Going beyond attachments

 

Krishna means the most attractive. He is the divinity, the energy that attracts everything to it. Krishna is the formless centre that is everywhere. All attractions from anywhere come only from Krishna. Often people fail to see the spirit behind the attraction, and merely hold onto the outer shell. And the moment you try to possess the shell, you will see Krishna has played a trick, you will be left with an empty shell in your hands and tears in your eyes.

Do not be tricked by Krishna - be clever like Radha. Krishna could not escape from Radha because her whole world was filled with Krishna. If you can see that wherever there is an attraction there is Krishna, then you are Radha, you are in your centre. The mind moves towards beauty, joy and truth. Krishna tells Arjuna, “I am the beauty in the Beautiful, the strength in the Strong, the wisdom in the Wise.” 

In this way he arrests the mind from moving away from him. Attachments cause feverish breath. Feverish breath takes away your peace of mind. Then you are in pieces and fall prey to misery. Unfortunately, most people do not notice this until it is too late. Before you get scattered too much, gather yourself together and rid your breath of feverishness through surrender and sadhana - spiritual practices. When you are drowning in the ocean of attachments, surrender is a life jacket you can put on and wait for the rescue team. 

Without fighting attachments, observe your feverish breath and go to the cool place of silence within. Your first step in this direction is directing your attachment to knowledge, to the Divine. Your non-attachment to the mundane is your charm. Your attachment to the Divine is your beauty. Craving comes from encouraging thoughts of pleasure. Yet the actual experience of pleasure may not be as pleasurable as the memory of it.

Whether you encourage a worldly thought or a Divine thought, they both bring you pleasure. Worldly thoughts lead to indulgence, which brings you down from pleasure to some disappointment and dejection. Divine thoughts take you up from pleasure to bliss, intelligence and progress in life. Worldly thoughts bring pleasure only as memory, while Divine thoughts materialize as reality.

What is a Divine thought?

 - That, I’m not the body, I am bliss, satchitananda, I’m unbounded space, I’m love, I’m peace and light.

What is a worldly thought?

 - Worldly thoughts are about money, sex, food, power, status and self-image. Truth is hidden by the golden veil of the mundane. Pierce through this thin glittering sheath and know you are the sun. 

In the world, everybody is after GOLD, some are after GOOD, only a few are after GOD. Transcend GOLD, transcend the GOOD and reach GOD.

Understanding one's desires

 

Desires for sensory pleasure are electric in nature and these desires get neutralized as they move towards the object of your senses. If, by your skill, you could move your desires deeper within you towards the centre of your existence, another dimension of everlasting pleasure, thrill, bliss and undying love will be yours. 

Lust, greed, power and jealousy are powerful because they are nothing but energy and you are the source of it - the pure electricity. Dedication and devotion maintain the purity of your electricity, moving you upward. When you realize that you yourself are the electricity of pleasure, your cravings subside and serenity dawns. Also, remembering that you will die makes you alive now, and frees you from cravings and aversions. 

The wise ones are always careful not to get their minds entangled and dizzy. This couplet needs to be pondered over and over - a whole lifetime is not sufficient to digest this knowledge. Desire kills joy yet the goal of all desires is joy. Whenever happiness has disappeared from your life, look deep within and you will see it is because of desire. 

Yet all that we desire is happiness. No creature desiring unhappiness is ever born, never has it happened before and never will it happen in the future. When your small mind gets tired of running here and there, of wandering everywhere, it reaches the conclusion, "My desires have killed my happiness". A person who has conquered his desires is called "Mahavira". All desires are for happiness. That is the goal of desire, isn’t it? But how often does your desire lead you to the goal? Have you thought about the nature of desire? 

It simply means tomorrow, and not now. But joy is never tomorrow, it is always now. How can you have desires when you are joyful? And how can you really be joyful right now when you have desires? Desire appears to lead you to happiness, but in fact it cannot. That is why desire is maya - illusion. How does a desire arise? A desire arises with the memory of a pleasant experience or with past impressions. A desire might also arise through listening. 

A desire can be triggered through association with certain people or certain places. Someone else’s need or desire may manifest in you as your own desire. When someone is hungry, you might have a desire to feed them, or if someone wants to talk with you, a spontaneous desire may arise in you to talk with them.