Watering the Plant with the Water of Love

To cultivate a piece of land, the farmer works really long and hard. First, he has to soften the entire piece of land. He must then plough it, sow the seeds and water it regularly. After that, the crop has to grow to a certain stage, and to aid that, he needs to use fertilizers and remove the weeds at regular intervals. Only after all this, will he be able to bring home the food grains. That is exactly what we have to do with our hearts too. The heart is like a piece of land to be cultivated, and we must cultivate it with utmost care and concern. It must be watered with the water of love. Using the plough of enquiry, you must plough it and sow the seed of the Name of God, and then guard it very vigilantly using the fence of caution and care. You must protect it with egolessness, then you will receive the fruit of love. (Baba)

How do we cultivate the piece of land? Our study circle didn’t happen because it was a holiday and there had been no people, so we had no study circle and afterwards we had an unpleasant talk with one of the members who only knew everything better and gave a negative feedback instead of a being a constructive help. I was surprised, I didn’t expect that from his side.

If I see it in the above mentioned metaphor of the farmer, it would be about removing the weeds and to make sure that the plant will grow we again remind to respect the principle and that is non-argumentative exchange.

I used that opportunity in sending the guidelines not only to him but to everybody, because it is not only about one plant, it is about the whole field and that felt great, because it felt like Baba’s presence and that feels usually joyful and by that we get aware of the wisdom in it.  

The negative insights and dreams seem to be like the fertilizer we use, it is nourishing the plant and the soil, farmers use still cow dung to fertilize the fields, we use the shadow of our life, all that what causes shock and shame and a mind hole we can use to fertilize our own plant of love in our heart.

The shadow is that what is not present in the inner view as good, but the catastrophe, the darkness and what smells awful. It is what we have to face in the inner view or getting aware of the abandoned inner child and if we are able to do so, it makes us stronger.

I don’t like those argumenting people in the center, thinking they know, when in fact they really don’t know and usually I avoided it, but now I avoid it less and I use it to tell everybody that we should know how to think positive and above all if we have to use critics, it should be positive critics, if we go into discussions, it should be constructive and positive and not searching faults and go into blame.

But he was only on that level of blame, everything he said was negative and he even tried to blackmail me telling that he would not come to the study circle if it was not possible to discuss. It was of no use to tell him that it was the principle, he wanted to argue and to blame someone and it was my fault not the study circle.

That is lack of discrimination. I am not the study circle and it is about the principle of non-argumentative exchange and he is not aware of it, but he argues about it. If Baba is love and the principle of non-argumentative exchange, if he argues about it he is not in love. If Baba is peace, he destroys peace. If Baba is joy, he destroys joy. But it was a great opportunity trying to recall to people that we should think above all how to listen, think it over and absorb. That principle Baba called in the guidelines for study circles, read, reflect on it and put it in your own life and that part of it was joyful, because we felt Baba’s presence in it. It was a great experiences feeling Baba in it and to be able to do it.

Is that the transformation? Did we cultivate the piece of land?

To give a positive feedback instead of going into negativity?  

How do we bring home the food grains?

How do we cultivate it with utmost care and concern? How do we water it with love?

How do we get aware of the difference between Sathva and Tamas, between light and darkness?

Baba is the example, in his words is the light and the principle is the light and it cannot change, because it is a principle.

We can think it over and interpret it, as long as we are aware of the principle we cannot go wrong, but we begin to see it in our own life. But that guy who was arguing about the principle of non-argumentative exchange, he turned it upside down.

We cannot possible argue about a non-argumentative exchange. If we do we put everything what Baba is in question. If Baba is love, arguing is not love, if Baba is joy, arguing is destroying joy, if Baba is peace, arguing is destroying peace. The principle of non-argumentative exchange is the base for love, but it is still about exchange and that is what this seems all about. It should be still the level of exchange.

That is the study-circle.

The principle is non-argumentative exchange and not no exchange, we can practice and master it, I am certain about that and we get there together.  It feels like the entire negative insights and shocking inner view have to make us stronger, and that makes even sense, because we do not try to avoid it anymore. The joy is in feeling the principle of non-argumentative exchange is Baba, it is the principle of love, it is transformation.

Instead of getting back at him with resentment or avoiding it, as I would have done some time ago, I wrote that I would be glad if someone would bring the text also to the study circle and it is a positive way of doing it, constructive and not just searching faults. The transformation is from blame to positive exchange, learning how to tell it differently.

Negativity in the inner view is present to awake us, it is negative to make us alert and stronger, it goes beyond shame and shock and that are the worst obstacles in our mind, if it leads into shame the pattern of it can go on over generations. If shock and shame are faced in our dreams, we get aware of the shock and by that we can go beyond shock and shame with the inner master, we learn to keep equanimity in our mind. That is how we prepare the ground and take care that we can bring home the food grains and that is love. The farmers use the cow dung to fertilize the ground. The shadow is the fertilizer to help us to make the plant of love grow.

If we fertilizes the ground in our hearts and remove the weeds regularly, we have to take care that the plant can grow into a strong plant. We will have to repeat it again and again, and we take the opportunities to get aware of the principle for everyone. I remember one day a woman was misbehaving and she run out of the women in front and we were all punished and had no Darshan for some days. That is how we prepare the ground so that the plant can grow in doing Baba’s work or how we can see it in our own life and it begins to make sense, we begin to understand it, feel it.

We have to know how to get rid of the weeds and that is the work of the farmer, only we are on the field of the heart, but feels great to feel his presence. If we do his work he is present and Baba has an incredible power, the power of love.

What is the proper plan of study? Swami answers this question as follows: “This is the proper plan of study—reading, reflection, and regular application in life. Study is work. Inquiry into the value and applicability of what is studied is worship. The experience of the validity and value of practice is wisdom.

We get aware of the difference of it. Study is work. When taking his words in the thought for the day and inquiring in the value of it or trying to see it in my own life, the insights and dreams and experiences, so that it finally does make sense, he calls it worship and finally the validity of the value of that practice is wisdom, that is the result. And the result is great, we begin to understand it and when we meet someone who has no notion about it and thinks that we are interpreting Baba’s wisdom, he has not even got to the insight that we should read and reflect and what it means - regular application it in our own life, that is what I am doing in writing about it. It is regular application. Someone who has no notion of it, has not even understood the main thing that we have to listen, think it over and absorb. That doesn’t happen if we do not integrate it in our own life, the wisdom grows in worshipping the truth in his words.

We cannot interpret a divine principle. A principle is not changeable, it is always the same, if we think it over it will become part of our life, but we can argue about the non-argumentative exchange and it will turn into the opposite, it will not be light, it will be darkness, it will not be Sathva, but it will be Tamas and in the inner view one is light and the other one is dark. 

That is how we see it in our own life and it is really stupid to think we can interpret a priciple, because it doesn't change, but if we argue about it, we can turn it upside down and that is Tamas, darkness.