What breaks intimacy

The following does:

• Taking a position, or ego
• Desires
• Expectations
• Insensitivity or too much sensitivity
• Judgments
• Taking intimacy for granted
• Finding imperfection in yourself or others
• Grumbling or lack of gratitude
• Lack of vivek or vairagya – discretion or dispassion

Intimacy is dissolving into infinity, which brings you to the moment. You go beyond the events. Look beyond the events, dissolve into infinity, and be in the moment.

That is the way to maintain intimacy.

How to rise above negativity

When you pass judgement against or label people, your behaviour starts getting disturbed. You become stiff because of the seeds of negativity you are carrying against others, and your vibration becomes negative. You don’t even realize that you are carrying negativity within you.

Negativity is such that you get sucked into it without being conscious of it. That is why we need to develop our awareness. To begin, ask yourself these four questions:

#1 Are you wasting mental energy paying attention to things that don’t matter?

When the mind expands and recognizes its vastness, then trivial matters don't bother you. Otherwise, you tend to get so stuck in the small things. Every now and then you think: "He said so and so to me, she said that to me, that person did not even look at me, that person spoke so harshly to me", and so on. You waste so much of your mental energy paying attention to these useless things. This happens because you have not broadened your vision. My dear, life is so temporary and fleeting. Your life is short. Where in this short life do you have the time to bother about who said what and why? Why then get stuck in this mess?
I tell you, even if God Himself comes and says a few harsh words to you, you should remain smiling and be centered. Think of that as a gift, as a Prasad (blessing or sacred offering). 

You should make your mind highly centered and unshakeable within yourself, like a pillar. Do not get carried away or troubled by trivial occurrences around you. Otherwise, you get so troubled by trivial and temporary things. Not only do you get troubled, you also trouble others around you. In fact, we end up disturbing others twice or thrice as much.

Again and again, you must remind yourself to wake up. Come back to awareness and realize that “I am full and content in every way. God is with me at all times, and whatever is required for me will happen at the right time.”

#2 Are you blaming or criticizing the people around you? Do you harbor any hate?

You are not going to gain anything by blaming or criticizing others. And to whatever extent possible, see that you do not create enmity or hatred with anyone.

Think deeply and go within your own mind; ask yourself whom you have hatred for. When you realize that, then strive to drop that hatred from within. In fact, I would say that not only strive, you should completely do away with hatred and cleanse yourself. Otherwise there can be no real progress in life. See, whatever you are to receive, you will surely get it, through someone or the other. When your karma is such that you are to receive something in life, I tell you, even Lord Brahma or Ravana cannot come in the way of that. But if your karma is to receive hurt or discomfort, then whether it is your enemy or your close friends and family, it will come to you and you will have to go through it. Having aversion towards something or someone and avoiding them is a sign of an ignorant person. It is not the quality of a true seeker. A true seeker is happy at all times. 

#3 Do people feel a sense of peace and calm in your presence?

Once, when I was in college, a person came and stood before me and started yelling at the top of his voice. He was yelling so loudly and angrily that every vein of this throat could be seen visibly. There was so much hatred and anger in his eyes. Why so? It so happened that I became popular with the students and many of them held me in high regard. This person did not like that and became very uncomfortable with all the attention I was getting. He was around 50 or 60 years in age, and the thought of an 18- to 20-year-old boy getting so much attention and following troubled him a lot. He shouted so much and even used very harsh words at me. I did not pay attention or listen to all that. Instead, I felt concerned that something should not happen to him because of all this anger welling up in him. So, I quickly stepped inside and brought some water for him. Seeing the glass of water in front of him, he suddenly became quiet. I asked him to relax and sit down.

See, our presence should be such that no matter who comes to us, they should feel a sense of peace and calm. No matter what kind of person they may be, whatever kind of outward behavior they may have – remember that is their problem and they would have to pay the price for that. You should pay attention to how you are behaving with others. You should ask yourself this question again and again – "Is my behaviour loving and cordial with everyone?" When I am loving and cordial with everyone, then the entire world is with me and will support me – you should remember this.

#4 Do you feel that you need to be treated properly?

You should think, “I do not need any special treatment; I do not expect anything from anyone. I am seeped in love and I will be loving and peaceful with everyone.” When you establish yourself strongly in this belief, then you will see that everyone in the world will be your friend. But if you think, “Oh! This person was so rude and disrespectful to me. Why should I be good and respectful to him?”, tell me, who is really at loss here? Then there has not been much real progress in your life. It would mean you are still stuck in the old patterns of your mind; you are still swimming in the small and dirty pool of your narrow mind. You end up thinking that this is all there is to the world. My dear, just come out of all this. There is sweet nectar flowing all around you. Imbibe and fill your life with that sweetness instead. What great enmity can you have with someone else? Why do you keep your mind so strained and troubled with such negativity? This causes a lot of stress and damage to your brain.

Yes, one should definitely take the right action at the right time as is required. I am not saying that you do something foolish like handing over your purse to your enemy. But what you can surely do is look at everyone with a smile. You can at least cleanse your own mind and get rid of whatever garbage and negativity is present in the mind. 

The world appears imperfect on the surface but underneath, all is perfect.

The feverishness for perfection often makes you miserable. If you are vigilantly pursuing the perfection of things and situations, then you are bound to be anxious and angry.

It’s not possible for all things to be perfect all the time. Even the best, the greatest of actions performed with the noblest of intentions, can have imperfections. The tendency of the mind to hold on to the imperfection makes our feelings and minds imperfect and negative. Wisdom lies in getting out of these cycles and staying untouched and strong from within.

This world functions through opposite values. There would be no value to pleasure if there were no pain. Some reason or the other will always be present for you to be upset about. Sometimes, it could be the behaviour of a family member or a friend. Or it could be the neighbour who is causing problems. And if the neighbour is also okay, then it could be the dogs on the street who keep barking all night.

If you have made a habit out of getting frustrated, then no one can save you from misery. No matter how good a place is, you will still be unhappy if you are caught up in negativity. You can get out of it with your own self-effort and the help of knowledge of life.

The wise will not dwell on the surface but will probe into the depths. In a state of ignorance, imperfection is natural and perfection is an effort. In a state of wisdom, imperfection is an effort; perfection is unavoidable.

You need to change your perception rather than trying to change the people or situations you come across. People have the right to be imperfect. You have no business correcting them. If you live in society, then it is only natural that sometimes you will get praised and sometimes blamed. At the workplace, you cannot expect your boss to behave in a way that is convenient to you. Suppose you have a boss who has taunted you three to four times, then you make a perception about him or her and start behaving in a reactive mode. This tendency to perceive imperfection in others creates imperfection in your own actions and inner space.

Acceptance means creating room for imperfection just like we keep space for garbage in our homes. The only way ahead is to do the right action and accept people and situations as they are. The moment you accept a situation or a person, the mind becomes calm and you get a clear space to think and act rather than react.

Acceptance shouldn’t be mistaken for passivity. It’s all about taking proactive action with a calm state of mind. It is the ability to think through and act instead of acting out of frustration. The finest balance in activity is possible only when the right action is taken without a disturbed state of mind.

So neither get frustrated with people nor with yourself. Keep up your enthusiasm and act when it is needed and where it is needed.

Mysteries are to be lived, not understood

We all came into this world gifted with innocence, but gradually, as we became more intelligent, we lost our innocence. We were born with silence, but as we grew up, we lost the silence and were filled with words. We lived in our hearts, but as time passed, we moved into our heads. The reversal of this journey is enlightenment. 

It is the journey from the head back to the heart – from words, back to silence; it is getting back to our innocence in spite of our intelligence. Knowledge should lead you to that beautiful point of “I don’t know!” The purpose of knowledge is wonder. The completion of knowledge leads you to amazement and wonder. It makes you aware of this existence. Mysteries are to be lived, not understood. They move you from an ugly “I don’t know” to a beautiful “I don’t know!” 

As our intelligence grows, we tend to lose our innocence. The crookedness of the intelligent, or the innocence of the ignorant, has no value, but the innocence of one, who is in knowledge, has value. If one can maintain a gap between “doing,” the “happening,” and one’s self, then it is very precious and it is also very simple. 

It is not that one has to strive hard to do something to maintain innocence. An ignorant person won’t say, “I don’t know!” One passes through knowledge, and then one comes to another “I don’t know!” which is the beautiful “I don’t know!” Knowledge increases your idea of not knowing. As you know more, the unknown seems to increase. It can be in any field – music, science or the arts. With this, comes the beautiful “I don’t know!” and that is what innocence is. 

Ignorance, which has passed through knowledge, gets into another state, which is the beautiful “I don’t know!” Astonishment is the basis of a spiritual opening. Creation is filled with so many amazing things, but we take things for granted, and when we take things for granted, inertia dawns, tamas arises, inactivity and ignorance come. A sense of astonishment brings wakefulness. 

A miracle shocks you; shock is wakefulness, and when we awaken, we see that the whole creation is full of miracles. The entire creation is to be astounded with, astonished about, and wondered upon, because it is all the display of one consciousness. 

The same consciousness burns as oxygen in a lamp, then there is light. What is the similarity between light and life? A lamp (light) needs oxygen to burn – so does a life. If you are put in a glass cage, the life in you will be put out. In the same way, if you put a glass cage over a lamp, the lamp will only burn as long as there is oxygen, otherwise it will be put out. 

Our little brain is programmed to one or two languages, and we think that all understanding and all knowledge can be captured in this little brain of ours. From the point of view of animals, your language has no meaning. It is just like howling! If cats or dogs hear you, unless you have trained them for a long time, they will think you are mewing or barking at them – just with a different sound; it makes no sense to them! Our language, our intellect, and our mind are so limited; their perspective is limited. 

We think we can reason, find logic in, and understand all that exists, because that feeling of “I know it all!” can keep us in a little shell of dullness. But “I don’t know!” creates wakefulness, and you need to be awakened! What is this “I don’t know!”? This “I don’t know!” is the key to spiritual progress.

Nature provides you with opportunities to be amazed, again and again; so wonder about: “What is life?” “What is consciousness?” “What is the universe?” “Who am I?” You are so fortunate if you come to this point. This is the beginning of spirituality, of yoga – union with the one Divinity. 

Let us get astonished at the union. Wonder is the preface of the union and when you are united, you wonder at everything! You walk around, look at a flower, and wonder, “Wow! This flower is so intelligent!” Recognize the intelligence in every petal, in every leaf, in every human being that walks around you. Look at every human being. Consciousness has its own mind, it looks through the eyes, it speaks through the mouth, it responds to you (or doesn’t respond to you) many times. The prana – the life force – is present in every stone, in every object. There is nothing inanimate on this planet. We are all floating in the ocean of life. 

From the microcosm, to the macrocosm, everybody is just a shell in the ocean of life – it is such good fortune, and this is one such phenomenon. The time scale of the present, past and future, is within the purview of the consciousness. Consciousness is beyond time and space; it is all just vibrations. So if you are amazed, astonished, wonderstruck, just close your eyes with a smile, and be in union with the self. 

Change the Way You See The World

There are basically two types of attitudes or two kinds of people in the world:

1. Those who think that all people are intrinsically bad.

2. Those who think that basically everyone is good deep inside, even if their behaviour is a little bad; the bad behaviour is only at the periphery.

The first kind of people cannot trust anybody, and the second type of people does not doubt anyone too much. Do you see the difference? If you think intrinsically everyone is good, then your doubt is only superficial. You don’t deeply doubt anyone, because you know there is goodness in everybody. You believe in the goodness of everybody.

The other set of people have this big issue of trust because they think intrinsically everybody is bad. Even if they appear to be good outside, deep inside they are not good. This attitude—this assumption in your mind—causes you to not trust anybody. Wisdom is to see that negativity is only at the circumference.

It is so interesting to see that if you find something wrong in a person, you think that is the true nature of that person.

I want to share one incident with you. Last year, I went for a big satsang in one of the northern cities of India. At the satsang, there was this notorious person who came in, climbed on to the stage and started moving around. All the journalists and everyone else said, “This guy is a criminal, how did he get access to Gurudev? How is he standing with Gurudev?”

This man was so notorious; he would say, “I can make a call and stop any airplane.”
He would just tell any taxi driver to get off the car and he would take the taxi and go. He was someone with a big criminal record. So when he came on to the stage, everyone was wondering, “How did Gurudev allow this?”

You know, this same person, who has not done any course or anything, three months later came to the Bangalore Ashram on Shivratri to meet me. He took my picture out of his pocket, and said, “Gurudev, since I kept this picture in my pocket, I am not able to do my work. What has happened? What have you done? My life is all topsy-turvy; my whole life has changed. There is so much joy here! Now I want to take this joy to my state, and to every home.”

This is the same man who was considered to be the most anti-social element by everyone. Even journalists are afraid of him. Journalists, usually, are not afraid of anybody. But they said, “This guy is horrible.” 

You know, how we perceive people, is how the world becomes. In Sanskrit, there is a proverb that goes, Yatha Drishti, Tatha Srishti. As you see the world, that is how the world becomes for you. If you see the world as full of horrible people, in your experience, only such type of things will happen. If you see the world as full of good people, even in the worst criminal, you will see there is a very nice person hiding deep inside him. You will recognize that.

So, don’t judge people, or label them as bad people or good people. There is only one divinity that expresses itself in so many ways, in so many people, in so many moods, and in so many colours. It is one light. If we can recognize this, then we will have such deep peace in our hearts, such trust and faith that nothing whatsoever can shake us.

A seeker is one who should know that, intrinsically, every human being is a spark of God, so they cannot be bad. There is no bad human being created by the Creator. Take it from me – no bad person at all. Everyone has light in them. Somewhere it is hidden, somewhere it is sleepy, and somewhere it is more in action.

So these are the two paths. See in your mind which side are you going. Are you going towards trust, or towards doubt? If you are going on the side of disliking others or disliking yourself, then it is time to give a shift to it, and say, “No, intrinsically everybody is good.”