For acquiring selfless love, the quality of kshama or forbearance is a vital necessity. (kshama is a word rich in meaning. Besides forbearance, it also implies extreme patience and an enormous capacity to forget as also forgive). Every individual must cultivate this noble quality. Kshama is not achieved by reading books or learnt from an instructor. Nor can it be received as a gift from someone else. This prime virtue of kshama can be acquired solely by self-effort, by facing squarely diverse problems and difficulties of various sorts, by going through anxieties and suffering as well as sorrow. In the absence of kshama, man becomes susceptible to all kinds of evil tendencies. Hatred and jealousy easily take root in a person lacking this virtue. Divinity is merely the combined manifestation of prema(love) and kshama.
It is kind of amazing to get aware of the presence of 'pure love' and if we look at the translation and meaning of forbearance we find list of synonyms and it makes it clear how much we need to think it over.
We should never just read Swam's words, but always we should 'listen, think it over and absorb' to be able to reach the reality of oneness and to feel it, experience it in our own being and making it part of our life. If we want to taste it and make it part of the inner higher self, we have to get aware of it, we have to recognize and realize it and that is part of our inner being. It happens if we listen, think it over and absorb.
If we only read we might think it is all understood, but that cannot be true, because we don't listen, it is a wrong mind conclusion that it is understood and delusion. We have to make it a self-experience and go deep into it and feel the meaning of his words, we have to see it and feel it and find it in our own life, in our experience and then we are able to taste the nectar and bliss in it.
For acquiring selfless love, the quality of kshama or forbearance is a vital necessity. (kshama is a word rich in meaning. Besides forbearance, it also implies extreme patience and an enormous capacity to forget as also forgive). Every individual must cultivate this noble quality.
That helps getting aware of the inner process that is happening in our feelings and how we can get aware of it. It is therefore not only listening, but also thinking it over and by that we remember and we actually get aware of it, he is waking us up from the inside.
There are experiences we had and there was no idea why they were there actually and listening to Swami's words and in thinking it over we get aware of it. In his words we find the explanation, we can see how it has happened and why we were able to make such a great experience even before we went to Swami.
Swami also is telling us that a true friend is who is always uplifting our life and it happens in cleansing the ideal and emotions and when we think it over we can imagine how it was sitting in his Darshan and that is just what we had experienced, it was uplifting our life and therefore it was a good feeling and it was cleansing our ideal and our emotions and we came out of a Darshan and we thought that everything was clear and done and next day the same thing started again.
It is the divine principle, it is always positive and therefore, uplifting and not matter who we are in Darshan, sight of truth, after we had forgotten our sorrows and problems and it felt good, but we didn't know why. But we didn't know why because we don't listen to Swami. If we really listen, we are thinking it over, we get aware of it.
It is not just reading his text, we have to listen, think it over and absorb.
If we learn to accept truth and if we accept truth as path, we also have to accept right action and after all if we also understand peace, there is the possibility to make that experience of 'pure love'.
Swami mentioned that we have a great benefit if we only do some service, but he also explains that it means being near the Lord and it is not only helping on the worldly level as we might think it is. Only if we have those three things, truth, right action and peace, we can make the experience of pure love and accepting truth means not just doing something, but it means being near the Lord and he is everywhere.
The underlying unity we have to see in diversity and we should put our focus on is not that easy to get there, it needs purification of the mind and the right focus in our life and he said that this is our duty.
If there was pure love, the focus was present, but not the knowledge of how we got there. He also said that it doesn't matter if we organize meetings or singing or speeches, whatever it is - it is the same. It is not a common way of seeing it, there is usually a difference seen in the different activities and if there is that difference, we have to think that it is in purpose so we have to make an effort to get to the underlying oneness.
We notice that lots of people actually think that there is a difference and it gets all confused on that level and people look for the unity in the diversity and the easiest way is just to see it as family and Swami told us that these are part-time devotees. If we see everything as the same as the divine is indivisible and always the same, that focus on all being the same is what we need to focus on and that probably gives the feeling of 'family', but that is the result and not the way getting there. We don't think about family, but the principle is oneness.
Kshama is not achieved by reading books or learnt from an instructor. Nor can it be received as a gift from someone else. This prime virtue of kshama can be acquired solely by self-effort, by facing squarely diverse problems and difficulties of various sorts, by going through anxieties and suffering as well as sorrow.
We could think that Kshama is that virtue we have to acquire, forbearance and he calls it even the noblest of all virtues.
If I feel that 'pure love' present during meditation and we look at it and try to get it together and to find the reason for that experience, how did it happen that there was the experience of 'pure love'.
We realize that it has to do with Veda, it is the basic truth we find in Veda, the unity in diversity no matter how we get there, we get to the same insight, if there is truth we have to accept it and there will be right action, resulting from accepting truth and there is the understanding of peace and if we have those three things, we are able to experience that pure love. In that way our focus was on it and it was about love, not just about meditation and we had on a certain point no more choice and it was about the divine presence in the heart and not about the intellect anymore.
It is not so easy to keep that focus, it has to be based on truth only, not on a feeling, that is not truth. The feeling level is coming and going, but that level of 'I am that' is a permanent state and truth.
We have to realize that all are the same 'I am that' and if we realize that we are the same, it feels also natural that all are that. And if it is true between us, it is true between everybody, knowing that we can keep the focus on the inner unity and we are no more disturbed on the outer level of differences.
In the absence of kshama, man becomes susceptible to all kinds of evil tendencies. Hatred and jealousy easily take root in a person lacking this virtue. Divinity is merely the combined manifestation of prema(love) and kshama.
That is the lessen with the shadow coming up last week, the feeling of upset and all that negativity coming up. It is Kshama the virtue that has to be acquired and in that way we get aware of it. The focus on the inner unity and that all are one is different from the outer experience of differences and seemingly nobody is one.
Swami's words cannot be meant to just be translated and forgotten again, we should always think it over and see it in our own life to be able to absorb the wisdom. We should never only read Swami's words without thinking it over, seeing it in our own life and feeling it and we will be able to absorb the wisdom in going deep into it and experiencing it as part of our own self. And it is that part of forgiving and forgetting, but incredibly I was just in conflict with that part of it.
As we have to follow the shadow and by that we get aware of the differences coming up and by getting aware of the differences and the negativity created, we also get aware of it how much forbearance is needed and only if get there, we understand or feel the wisdom as part of our own self.
If we are able to forget and forgive, we also should be able to not be that stupid to go into something again that is not it. It seems the part of forgiving and forgetting is strongly used actually and many avoided to follow the shadow in making it look like forbearance when in reality it is just taking advantage of it. If we put everything on Swami only, like he should take care of it and he is seen on the outer level and not the inner manifestation of the divine, making it very easy on ourselves, as he takes care, we don't need to do anything not even listening to his words and thinking it over.
Only this cannot be true and it is not in our interest to think like in such a way and to project divinity outward in a heaven different from our own self.
If we meditated together we are also that, it is oneness we have to acquire, the wholeness is greater than the sum of its part. In singing we get aware that we are all the same and we are singing for the one divine and that is again the same, that is creating unity in our awareness, it is all one, he is the singer, he is the song and he is the one we adore with singing and it is all part of our own higher self, there is only one.
It is the divine power fulfilling all desires and resulting in bliss, knowing that we are all the same and there is only one.
It cannot be in our own self-interest if we see a divinity outside of our own self as duality, we are it, we are part of it, we are part of the big thing, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and if that gets lost, we are back again in the individual and the barren land mentioned in Baba's words not long ago.
We have to keep the wholeness with Swami, we are one and the same and there is no difference and if we are able to realize that, we also know that everybody is that and all are one.
I was worried about that Kshama when I went to Swami years ago with my daughter, I was worried that I would forget the past and it would be all okay again and I would go into it again. I had to know what was the best for us and I was scared to just forgive and forget. I was actually afraid of forgetting it and forgiving too easily and it was a conflict, a fear in the background and we kept distance to not be taken in again.
It was very alarming in the insights and dreadful and awful and the worst we could probably think of and he said we didn't listen, so the reason was the absence of listening. We thought it was all him, Baba arranged and easy and uplifting as he is uplifting our life and no problem of course, no risk, everything totally great as it cleanses the ideal and the emotions and we had to get aware of it that it was only in our dream and that it was not true.
I was scared of it because we didn't know how it had happened and it should not happen again, but if we don't listen, it can happen again and that is what Baba said, 'you didn't listen, you have to get a divorce'.
It is the not listening part the problem and the rest was projection. We thought it was all him, arranged by him and it was not, we just took advantage of it because if felt good and it didn't last very long it didn't feel good anymore and it was all gone.
It is easy to see in everything Baba and to live in a dream that it is him and he makes it a great experience, when in reality it has nothing to do with him.
It makes it easier if we get him into it, because we feel that he is cleansing by his divine reality the 'I am that' the ideal and it is all right and we think if we go for it with him, it will be alright as well.
That quality of forbearance was actually quite useful, as it gave us the ability to go along without like that thinking we just had to follow the shadow, what we know now, of course, by doing that we made the shadow come up and not the divine.
We should not only read Baba, we should always listen, think it over and absorb.
Someone in the center said, what is there to think over, it is all clear and by that telling us that he doesn't see why we should think it over. We have to make the experience of the difference between just reading and going deep into it.
And there is someone else we have a hard time as he thinks we are a Sai family and when he said something he referred to the family and talking with his wife I felt terrible and nobody would like to be part of that, it felt like Waldorf school and not Sai Baba and worse, there was something small and ugly and petty and trivial in the air and it felt totally repulsing.
Every problem of her seemed something to be shared with the others, no way to experience Swami on that level.
In fact it is the opposite, it is the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, but she seemed there as the tiny small, little part thinking it mattered to her and everybody and issue for all and the thinking about love was upsetting and made me get back with headache a few times until I was able to get rid of it.
It was not love, it was something else and Baba was nowhere and I came just back with headaches, but it got better in the mean time with the study circle.
That is also part of the shadow and forbearance is a must to excuse it by going on, using it for discrimination.
One night in the dream he said, 'it is passion, stay alone', since I don't need to listen to it anymore and it is easier to keep out of it and we use Baba's words and he is the doer and that way we feel his presence and I take myself out of it in staying alone and it works.
It is the study circle that makes it okay, Swami's words and the circle, it is a way of giving it to him, he is the doer and he is present in all the others and it is about his words only. it is most of the time about cleansing of the ideal and by that also our emotions are cleansed and after such a meeting we get back and feel uplifted and that is the reality of ever activity done with Swami. He told us that there is no difference, no matter what we are doing. It is always positive and not a level of arguing, that would be negative). As it is cleansing the ideal if we listen to his words and it is also cleansing our emotions, after such a meeting we feel uplifted, we feel his presence and that is uplifting our life and we feel just right.
It is most of time about the underlying oneness and people don't know how with feeling 'love' and being able to keep that oneness and more we are feeling love, more it gets emotional and therefore, it is relaxing and cleansing our emotions, if we meet in his words and think it over together. We have to work out together the solution that is true from all sides, it is the answer and that is why the ideal is cleansed.
No comments:
Post a Comment