Faith and devotion

 

False securities do not allow your faith to grow. Faith grows only when you have dropped your securities. 

False security is keeping faith where it does not belong. It is the illusion of security in having a job, a house, friends. Even if you have all the material securities, without faith, you will still reel in fear. When you buffer your life with securities, you keep faith away. Faith is your greatest security and brings perfection in you. 

Keep the money in the bank or in the pocket, not in the mind. Keep friends and family where they belong, not in the mind. You must let go of all possessions in the mind. Keep the house where it belongs, not in the mind. 

The Divine is your only security. Your body belongs to the world. Your spirit belongs to the Divine. Faith is realizing that you always get what you need. Faith is giving the Divine a chance to act.

Have faith in sound and then move on to have faith in silence. Have faith in sound when it is pleasant and have faith in silence when sound is unpleasant. 

People seem to have more faith in chatting and gossip rather than in chanting and knowledge. When someone says something bad, you immediately believe it and your mind becomes more disturbed. Believing in an unpleasant sound creates turmoil in your mind. In that situation, shift your faith to silence. Have faith in sound like the chanting of mantras. Have faith in knowledge. Have faith in silence.

Faith is the subject of the head, devotion is the subject of the heart and meditation connects them both. 

A mature intellect is devoted, a mature heart is full of knowledge and meditation matures your intellect as well as your heart. 

Head puts more faith in matter and the heart puts more faith in the abstract. It is nearly impossible that an intellectual person has total lack of faith or total lack of devotion. In science knowledge comes first and then faith follows. In spirituality faith comes first and then knowledge follows. 

The knowledge that pesticides and chemical fertilizers are good for plants came through science. Based on this knowledge, people had faith in pesticides and fertilizers; they were used all over the world. Then a different knowledge came that these were not good and faith shifted to organic farming. The same with antibiotics.

Benefits of dispassion

 

If your work is very stressful and you don't get enough time for the family, what should you do? Do you spend quality time with your family? Even if you spend half an hour, are you cordial and fully attentive to the needs of your family? It is not the length of time you spend with your family that matters. What matters is the quality of time that you spend with them.

Thinking you need rest makes you restless. 

Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. 

Thinking you have worked hard brings self-pity.

Hide your dispassion and express your love. Expressing dispassion may bring ego. By expressing dispassion you lose enthusiasm in life and by not expressing love you feel stifled. Hide dispassion in your heart like the roots of a tree and express love like a ripe fruit. 

When you are in the grip of feverishness over the results of your actions, what should you do? Have faith and confidence that the results will be much better than you can ever imagine. With faith you can rid yourself of the feverishness of action and achievement. Feverishness can be a hangover from overactivity. Sleeping, listening to flute music and bathing in cold water can help. 

When you are doing something very important, take a moment to do something totally irrelevant and insignificant. For example, while decorating your house, take some time to mow the lawn or go shopping. Drop whatever you are doing and do something completely irrelevant. This enhances your creativity. 

Relevant action keeps you bound to the action. Irrelevant action makes life a game. Have dispassion. Know that the whole thing will be over one way or the other, and that it does not matter. Meditation and breathing can calm you down.