Life is a combination of ignorance and knowledge
Life
has to go through a process of transformation. If transformation is not
your goal then life will be a drift. Every experience should allow you
to grow in love, in silence and joy.
You have to learn to
frame an experience in such a way that there is growth. Your focus is
to convert ` samsara' into `nirvana' or bondage into salvation. For
that to happen, what is important is atma smaranam or self-remembrance.
If we can remember to be constantly awake to our inner world of
thoughts, interpretations, emotions, likes and dislikes, a new level of
reality will open up and thus we will be free from our inner prisons.
There
are both legitimate fears and illegitimate fears. When a tiger comes
near you, there is fear, and it is a legitimate fear. The fear of the
future is not legitimate. In fact it is interesting, even exciting, not
to know about the future.
A lady came to me and said, "I am
afraid of what my future is going to be since my husband's company has
been taken over by another company." I told her that it is not
something she has to be afraid of. Look into your life... lots of
wonderful things have happened. You were born in a poor family, and see
how well placed you are now. So, draw your energy from the best things
which have happened to you.
As children we don't have fear.
Elders sow the concept of fear. Then fear becomes a part of us. A child
easily falls. Then a fear is installed. Slowly as the child grows up he
is afraid to fall. The body becomes rigid and resists a graceful fall.
In
martial art we are taught to fall gracefully, but the mind creates the
fear of injury and makes the body rigid. There is a process one has to
unlearn in martial art... not to bring in the mind so that you can be
free to learn to fall gracefully. Then a fall has an element of
pleasure.
A person who lives only in the level of senses and
sense pleasure is at one level. Another person who has developed the
joy of opening up the body lock and the energies hidden in the body by
right dieting, right exercise... is at another level.
The next
level is that of a person who has opened the emotional lock. He brings
in the energies of love, compassion and gratitude instead of anger and
jealousy... he has opened up his emotions.
One is at yet
another level when one has opened the intellectual lock... the energies
of right thinking, having the right clarity and intelligence.
Finally,
what about one who has opened up the spiritual lock, the hidden
energies in oneself? This happens when there is inner purity and inner
calmness. Such a person is at the highest level.
Life is a
combination of ignorance and knowledge. It needs fine-tuning. Suppose
your house has Italian marble but if it is not polished, then it will
look like ordinary flooring. Similarly, you have knowledge but if it is
not polished with humility and understanding, then such knowledge will
not shine forth.
Look at life with awareness. Everyone at some
level is stupid, is helpless and this recognition helps us to act
wisely. If people think, "I know, i need not change," such knowledge
will bind a person; it will not free him.
Life is the best teacher in this world. It teaches the thing which cannot be taught by anyone.