It's funny, how useful humour can be

 

You are endowed with certain naughtiness as a child. Keep it alive. Humour will grease all tough situations. One who has humour can sail through any conflict.  

Humour is the buffer that saves you from humiliation. If you refuse to be humiliated, you become invincible. Humour brings everyone together, while humiliation tears them apart. In a society torn with humiliation and insult, humour is like a breath of fresh air.  

Humour should be coupled with care and concern. Humour can keep the spirit high, yet if overdone it leaves a bad taste. Humour without wisdom is shallow. Humour without sensitivity is satire – it comes back to you with more problems.  

The wise use humour to bring wisdom and to lighten situations. The intelligent use humour as a shield against humiliation. The cruel use humour as a sword to insult others. The irresponsible use humour to escape from responsibility. And fools take humour too seriously.  

How does one cultivate a sense of humour? Humour is not just words, it is lightness of your being. You do not have to read and repeat jokes.  You can start by:

• Taking life not too seriously (because you will never come out of it alive)
• Having a sense of belongingness with everybody, including those who are not friendly
• Practicing yoga and meditation
• Having unshakable faith in the Divine and in the laws of karma
• Being in the company of those who live in knowledge and are humorous, and
• A willingness to be a clown.

How cultural differences dictate how a guru is viewed

 

In the Orient, having a master is considered a matter of pride. A master is a symbol of security, love and a sign of great wealth. Being with a guru is like being with one’s higher Self. Not having a master was looked down upon as a sign of misfortune. Orphans were not those without parents; rather those without a master were considered orphans. 

In the Occident having a master is considered shameful and a sign of weakness, for there, masters are thought to enslave people. 

In the Orient, people take pride in having a guru for every aspect of life – a religious guru – dharmaguru, a family guru – kulaguru, a guru for the kingdom – rajguru, a guru for a particular discipline – vidyaguru, and a spiritual guru – satguru. 

In the Orient, masters make their disciples feel powerful, while in the Occident, masters are thought to make people weak. In the Occident, a master is considered a motivator and one who provokes competition. In the Orient, masters give a deep sense of belongingness that enables people to dissolve their limited identity into infinity.

Communism and spirituality

 

Communism has three goals: to check the greed of feudal and capitalist societies, to halt the fanaticism and fundamentalism of religious communities, and to care for the needy and share resources with them. However:

• Only spirituality brings fulfillment to communism. 
• Only spirituality checks greed and opens the hearts of the wealthy to help the needy. 
• Only spirituality stops the fanaticism and fundamentalism of religious groups and creates a sense of belongingness with the whole world. 
• Only spirituality cultures caring and sharing.
• Only spirituality brings about open-mindedness and a progressive attitude. 

Communism cannot fulfill its goals without spirituality. It is impossible and time has proved it. Spirituality nourishes communism.

Belongingness changes your perspective

 

Whether you win or lose an argument with your Guru, your Master, you still laugh. 

Normally what happens to you when you lose an argument? You are sad and upset, hurt and angry. But when you lose or win an argument with me, you are still happy. Why? 

Because you have a total sense of belongingness; your love is more important than perfection, comfort and desires; you are able to put your Being before a happening; and you have confidence in the ultimate good. 

When there is a total sense of belongingness, real play happens. Winning or losing is irrelevant. Can you have this same attitude with everyone?

Love (is an extension of) thy Self

 

When you love something, you have a sense of belongingness with it. You can only love something when it belongs to you. If it is not yours, you cannot love it. 

Love is the shadow of the Self. The bigger the Self, the bigger the shadow and the bigger the love. 

When love is cast over all of creation, then you are the Big Self. That is Lordship. When Lordship dawns in the Self, there is perennial celebration.

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.

It's funny, how humour works

 

Humor is the buffer that saves you from humiliation. If you have a good sense of humour, you can never be humiliated, and if you refuse to be humiliated, you become invincible. 

Humour brings people together while humiliation tears them apart. In a society torn with humiliation and insults, humour is a breath of fresh air. A good sense of humour relieves you from fear and anxiety. 

Humour should be coupled with care and concern. Mere humour, without care and concern or appropriate action, can irritate those who come to you with serious problems. Humour can keep spirits high, yet if overdone it leaves a bad taste. 

Humour with wisdom creates an atmosphere of celebration, but humour without wisdom is shallow. Humour without sensitivity is satire and it comes back to you with more problems. 

The wise use humour to bring wisdom and to lighten every situation. The intelligent use humour as a shield against humiliation. The cruel use humour as a sword to insult others. The irresponsible use humour to escape from responsibility. The fool takes humour too seriously. Humour is spontaneous; to make an effort to be humorous makes no sense! 

How does one cultivate a sense of humour? Humour is not just words; it is the lightness of your being. You can cultivate your sense of humour in many ways, like: 

• Being cordial and lighthearted brings out authentic humour, while reading and repeating jokes will not. 
• Do not take life too seriously, because you will never come out of it alive! 
• Have a sense of belongingness with everybody, including those who are not friendly. 
• Practice yoga and meditation. 
• Have unshakable faith in the Divine and in the laws of karma. 
• Be in the company of those who live in knowledge and who are humorous. 
• Be willing to be a clown.

A stranger sense of belongingness

 

A sense of belonging can bring about a host of negative behaviors – demands, jealousy, lack of awareness and ingratitude. Just look at your own life. You are nicer to strangers, feel more grateful to them and give them more attention than to the people you feel “belong” to you. 

A sense of belonging reduces gratefulness and awareness, and gives rise to demands that destroy love. This is the biggest problem in relationships. With a sense of belonging comes a feeling of being carefree and indifferent. Look...belongingness can make you insensitive and dull, and can remove the charm in life. 

In any case, who belongs to whom in this world? You are a stranger here and everyone is a stranger to you. Blessed are those who feel they are strangers. You feel more obligation to a stranger than to a person you feel close to. Obligation is very good at keeping a check on your ego; it makes you humble. There is no greater antidote to ego than humility, and humility is the beginning of all virtues. 

People have such resistance to obligations. They do not realize they are always under obligations, whether giving or taking. Dull people think they are obliged only when they take. Wise people know that even when they are giving they are under obligation, as the person has accepted what they give. So whether you give or take, you are under obligations. And if someone does not give or take, they are still under obligation because they are freeing you from visible obligations – you are obliged even to those who do not make you obliged. 

Life continually renews itself with you becoming a stranger in this old and familiar world. You are simply loaded with obligations and you are a total stranger in this world at every moment.

Conflicted understanding of "conflict"

 

Unfortunate are those who crave for the world. Fortunate are those who crave for the Divine. 

Unwise are those who make you crave for the world. Wise are those who make you crave for the Divine. 

The source of conflict is the notion of “mine” and “yours.” Self-knowledge eases the sense of limited belongingness and resolves this conflict. 

When knowledge dawns in you, no one is a stranger in the whole world. At the same time, you realize that you know very little about even your nearest one! You cannot understand anyone totally for life is a mystery! 

Wake up and see. All these distinctions “Me, Mine, Others” – simply dissolve.

Krishna’s life was full of conflicts and yet he kept smiling and dancing. Dance through the conflicts and contribute to this planet.

Overcoming anxiety

 

Nature has built a little fear into all living beings. This fear makes life defend itself, protect itself. Like salt in food, a little fear is essential for people to be righteous. Fear affects you in the following ways:

• Fear of hurting someone makes you more conscious. 
• Fear of failure makes you more keen and dynamic. 
• Fear moves you from carelessness to taking care. 
• Fear moves you from being insensitive to being sensitive. 
• Fear moves you from dullness to alertness. 

Total lack of fear may lead to destructive tendencies – a distorted ego knows no fear. Nor does one with expanded consciousness. While the ego dismisses fear and acts in a destructive manner, the wise one acknowledges fear and takes refuge in the Divine. 

When you are in love, when you are surrendered, there is no fear. Ego, too, knows no fear. But there is a difference, like the difference between heaven and earth – between these two types of fearless states.

Fear makes you righteous; fear brings you close to surrender; fear keeps you on the path; fear keeps you from being destructive. Peace and law are maintained on the planet because of fear. 

A newborn child knows no fear – the baby relies totally on its mother. When a child, a kitten, or a bird start becoming independent, they experience fear and this makes them run back to their mothers. This is inbuilt by nature to sustain life. So, the purpose of fear is to bring you back to the source.

At the present time, many are anxious about how to deal with their anxiety. Here are some of the ways you can manage anxiety:

• Sing, dance and celebrate. The very intention to celebrate will pull you to a more harmonious state. 
• Think about what you can do for others rather than thinking about yourself. Get energized through seva (service). 
• Have an attitude of sacrifice. 
• Remind yourself that you are committed to a greater goal.
• Practice yoga, breathing and meditation. 
• Know the impermanence of the world. 
• Have faith in and surrender to the Divine. Know that there is a supreme power who loves you, is behind you and a accepts you totally. Feeling secure comes with this sense of belongingness. 
• Be courageous and invoke the lion within you. 
• Be unpredictable for a while. Anxiety always relates to some anticipated action so do something completely irrelevant and unpredictable. 
• Be ready to face the worst. This will leave you with stability in your mind. 
• Remember a similar situation in the past when you were able to overcome your anxiety.

Why are you hungry for power?

 

Why do people hunger for power? 

People crave power because they want attention and recognition. Power is a means, just like money. Their passion is for the goal, i.e. attention and recognition. People who see power or money as an end in itself do not live, they simply exist.

If you do not realize that you are the power – that you are enlightened – then you crave power. 

If you do not have talents, love, or passion, or if you are not innocent and childlike, then you will crave attention and recognition. Just as some politicians, you will crave power. If you have no talents and you are not contributing substantially to society such as an artist, a scientist, an Art of Living teacher, or a volunteer – then you will hunger for power.

If you do not have a love or a passion to help transform society, then you will hunger for power. If you are not innocent and childlike and do not have a sense of belongingness with the whole world, then you will hunger for power. True power is the power of the spirit. Real confidence, strength and happiness all spring from the spirit. The one who knows this and has this will not crave power at all.

Who does God belong to?

 

Suppose you go to God, to get a boon. When your intention is to get a boon, then you are in a hurry. Another person knows that he already owns God, he is not in a hurry for anything. Infinite patience comes up in him. 

What does it mean to ‘own God?’ It means realizing that the Divinity and His entire creation already belong to you. 

Usually, you shop in a hurry at the supermarket and rush back home. But when the whole store is already in your home, you’re not in a rush to shop, you are at ease. Your hurry to get something throws you off balance and makes you small. Have an ‘eternal wait’ infinite patience. Realize that God belongs to you. Through this awareness or through spiritual practices you will reach infinite patience. 

To develop patience, should one observe the impatience? Just observe the thoughts and feelings and do not regret them. 

When you know you are part of the divine plan, you stop demanding. You know everything is being done for you. You are taken care of. Usually we hurry the mind and are slow in our action. Impatience means hurry in the mind, lethargy means slowness in action. It is better the other way around. Patience in the mind and dynamism in action is the right formula.

Testing is part of ignorance. You only test that of which you are not sure. If God is testing you, it means God does not know you well enough. How could people ever think that God is testing them? God does not test you because he knows you in and out, your past, present and future. He knows your strengths and weaknesses and He alone gives you strength. He does not test you. Only you can test yourself. Only when you do not have confidence, then you test, if you are confident, why would you test? If you are testing yourself, you do not know yourself. 

Dependence is both an illusion and reality

 

The body is dependent on the whole creation. In society, someone must sew clothes, produce electricity, drill for oil. The body cannot be independent of the world. For the body, dependence is absolute. When the spirit identifies with the body, then it gets pinched and it looks for independence. Mind, intellect, ego, they all look for independence. 

In looking for independence you often get stuck in the ego and become more miserable, but most people are not aware of their dependency. When they become aware of their limitations and dependency, the desire for independence arises. 

Independence cannot be achieved unless you start moving from within and when you move within, you discover that you are interdependent. The individual Self is interdependent and in fact, every wise person knows that everything is interdependent and that there is no such thing as independence. 

On one level dependence is a harsh reality. On another level, it is an illusion because there is nothing else but the Self. It is only when you do not feel oneness, belongingness that you want independence. Because the self is non-dual, there is no question of dependence or independence. 

One who asks for independence is a beggar. One who knows that it is an illusion is a king. When the sense of belongingness is not well founded, there is a volatile state in the life of a seeker. The ego then finds some excuse to revert to smallness because it is not yet soaked in the totality of knowledge. As the ego is not accustomed to belongingness, the mind finds every little excuse to revert back to the ego and to be aloof, independent and separate. It finds any small fault and blows it out of proportion. Be aware of these tendencies and come what may, be strong in the commitment to satsang, to the spiritual path.

Love the unchanging in another

 

If love is based on the qualities of a person, that love is not stable. After some time, the qualities change and the love becomes shaky. Loving someone because of their greatness or uniqueness is third rate love. Loving someone because they belong to you, great or otherwise, is unconditional love. Knowledge, along with sadhana, seva and satsang, spiritual practice, service, and coming together in celebration help to bring about a sense of belonging. 

When love springs from a sense of belongingness, then the actions and qualities do not overshadow the love. Neither qualities nor actions can be perfect all the time. Only love and a feeling of kinship can be perfect.

When you love someone you see nothing wrong with them. Even if you see a fault in them you justify it in some way “Everyone does that, it is normal”. You think you have not done enough for them and the more you do, the more you want to do for them. 

They are always in your mind. Ordinary things become extraordinary. A baby winking at its grandmother becomes an extraordinary event. You want them to be yours exclusively. You get hurt even over small things. When you love someone, you want to see them always happy and you want them to have the best. You wish someone what they don’t have, right? 

Now, I tell you, now is the best. If you realise this, tomorrow can only be here are some who long for change. Feeling that every thing is stagnant in their lives, they want to change partners, careers, dwellings. There are some who are afraid of change. They feel security in the way they are. There are some who see change, but do not acknowledge it out of fear. 

There are some who do not notice change at all. There are others who do not think there is anything to change. There are some who realise that everything is changing yet see there is something that is non-changing. Those who recognize the non-changing amidst the change are the wisest of all.

Way out of humiliation

 

Know that humiliation does not weaken you, it strengthens you. When you have a sense of belongingness, you cannot feel humiliated. The more egotistic you are, the more humiliation you feel. When you are childlike and have a greater sense of kinship, you do not feel humiliated.

Similarly when you are committed to truth and not to your ego, you do not feel humiliated. If you are afraid of humiliation, you can make progress in neither your material life nor in your spiritual life. When you stand above humiliation, you get closer to the self to God.

When you are steeped in love, with existence, with the divine, nothing whatsoever can humiliate you. So the way out of humiliation is to get humiliated, be childlike, be crazy, get steeped in love with the divine, totally commit to truth, to knowledge.

Conquering jealousy

 

There are many ways to conquer the jealousy or envy that may arise in you:

1. That the person of whom you are jealous or envious has done some good deeds in the past and is now reaping the fruit.

2. See jealousy or envy as an inspiration to gain merit for yourself.

3. Create a sense of belongingness with those of whom you are envious. See them as a part of you.

4. Think of all you have that they do not have and feel grateful.

5. Simply observe the sensations. Join hands and form a team with them.

6. Realise that in the current of moving time, all will perish. Go and ask them, “Are you happy?”

If their answer is “Yes” then they must be in the Art of Living. 

And how do you handle jealousy in others?

1. Think of everyone who is jealous of you for what you have and see that what they envy has not brought you joy.

2. Praise them with superlatives.

3. Create a sense of belongingness in them by your kind actions.

4. Know that their feelings are temporary.

5. It is best not to recognize their envy or jealousy at all. If you recognize a feeling as reality, it only makes your ignorance grow.

6. Know that all feelings and emotions are just passing clouds.

7. Do not flaunt your talents to them.

8. Know that they are puppets. They will all perish like apples and tomatoes – just with a longer shelf life.

9. If nothing else works, just go to sleep.

How to handle doubts

 

Doubt cannot come where there is a sense of closeness. Doubt needs distance to appear. You never doubt something that is dear to you, close to you. The moment you doubt something, it is no longer dear to you; a distance has come. You may doubt yourself, but you do not doubt that which is yours. Self-doubt is a lack of closeness to oneself. Belongingness, closeness and intimacy are all antidotes for doubt.

A doubt is a gray area. Gray area is something which is neither white nor black. Now, how to solve a doubt? Accept a doubt as either black or white. See your doubt as white and there is no doubt. See the doubt as black and accept it. Either way, you accept it and move on. See someone as either honest or dishonest and accept him. Then your mind is quiet. Then you are not in the gray area of doubt. Have conviction - “He is dishonest and yet he is still part of me. I accept him as he is”. 

That’s it. Finished. Doubt is an unstable state with footing neither on this shore nor that shore. From there tension arises. One way or the other, take a direction and regain your footing. Have you noticed that you usually doubt only the things that are positive in your life? Negative things you don’t doubt. You doubt a person’s honesty, and you believe in his dishonesty. 

When someone is angry with you, you have no doubt about his anger. But when someone says he loves you, a doubt creeps in, does he really love me? When you are depressed, do you ever think Am I really depressed? No, you take your depression as a fact. Yet when you are happy, you doubt – Am I really happy, is this really what I wanted You doubt that you are capable, but do you ever doubt that you are incapable? 

See this tendency to doubt the positive things in your life. Put doubt in its proper place and doubt the doubts. Doubt the negative and put your trust more in the positive.

Feeling at home, everywhere and with everyone

 

Feeling at home, wherever and with whomsoever you are is what I would call the true evolution of human beings. For that, we need to take a look within ourselves. Thirty years ago, there was so much prejudice towards spirituality and wisdom. People would want to keep it at arm’s length and believed that it was not for them. Today, there is acceptance. People are willing to try it and once they see that it benefits them, they are less prejudiced.

Life comes to us like a gift, a very charming gift, but we seldom open it. It’s all about opening ourselves and being open. Life is a gift wrapped in golden paper, which is waiting for each one of us to unwrap. Many of us are too formal, but such an atmosphere is not conducive to knowledge.

We need to be in an informal atmosphere to know something about ourselves and gain deep wisdom. When you meet somebody, you ask, “How are you?” Now I have a question for you. Did you really greet the person or did you do it as a formality? Most of the time we exchange pleasantries, we really don’t mean it.

But, if the same words come to you from your grandmother, they carry some energy, some vibrations, and some presence. Life becomes so dry and the world becomes charmless when we relate at a superficial level. In the coming decades, the biggest challenge in the world will be mental depression. Belongingness can create a better atmosphere and environment around us. It is for us to create that environment.

Can you feel at home with everyone? Then you can truly say you have evolved. For that, we need to go within. A baby smiles 400 times a day, a teenager only smiles 17 times, and an adult hardly smiles. We don’t smile from our hearts.

Why is that? It is the stress and the tension that we carry. Meditation can help you get back to your nature, which is pure innocence. Then a smile comes from deep within, that nobody can snatch from you. We should all dream of a stress-free and violence-free world, one where there is total belongingness. 

Dealing with jealousy

 

There is a verse by Kabir: “I went to find a bad person in the universe, and I found none.” All human beings are good! There are negative tendencies in people but that is not the basic human nature. That is only on the circumference.

Why do we behave negatively? Because we are hurt. A happy, joyful person will never do harm to anyone. 

Antidote to jealousy is the knowledge that everybody is going to die. You and the person, whom you are jealous of, are both going to die. It is better to compare yourself with your own self. How you were 10 years or five years ago and what you can be yet tomorrow. The fact that you are a sane human being is enough.

What to do if you are jealous of other people? 1. Know that the person has done some good karma in the past and they are now reaping the fruit. 2. Take it as an inspiration to gain merit now. 3. Create a sense of belongingness with them. See that they are a part of you. 4. Think of all you have that they don’t have and feel grateful. 5. Think of so many others who have much less than you have.

What to do if others are jealous of you? 1. Praise them in superlatives. 2. Create a sense of belongingness in them by your kind actions. 3. Know that their feelings are temporary. 4. The best is not to recognise their envy or jealousy at all. If you recognise a feeling as a reality, it only makes your ignorance grow. 5. Know all feelings and emotions are just like passing clouds.

In the Geeta, Krishna talks about all the good qualities. And then He adds that they are already in you. Just like in an atom, the core is positive and the negativity is peripheral. Don’t ever think deep inside you is all sorrow or anger or jealousy. Know that it’s not in the core.

Everything is interdependent

 

One who asks for independence is a beggar. One who knows that it is an illusion is a king. Life is such; you should not feel “I am dependent, and I want to be independent”. The body is dependent on the whole creation. When the spirit identifies with the body, it gets pinched and looks for independence.

Mind, intellect and ego look for independence too and, in doing so, one often gets stuck in the ego and becomes more miserable. Most people are not aware of their dependence. When they become aware of their limitations and dependence, the desire for independence arises. On one level, dependence is a harsh reality, on another, an illusion because there is nothing else but the self. It’s only when one doesn’t feel oneness and belongingness that one wants independence.

The self is non-dual, so there is no question of dependence or independence. When the sense of belongingness is not well founded, there is a volatile state in the life of a seeker. Then, the ego finds some excuse to revert to smallness. It is not yet totally soaked in the totality of knowledge. As it is not used to it, the mind finds every little excuse to revert to the ego and be aloof, independent and separate. It finds any small fault and blows it out of proportion. People who want to have independence are also frustrated. When you were a baby, were you not dependent? As a baby, parents took care of you, and, in your old age, your children or someone else will take care of you. So life, in the beginning and in the end is dependence.

Whether in the form of parents or as children or as friends, the help you get from anywhere is coming from only one source, divinity. It is only the divine who took care of you as your parents, and it is only the divine who will take care of you as your nurse or neighbour or friends or anybody else. Someone will always come and take care of you; you don’t have to worry at all. If your attention is on divinity, you will not feel the burden of dependence, or the frustration to have independence. Both will disappear.

In fact, the word ‘independent’ is obsolete. Independence cannot be achieved unless you start moving from within. When you move within, you discover that you are interdependent. Every wise person knows that everything is interdependent and that there is nothing like independence. We have one nature, one ocean, one air, one earth and everyone is dependent on it. We are interdependent. From tailor to farmer, from teacher to doctor — we depend on all for some purpose or another.

When you have this deep realisation that you are not the roles you play, but something beyond, then that is freedom; that is independence.