, are certain to lose it. If you run after glory, all that you get is misery. 

When you are dispassionate, glory comes to you. If you are afraid of glory, that means you are not well grounded in dispassion. In India the sadhus (ascetics) run away from glory. They think they will lose their dispassion and get trapped in the web of the world, in the circus. Their dispassion is so blissful that they get attached to it. They are afraid of losing their dispassion, the centeredness and the bliss that comes with it. This is weak dispassion.

Dispassion is a state of being and glory is the happening around it. True dispassion can never be lost or overshadowed by glory. True dispassion is glorious. Real glory is true dispassion.

What exactly is life?

 

Often when you are happy you feel life is a dream because you do not believe it is real. When there is misery you feel life is a burden, and sometimes your misery is because you take trivial things too seriously. But if you have really gone through pleasure, you realize that pleasure is a burden, and if you have thoroughly undergone misery, you realize that life is a dream.

When you realize that you have been carried through every miserable situation, then you know life is a dream. And in between the pleasure and the pain, life is all a joke. Life is very uncertain. Before it takes you away, realize it is a dream, a burden or a joke. 

What about life is a joke? You do not question a joke. If you question a joke, it is no longer a joke. Do not question a burden either. It is a waste of time to question life and its events. 

A burden makes you go deep. It takes you to the core of yourself. Awareness of dreaming wakes you up and seeing life as a joke makes you light. The only certainty is that life is a dream, a burden or a joke, and only when you realize this can you be centered.

How a combination of passion and dispassion takes place

 

Passion makes you weak. Dispassion is strength.

For your passion to be fulfilled, you must depend upon so many things. Passion and self-reliance do not go together. If you are passionate, you need to forget about being self-reliant. If you want to be self-reliant, you must drop your passion.

Your spirit is what brings together these two completely different aspects in you. The same spirit that wants self-reliance is also passionate. It is only in spirituality that passion and dispassion can happen together. This combination is the rarest.

When you are dispassionate, you have strength, and strength is self-reliance. True self-reliance is realizing that nothing is excluded from the Self. And when you realize everything is part of the Self, then you can be passionate about everything.

To fulfill your passion, you need to rely only on the Self, for Self alone is non-changing. In truth, there is neither reliance nor passion. Usually, you are either passionate or self-reliant. But in an elevated state of consciousness, you can be neither, or both.

How to lose your dispassion

 

There are three types of dispassion. 

The first type is the dispassion that arises when you realize the misery in the world and you fear misery. The events in life – the pain and suffering you experience or see – bring dispassion. 

The second type of dispassion is born out of your desire to achieve something higher. Some consider dispassion as a path to enlightenment – by renouncing something here they hope to gain something out there. They engage in austerities and take vows to have a better place in heaven. 

The third type of dispassion comes from wisdom or knowledge. A broader understanding of the transient nature of things cultures a state of non-attachment to events, objects, people, or situations, and this lets you remain calm and unperturbed. 

Divine love does not let dispassion manifest. The attainment of love brings such bliss and such intoxication that it not only takes away your passion, but dispassion as well.

Effortless perfection

 

In a state of ignorance, imperfection is natural and perfection is an effort. In a state of wisdom or enlightenment, imperfection is an effort but perfection is a compulsion and is unavoidable. 

Perfection means taking total responsibility, and total responsibility means knowing that you are the only responsible person in the whole world. When you think that others are responsible, then your degree of responsibility diminishes. 

When you are in total vairagya – dispassion – you take care of even trivial and insignificant things with such perfection. For example, during every morning puja, decorates the puja table with such great care, choosing flowers in different color combinations and patterns every day, fully knowing that the decoration will not last even ten minutes! Attention to such a trivial thing with such keen awareness can only come through utter dispassion.

Perfection is the very nature of the enlightened one.

Just "be", but don't be lazy

 

Just Be. 

Joy is dissolving... losing your identity.

Rest is dissolving... losing your identity. 

Love is dissolving... losing your identity. 

Relax and just be. 

That does not mean be lazy... No! Be very busy... and just be. 

Events come and go, they perish like flowers. But every event and every person contains some honey. Like a bee, just take the honey out of every event and every moment and move on. Be like a busy bee and be in the Being. 

If you ask me, what is the nectar of life, the answer is, the Infinity...the Divinity.

Connection between love and authority - II

 

Usually, where there is aishwarya – lordship – there is no madhurya – sweetness – and where there is madhurya, there is no aishwarya. Where life has blossomed fully, there is both. Aishwarya means ishwaratva – lordship of that which “Is.” Wealth is also referred to as aishwarya, because wealth commands a certain amount of authority. 

Can love and authority co-exist? Only in a fully blossomed Being is there both lordship and sweetness. There was aishwarya in Sri Rama, but only glimpses of madhurya. In Parshuram’s life there was only lordship, but no madhurya. Buddha manifested more madhurya – the sweetness – and less authority. 

But Krishna manifested both and so did Jesus. There was lordship when they said, “I am the way,” and there was sweetness in their expressions of prayer and love. I am the valentine of the whole world and I reside in every heart. If you are my valentine, you will see me everywhere. Have the same love for everyone, but with different flavors. You cannot behave the same way with everyone, but you can love all of them the same. Love transcends behavior and etiquette. 

In a congregation, when asked, “How many of you feel strong?”, many people raised their hands. When asked, “Why?” they responded “Because you are with us.” Only those who feel weak can surrender. All those who were feeling strong were taken aback; suddenly they felt weak! If you are in love, you feel weak because love makes you weak. Yet there is no power stronger than love. Love is strength. Love is the greatest power on earth. You feel absolutely powerful when you are with the Divine.

Yet we keep alternating between strength and weakness. That is the fluctuation in life. When you feel weak – surrender. When you feel strong – do seva.

Connection between love and authority - I

 

Love and authority are totally opposite values, yet they coexist. 

The grosser the consciousness, the more pronounced must be authority. The more refined and subtle the consciousness, the less need to exercise authority. When you are unrefined, you demand authority and when you demand authority, love recedes. 

Asserting authority indicates a lack of confidence and love. The more evident one’s authority, the less sensitive and effective it will be. A sensible person will not demand authority at all but will assume it. The most effective business leaders will not impose their authority, will not make you feel it, for authority can never bring inspiration. 

Your sincere servant has more authority over you than your boss. A baby has full authority over his mother. Similarly, a devotee has complete authority over the Divine, though he never exercises it. Remember that:

• The less love you have, the more pronounced will be your authority. 
• The greater your love, the subtler will be your authority. 
• The subtler you become, the more authority you gain. 

Transcending karma

 

Action comes out of conscious decision. Reaction comes out of impulsiveness. Impulsiveness creates a chain of karma. 

Reaction and non-action both create karma, but conscious action transcends karma. Although conscious action does not create new karma, non-action can. A soldier shooting in war and a policeman using tear gas do not create karma, but a doctor who fails to give medicine to a patient in need incurs karma. 

Through knowledge and devotion, transcend all karma and be free.

Be authentic, skillfully

 

Authenticity and skillfulness appear to be contradictory but in fact they are complementary. Your intentions need to be authentic and your actions need to be skillful. The more authentic the intention, the more skillful the action will be. Authentic intention and skillful action make you unshakable.

Skill is required only when authenticity cannot have its way. Yet skill without authenticity makes you shallow. You cannot have an authentic action and a skillful intention. If you try to be authentic in your action but manipulative in your mind, then that is when mistakes happen.

Now is it possible to have a powerful intention, like greed, that is authentic? If your intention is colored by such emotions as greed or overambition, then your intention is not authentic. Whenever your intentions are impure, it pricks your consciousness, so it cannot be authentic. Authentic intentions are free from negative emotions. An action that is not skillful leads to negative emotions and an intention that is not authentic harbors negative emotions.

The best way to deal with intentions, is tonot keep any sankalpas, or intentions, to yourself. Offer them to the Divine.

Actions can never be perfect, but our intentions can be perfect. Actions always have room for improvement. Action implies growth and movement, and that needs space. The depth in you and the freedom in you bring out all the skillfulness in you. Krishna was the most skillful because his silence was so deep.

What gratitude means, for one on the spiritual path

 

When you are on a spiritual path, you are not thankful or obliged to anyone. In the Bhagvad Gita, Krishna says, “na abhinandati na dveshthi” – he is dear to Me who neither goes on thanking people nor hates anyone. Thanking and feeling obliged indicate that you believe in someone else’s existence rather than in the Divine who rules everything. When you feel obliged, then you are not honoring the principles of karma or the Divine plan. 

Appreciate people for what they are; do not thank them for what they do. Otherwise your thankfulness is centered around ego. Be grateful, but do not be grateful for an act. Be grateful for what is. 

As every individual is nothing but a puppet of the One, thanking and feeling obliged simply demonstrates ignorance. Everything is ruled, controlled and managed by one Divinity. That consciousness has to shine forth in every act of yours; you do not need to make a mood of it. 

So, what should you do when you are grateful to the master? When you have a total sense of belonging, then gratitude does not become an obligation. Such gratitude is for the Divine only and this gratitude enhances your strength.

When you praise, make it count

 

Praising the fool benefits society! 

A fool who is pleased might stop doing harm and start doing useful work. In this sense it is wise to praise a fool; it helps to motivate him. So, your praise is meaningful when it is directed towards a fool. 

A wise man by his nature will continue doing good work because his attitude does not depend on someone’s praise or blame. So, it serves no purpose to praise a wise man because your praise will have no impact on him. 

There are three types of people – the wise, the crooked and the immature. 

The wise man continues doing good work whether he is scolded or praised. 

Crooked people need to be praised to get them to do good work. 

And from time-to-time immature people need to be both praised and scolded for them to do something good.

What does it really mean, to worship?

 

Divinity is unmanifest, but man has an innate desire to perceive the Divine in the manifest creation around him. He creates idols, breathes faith into them and requests Divinity to be present in the idols for awhile so that he can worship, express his love and play with the Divine. At the end of his worship he requests Divinity to go back into his heart from where it manifested. This is in all puja practices. 

People do not actually worship the idols but instead worship the unmanifest Divinity which has all the Divine qualities. So, the idol worshippers of the East are not the same as those described in the Bible, because they are not just worshipping different gods and different idols, they are worshipping the one Divinity in many different forms. 

Paganism, Satanism and animal worship, without the knowledge of the one Divinity, is very different from seeing the Divine in every form of the manifest universe. In the Eastern tradition, gods and goddesses are part of the one Divinity like the different colors of white sunlight, while in the Greek tradition, gods and goddesses are in themselves different and unique entities. 

Worshipping Satan and different entities is completely unlike worshipping Divinity in its various forms. Every form belongs to the Divine. When you adore the form, you adore the Divinity behind the form. With this knowledge, the very act of worship, which is more an inner phenomenon, assumes a more colorful and vibrant expression indicating that both the form and the formless are all Divine.

Why we worship

 

For a flame to rise up, you need space above it. In the same way, for a man to rise up in his life, he needs an ideal, something to adore and worship. In worship, love, honor, respect and a sense of belongingness all come together. However, without a sense of belongingness, worship or idealism can lead to low self-esteem. Ancient people knew this so they insisted that people should feel a part of what they worship. They encouraged people to worship the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, plants, animals and other people. 

Worship is the culmination of love and appreciation. Worship prevents love from turning into hatred or jealousy, and prevents appreciation from becoming low self-esteem. In life, if you do not adore or appreciate anything, you will be filled with negativity; a person who has nothing to worship or adore is sure to fall into depression. 

Lack of adoration has led to many emotional, psychological and social problems in society. If you have nothing to hold high in life, selfishness, arrogance and violence are sure to follow. Adoring and honoring each other in society eliminates stress and fosters compassion and love. 

In the previous century, it was thought that worshipping was an uncivilized and unintelligent thing to do. Worship was thought to rise from a slavish mentality. In fact, it is just the contrary. Worship can only happen through gratefulness and not through subservience. Worship in a true sense is a sign of maturity and not of weakness. 

So, if worship is the culmination of love, does worship also have a culmination? The culmination of worship is self-knowledge, samadhi.