Dispassion can get you everything, including sleep

 

The Divine can be attained only in deep rest, not by doing. All your spiritual activities are to help you become silent. You will go further when you do not stop to enjoy the bliss or the peace, otherwise cravings may arise.


If existence wants to give you peace and bliss, then fine, your true nature is bliss. But by trying to enjoy the bliss, you step down from “am-ness” to “I am something” - “I am peaceful”, “I am blissful” this is followed by, “I am miserable”. It takes courage to simply say “I am”, period. That “I am” is dispassion. Dispassion means welcoming everything. You can be anywhere and be dispassionate. Dispassionate centeredness brings energy, a spark.


Indulgence in bliss brings inertia. If you are dispassionate, the bliss is still there. When the freezer is full of ice cream, you need not bother about it. Dispassion takes away the sense of scarcity. Passion is a sense of lack of abundance. Whenever everything is in abundance, dispassion happens. And when dispassion is there, everything comes in abundance.


What should you do when you catch yourself indulging in bliss? Just this understanding creates a shift. There is no effort. Knowledge is better than action to make you free. 


Activity and rest are two vital aspects of life. To find a balance in them is a skill in itself. Wisdom is knowing when to have rest, when to have activity, and how much of each to have. Finding them in each other, activity in rest and rest in activity, is the ultimate freedom.


More tiring than the work itself is the memory of hard work. Thinking you have worked hard interferes with the quality of rest. Some people take pride in working hard without any results. And there are others who crave for a long rest without knowing the true rest is in non-doership. 


It is the quality of rest, even if it is short, that helps you to recuperate. When rest is needed, your body will automatically take it. Resting, without thinking about the need for it, is more restful. Desirelessness, dispassion and samadhi are the deepest rest.

Don't mind the time

 

When you are ahead of time, it drags and is boring. When time is ahead of you, then you are surprised and shocked. You cannot digest events. In deep meditation, you are time and everything is happening in you. Events are happening in you like the clouds that come and go in the sky. When you are with time, you are wise and at peace.


When you are happy, the mind expands, then time appears too short. When you are unhappy, the mind contracts, then time appears too long. When the mind has equanimity, you transcend time. To escape from time, many resort to alcohol or sleep but when the mind is dull or unconscious, it is unable to experience itself. 


Samadhi, no mindedness or timelessness, is the real peace. That is the greatest healer. A thought is nothing but a ripple in this moment of time. This moment also has a mind of its own, a big mind which has infinite organizing power. Before you fall into slumber or as soon as you wake up from sleep, in the moments of twilight of consciousness, experience the timelessness beyond mind. 


Life is a combination of form and formless. Feelings have no form but their expressions have form. The self has no form but its abode has form. Similarly, wisdom and grace have no form but are expressed through form. Discarding the formless, you become inert, materialistic and paranoid. Discarding the form, you become a dreamer, a lost ascetic, or an emotional wreck.