Peace and a Pair of empty Shoes

Tragedy is that people forget the most critical thing about their earthly career — the key to happiness and liberation.
Man cannot afford to forget the questions – “Who am I? Where am I going? Where did I come from?
What is the nature and purpose of all this?
–SSB, July 14th, 1965

I guess I dreamt of you tonight, but I don’t really know what it was, you were just present.

Baba answered those questions when he left the body in an inside view. He made clear that he would leave the body and he dropped it and it fell into dust and there was Krishna and his brother.

The message is clear, it means we go where he is and we come from where he is.

‘Who am I?’ that is the question, because brother seems to be the role of the devotee, therefore, anyone can be ‘that’ if he belongs to them.

I had to reflect on it, after a while I was convinced that it means brother – devotion. And therefore, it can be also the group, all who are one in that unity. The conclusion of that we are all ‘one and the same’ when being him and that is our relationship with him.

It is present during singing, there is only ‘one’ brother as we are all the same. We all are one in that consciousness of ‘I am that’ and in that we have an inside relationship with him who is the eternal charioter. Brother means therefore, devotion.

What is the nature and purpose of all this?

Come into the world with the question, "Who am I?" Leave it with the answer, "God I am." - Baba

We are ‘that’ when singing together, when acting together, love in action.

Do you remember the peace mantra or prayer?

It asks for projection being together one, because in the ‘we’ is ‘He’.

Peace Mantra:

Om Sahana Vavatu Sahanau Bhunaktu

Sahaveeryam Karavavahai

Tejas Vinavati Tumastuma vidhwishavahai

Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi

May we enjoy being together, may we eat together and grow together, may we share knowledge together and be brilliant and full of energy together, get enlightened together and may we never argue or support negativity, OM peace, peace, peace.

May he protect us both (as ‘we’ are he), may ‘we’ get the right food together (all nourishment also wisdom), may we acquire the capacity to be brilliant together, have more energy and study together, understand the teaching together, may we grow together and never argue, Om, peace, peace, peace.

And you know why, because together ‘we’ are he.

If we argue what are created are differences and that destroys unity and how can that we be ‘he’ if that is destroyed? And that is what my ex never understood, arguing and finding faults with others was his life breath.

That is why it is called the peace mantra, it is often used in schools and understood as peace, because without the teaching, the knowledge which is structured in consciousness cannot flow.
That is based on the believe that the teacher is more important than the teaching. It is not like in our schools when we think the teachers don’t matter and only books and logic matters.

We are more or less alone as devotees, I mean, arn’t we?

Maybe that is a reason why we should be together, it feels like ‘having good’ company to be able to share.

Grow together, eat together, share the teaching together and never argue or support negativity.

What about my life?  

I live with my adult daughter. Do you want to know how it feels? She had a week holidays and was at home.

When I walk into the door there are cartons behind the door, she got some stuff, but she didn’t put it away, she just lets it there.

I will have to put it away and after looking at it for a week or so, one day I will do it. She has not once in that week put the dishes away of emptied the dishwasher or cleaned up the kitchen, she doesn’t clean the flat, only her room sometimes and it is overflowing with stuff she dosn’t need. She buys everything she wants, she has much too much stuff.

I come back from work and have to do everything. Yesterday I was washing cloth, she put everything ready for me to do, but she doesn’t help, mother can do it.

At lunch she ate something, the plate is still standing on the table, actually, I just put it in the kitchen now, after I went downstairs to get the washing and you know what, I didn’t empty the dishwasher yet and the dishes begin to pile up, but she doesn’t do it.

I don’t tell her anymore, I cannot, because it takes more energy to tell her than to do it myself.  I feel that tired, I cannot tell her again and again the same thing what I do since years and for nothing. She knows I get too tried and I cannot anymore and takes advantage of it.

I am not going to tell her to do it, because it takes more energy than doing it myself and in the end she anyhow doesn’t do it.

That is not what is meant in that peace mantra of growing together, that is no growth, that is something else.
Therefore, what is the relationship with us together?

I told her I didn’t feel too good today, she went to friend of hers, put her dishes on the table and left, mother can do it. Years ago I dreamt that she was a too big baby and I got crushed underneath her weight. One day it will change, but I cannot fight and argue with her anymore, I am tired of it. I can not treat her like a baby and she should be old enough, I probably didn’t tell her enough, but I am tired of it... because it doesn't help to tell. If I don't do it we live in a kind of mess, I just didn't manage to clean up behind her. 

I don’t know how to solve the problem and cannot solve it.
After work when she comes back she sits in front of TV and looks comedy shows, that is okay. I don’t mind, because I don’t want eternally control her life. The only thing what is not okay is that I cannot live with it and I get tired.

I wished it would be different, but it is not. I am not even mad at her, I don’t know what it is, I am just tired.

I prefer to live in that chaotic manner and she has that much stuff and no room anymore. 

I guess we learn to live in a kind of chaos... and somehow it works out, the chaos of an alone educating mother.

When Baba left he said, ‘no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe!’

But you know what, there is no father and nothing but an empty Western shoe and that is exactly how it feels and looks ..., it is not only the husband, it is the father not taking care.

In a sense it seems just natural, how can we do everything perfect if we like that. We can do our best only.

It is not possible to live in harmony and constantly tell a daughter to do it differently, one thing or the other doesn’t work. She is too old to still be disciplined by the mother, but I will probably never get used to it and get tired of it. 

I got the answers to thequestions, but all different than I thought .., but I got the answer.

He mentioned the husband, but not the father. He mentioned one shoe, not the other. Inside in the picture were two empty Western shoes, not only one. 

When he said, nothing left but an empty Western shoe in the picture inside where two shoes. It is a pair of empty shoes, not only one. Some guys are no husband but still a father ...

He said one shoe, in the inside picture were two shoes...

There is a second empty Western shoe to make it a pair of shoes. It is possible to be no husband, but still a caring and good father..., and take responsibility, but he was both not.
It means there is 'one' only and as we are 'all the same' and there is just an empty shoe, and he is stupid and doesn't know what he is doing, that 'oneness' seems somehow in question, but I guess I don't understand it right. 
I asked him inside, what I will do if he is gone...?
When he left the body, I didn't want him to go. It is about that unity, which was wrong understood and what about the West.
To take that risk in his presence seemed not big, as he was there, but we live in the West and it is all different, there is only 'one' and it is the brother of Krishns in the same 'I am that'.
It has to be realized. 
In India they could live in the ashram, luckier than in the West, it was too far away, not possible to change schools, the family was no help and the father und husband also not. It was all an illusion, because we live in the West...