Real praise and the consciousness

 

Often when you praise, you praise in comparison to someone else. In order to praise one person, we put down someone else and when we want to point out someone’s mistake, we praise another. Some praise too little, and some are too shy to praise.

Some are not accustomed to praising and just forget to do so. Some praise with motives, and some praise just to elevate. Others praise themselves in order to hide their low self-esteem. 

But real praise dawns in a blossomed state of consciousness. The praise that comes out of an elevated state of consciousness simply arises from the nature of consciousness and is quite different.

Normally praise comes out of craving and pride. Praise that comes from a heightened consciousness always comes out of a sense of fulfilment. Praising can elevate the consciousness and bring enthusiasm and energy. But at the same time, it can bring arrogance. Praising is a skill. Take it without shying. When someone praises you do you take it without shying away? Accepting praise without shyness is also a skill.

Significance of loyalty

 

Loyalty is the way in which a mature and integrated mind behaves. Loyalty signifies an undivided wholeness of consciousness and shows a richness of the mind. When the mind is not integrated it is feverish, disloyal and opportunistic. Disloyalty comes out of opportunism which reveals shortsightedness of one’s destiny. Integrity or wholeness is essential to being healthy. A divided mind will gradually lead to schizophrenia and other mental and physical disorders. Loyalty is a real strength and will have the support of nature in the long run.

Fear and ambition are impediments to loyalty. Loyalty is needed both in the material and the spiritual plane. Loyalty is essential to destroy, create or maintain any institution, group or society. Loyalty means believing in the continuity of commitment. Honouring commitment is loyalty. It takes you beyond the duality of craving and aversion. Responsibility, dedication and commitment are the limbs of loyalty.

A loyal mind is a ‘yes’ mind. The purpose of asking questions is to get an answer. The purpose of all answers is to create a ‘yes’. ‘Yes’ is an acknowledgement knowledge. The ‘yes’ mind is quiet, holistic and joyful. The ‘no’ mind is agitated, doubting and miserable. Loyalty begins with a ‘yes’ mind and starts to perish with a ‘no’ mind.

Do not respect greatness and don't expect respect

 

Why do you respect someone? You respect them because of good qualities such as honesty, wisdom, love and talents. But all these change in time and when they change, you lose respect. You only respect greatness. I have tremendous respect for each and every one of you. Not for your greatness or wisdom or talent, but for the very person you are. I respect everyone totally, so I can never lose respect for anybody, however they may be.

Someone does not need to be great in order to be respected. Respecting life makes you great. Do not look for respect from others, that makes you weak. Have respect for the self and no one can take your self-respect. When others respect you, it is not because you possess some virtues. It is because of their greatness. If you say God is great, it means you are great. God is already great, your saying so does not affect God.

When you respect someone, it only shows your own magnanimity. However many people you do not respect in the world, that much less is your wealth. If you respect everyone in the world, that much more is your value. Wise is the one who respects everyone.

Now, how can you respect a terrorist or a criminal? You should respect a terrorist too because he shows you the way at his own cost. Respectfulness is a quality of refined consciousness. Respect for the self is faith and faith is being open.

Respect everyone as you respect me, but do not expect from everyone what you expect from me. You usually do it the other way. You do not respect everyone as you respect me, but you expect them to give you joy and you expect them to behave ideally.

When they do not live up to your expectations, you get frustrated, and you blame or curse them. By cursing, you lose your spiritual energy. When you can bless, your energy goes up. The world is full of differences, arguments are inevitable. With forbearance, patience and wisdom, skillfully make your way. If you find fools around you, they will make you wiser. The number of fools around you indicates the strength of your centeredness. 

Do not try to get rid of them. If you are not centered, you will not have the patience to endure them. When you are totally established, you find that even fools come up with wisdom. They are your own reflection, there is no other. Fools offer you frustration or wisdom and make your life juicy.

How can you stop thinking that others are fools? You don’t have to. You can see all the people in the whole world as fools. The advantage is that you don’t get attached to fools. Otherwise, if you think people are sane, you will want to join them. You can think everybody is a fool and be cool.

Thank those who do not respect you. They have given you freedom. When people respect you, they often take away your freedom. They expect you to smile at them, recognize them, and behave in a certain way with them. If they do not respect you, you are not obliged to answer their questions and you can drop all formalities.

You can naturally smile or frown – you can be complete. When people love and respect you, you are obliged to return their courtesies because you do not want to hurt them. But when they do not respect or love you, they will not be hurt by your expressions. They set you free. When you gain respect, you often do it at the cost of your freedom. Wisdom is to put freedom first and not bother with respect. 

True freedom is not an “I don’t care” attitude, it is not stiff. It is an inner lightness with a genuine smile. When someone is stiff and arrogant, they are not free. Love blossoms only in freedom. When there is love, respect simply follows you.

Lying and love

 

A dear person whom you trust lies to you and gets caught. What do you feel? Feel cheated, sad, angry, disappointed, compassionate, disillusioned, wonder, shock, embarrassment, loss of respect? Recently when someone lied to me, I felt happy and more love, for he was not a good liar.

Had he been a good liar, he would not have been caught. He was so innocent that he could not even lie properly. If he had not been caught, how would you know he was a liar? So you see, you can never know a good liar.

The person you call a liar is not a good liar, she or he is innocent. So when someone lies to you, there is no need to go through all the above listed mental gymnastics. Instead, just melt and dissolve in love.

Overcoming hurdles raised by politics

 

Do not let politics sway you away from the path. If you are afraid of politics, you cannot be successful in the spiritual path. You have to cross the barricade of politics. It is a test of your strength, your commitment and your focus. 

You cannot avoid politics, whether to harbour politics in your mind is your choice. There was politics among the twelve apostles and also around Buddha. Krishna was in politics from head to toe. And you say you do not want politics? The greater your aversion, the more you will harbor it in your consciousness.

When you recognize politics in any group, it is a blessing for you to be centred and to go inward. You can do that without blaming the group, without running away from people, without giving up. It can enhance your skill to act while being unattached. 

There are many advantages to becoming involved in politics. Politics amplify the diversity in people. It confronts you with different viewpoints, approaches and tendencies. It enhances your skill to communicate and act. It brings centeredness and dispassion. It shakes you up and makes you apply the knowledge. It enhances your capacity to accept and tolerate. It makes you realise that all of life is a game. The strong will smile through the politics and the weak will lament. Cross the threshold of politics and come to the divine.

Handling rude behaviour

 

What do you do when someone is rude to you?

• Get upset.
• React rudely.
• Become frustrated.
• Run away from the person or avoid the situation in the future.
• Blame the person.
• Preach to the person.

None of these will in any way strengthen you. What are the options? See someone’s rude behavior in this light:

• Rudeness indicates the intensity of their commitment.
• It indicates their level of stress and insensitivity. It attests to the upbringing of the person.
• It indicates a behavioral pattern.
• It shows a lack of knowledge.
• It shows a lack of insight into their own mind and its sensations.
• It shows you behaviour to avoid.
• It is an opportunity for you to welcome and absorb the rudeness.
• It strengthens your mind. It reveals the love that you are as unconditional.

The next time someone is rude to you, make sure you do not get upset. Just return a broad smile. If you can digest rudeness, nothing whatsoever can shake you.

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.

Dealing with skeptics

 

Ignorance is being a skeptic and not knowing that you are one. If you think you are a skeptic, you are no longer a skeptic. You already have a clue of something beyond. So, in reality, you can never know if you are a skeptic or not. 

A skeptic is stuck in a paradigm, closing all other possibilities. But this creation has all possibilities. As one understands how paradigms shift, skepticism is dropped. A real scientist can never afford to be a skeptic because skepticism will not probe into unknown areas of existence. Skepticism is an “I know it all” attitude, and such an attitude is unscientific. Skepticism is dispelled by knowledge.

Do not recognize someone’s skepticism and try to argue. Arguments only strengthen skepticism. Fear of losing one’s freedom brings more resistance and causes more skepticism. Deep inside every human being there is faith and love. Skepticism is only a thin layer. If you hold in your mind, "This person is a skeptic", you only empower his or her skepticism.

Your silence and the smile from your heart will dispel any skepticism. There is nothing better than silence to break it. Silence means a quality of consciousness, not just keeping your lips tight. Skepticism comes only in people who walk with boundaries. Children have no skepticism. They live in their fantasy worlds, worlds of many possibilities. Their worlds are of innocence, joy, beauty, and love.

Why we need enemies

 

In the company of your friend, you lose your centredness. It is your enemy that puts you back in your Self. 

Your friend sympathizes with you and makes you believe in matter. Your enemy makes you feel helpless and takes you to the spirit. Your enemy is your friend and your friend is your enemy. 

In the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna said to Arjuna, “One who is unfriendly everywhere, including to himself, his consciousness is stable and his awareness is established.”

Being judgmental, or not

 

Though you have often heard “do not judge” judgment comes unavoidably in day-to-day life. You either approve or disapprove of the actions and behaviour of people. But always remember that everything changes, so do not hold onto your judgment, otherwise your judgment becomes solidified like a rock, bringing misery for you and for others.

If judgments are light as air, like a breeze, they bring in fragrance, and then move away. They can also bring a foul smell but then they also move away. Judgments should not stay forever. Judgments are so subtle that you are not even aware of their existence. Labelling someone as judgmental is also a judgment.

Only in the state of being, when you are full of love and compassion, can you ever be free from all judgments. Yet the world cannot move without judgments. Until you judge something as good or bad, you cannot perform any actions. If you see rotten apples in the market, you refuse to buy them. You buy only good apples. If someone lies to you ten times, the next time they speak you think it could also be a lie.

A judgment happens on its own automatically. But see the possibility that people and things can change at any time and do not hold onto your judgments. Of course, you need to judge your company. Your company can pull you up or drag you down. The company that drags you towards doubt, dejection, blame, complaints, anger, delusion and desires is bad company. 

The company that pulls you up towards joy, enthusiasm, service, love, trust and knowledge is good company. When someone complains, first you listen, then you nod, then you sympathise, then you too complain. The company you keep, can create hell for you in heaven, or heaven for you in hell. Judge for yourself.

Toleration vs love

 

Neither accept people as they are nor tolerate them. Many people think tolerance is a virtue but tolerance is actually a negative term. If you like something, you do not have to tolerate it. Tolerance indicates a deep sense of dislike. It indicates a sense of separateness, small mindedness, limited awareness. 

When you are tolerating, it means you are temporarily putting up with it. Tolerance is a potential volcano. If you are tolerating, it means you are still holding on to something. Acceptance is also negative. You accept only that which is not lovable.

Do you need self-assurance to love people? Only the self is assuring, nothing else. This is our company - The Self Assurance Company.

But aren't we supposed to accept people as they are? If you do not love them, then you have to accept them. I tell you, do not accept people as they are, just love them as they are. Tolerance and acceptance come with judgment and separation.