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Practice and Desirelessness


 

Practice and Desirelessness

The Source is not Anywhere Else, it is Within You.
The First Step:

CESSATION FROM SELF-INDULGENCE IN THE THIRST FOR SENSUOUS PLEASURES, WITH CONSCIOUS EFFORT.

What to do? Whenever you are in any state of pleasure - sex, food, money, power, anything that gives you pleasure - meditate on it. Just try to find it, from where it is coming. You are the source, or the source is somewhere else? If the source is somewhere else, then there is no possibility of any transformation because you will remain dependent to the source.

But, fortunately, the source is not anywhere else, it is within you. If you meditate, you will find it. It is knocking every moment from within, that "I am here!" Once you have the feeling that it is there knocking every moment - and you were creating only situations outside in which it was happening - it can happen without situations. Then you need not depend on anybody, on food, on sex, on power, anything. You are enough unto yourself. Once you have come to this feeling, the feeling of enoughness, then indulgence -  the mind to indulge, the indulgent mind - it disappears.

That doesn't mean you will not enjoy food. You will enjoy more. But now food is not the source of your happiness, you are the source. You are not dependent on food, you are not addicted to it.

That doesn't mean you will not enjoy sex. You can enjoy more, but now it is fun, play; it is just a celebration. But you are not dependent on it. It is not the source. And once two persons, two lovers, can find this - that the other is not the source of their pleasure - they stop fighting with the other. They start loving the other for the first time.

Otherwise you cannot love a person upon whom you are dependent in any way. You will hate, because he is your dependence. Without him you cannot be happy. So he has the key, and a person who has the key of your happiness is your jailer. Lovers fight because they look that the other has the key and, "He can make me happy or unhappy." Once you come to know that you are the source and the other is the source of his own happiness, you can share your happiness; that's another thing, but you are not dependent. You can share. You can celebrate together. That's what love means: celebrating together, sharing together - not driving from each other, not exploiting each other.

Because exploitation cannot be love. Then you are using the other as a means, and whomsoever you use as a means, he will hate you. Lovers hate each other because they are using, exploiting each other, and love - which should be the deepest ecstasy - becomes the ugliest hell. But once you know that you are the source of your happiness, no one else is the source, you can share it freely. Then the other is not your enemy, not even an intimate enemy. For the first time friendship arises, you can enjoy anything.

And you will be able to enjoy only when you are free. Only an independent person can enjoy. A person who is mad and obsessed with food cannot enjoy. He may fill his belly, but cannot enjoy. His eating is violent. It is a sort of killing. He is killing the food; he is destroying the food. And lovers who feel that their happiness depends on the other are fighting, trying to dominate the other, trying to kill the other, to destroy the other. You will be able to enjoy everything more when you know that the source is within. Then the whole life becomes a play, and moment-to-moment you can go on celebrating infinitely.

This is the first step, with effort. Consciousness and effort, you achieve desirelessness. Patanjali says this is the first because even effort, even consciousness, is not good, because it means that some struggle, some hidden struggle, is ongoing still.

The second and last step of vairagya, the last state of desirelessness:

CESSATION OF ALL DESIRING BY KNOWING THE INNERMOST NATURE OF PURUSHA, THE SUPREME SELF.

First you have to know that you are the source of all happiness that happens to you. Second, you have to know the total nature of your inner self. First, you are the source. Second, "What is this source?"

First, just this much is enough, that you are the source of your happiness. And second, what this source is in its totality, this purusha, inner self is: "Who am 'I'?" in its totality.

Once you know this source in its totality, you have known all. Then the whole Universe is within, not only happiness. Then all that exists, exists within - not only happiness. Then God is not somewhere sitting in the clouds, he exists within. Then you are the source, the root source of all. Then you are the center.

And once you become the center of Existence, once you know that you are the center of Existence, all misery has disappeared. Now desirelessness becomes spontaneous, sahaj. No effort, no striving, no maintaining is needed. It is so; it has become natural. You are not pulling it or pushing it. Now there is no "I" who can pull and push.

Remember this: struggle creates ego. If you struggle in the world, it creates a gross ego: "I am someone with money, with prestige, with power." If you struggle within, it creates a subtle ego: "I am pure; I am a saint, I am a sage," but "I" remains with struggle. So there are pious egoists who have a very subtle ego. They may not be worldly people. They are not; they are otherworldly. But struggle is there. They have achieved something. That achievement still carries the last shadow of "I".

The second step and the final step of desirelessness for Patanjali is total disappearance of the ego. Just nature flowing. No "I", no conscious effort. That doesn't mean you will not be conscious, you will be perfect consciousness - but no effort implied of being conscious. There will be no self-consciousness - just pure consciousness. You have accepted yourself and existence as it is.

A total acceptance - this is what Lao Tzu calls Tao, the river flowing toward the sea. It is not making any effort; it is not in any hurry to reach the sea. Even if it doesn't reach, it will not get frustrated. Even if it reaches in millions of years, everything is okay. The river is simply flowing because flowing is its nature. No effort is there. It will go on flowing.

When desires for the first time are noted and observed, effort arises, a subtle effort. Even the first step is a subtle effort. You start trying to be aware, "From where my happiness is coming?" You have to do something, and that doing will create the ego. That's why Patanjali says that is only the beginning, and you must remember that is not the end. In the end, not only have desires disappeared, you also have disappeared. Only the inner being has remained in its flow.

This spontaneous flow is the supreme ecstasy because no misery is possible for it. Misery comes through expectation, demand. There is no one to expect, to demand, so whatsoever happens, it is good. Whatsoever happens, it is a blessing. You cannot compare with anything else, it is the case. And because there is no comparing with the past and with the future - there is no one to compare - you cannot look at anything as misery, as pain. Even if pain happens in that situation, it will not be painful. Try to understand this. This is difficult.

Jesus is being crucified. Christians have painted Jesus very sad. They have even said that he never laughed, and in their churches they have the sad figure of Jesus everywhere. This is human; we can understand it, because a person who is being crucified must be sad. He must be in inner agony; he must be in suffering.

So Christians go on saying that Jesus suffered for our sins - but he suffered. This is absolutely wrong! If you ask Patanjali or me, this is absolutely wrong. Jesus cannot suffer. It is impossible for Jesus to suffer. And if he suffers, then there is no difference between you and him.

Pain is there, but he cannot suffer. This may look mysterious, but this is not; this is simple. Pain is there. As far as we can see from the outside he is being crucified, insulted; his body is destroyed. Pain is there, but Jesus cannot suffer. Because in this moment when Jesus is crucified, he cannot ask. He has no demand. He cannot say, "This is wrong. This should not be so. I must be crowned, and I am crucified."

If he has this in this mind - that "I must be crowned and I am crucified" - then there will be pain. If he has no futuring in the mind that "I should be crowned," no expectation for the future, no fixed goal to reach, wherever he has found himself is the goal then. And he cannot compare. This cannot be otherwise. This is the present moment that has been brought to him. This crucifixion is the crown.

And he cannot suffer, because suffering means resistance. You must resist something, only then you can suffer. Try it. It will be difficult for you to be crucified, but there are daily crucifixions, small. They will do.

You have a pain in the leg or in the head you have headache. You may not have observed the mechanism of it. You have headache, and you constantly struggle and resist. You don't want it. You are against it, you divide. You are somewhere standing within the head and the headache is there. You are separate and the headache is separate, and you insist that it should not be so. This is the real problem.

You try once not to fight. Flow with the headache; become the headache. And say, "This is the case. This is how my head is at this moment, and at this moment nothing is possible. It may go in future, but in this moment headache is there." Don't resist. Allow it to happen; become one with it. Don't pull yourself separate, flow into it. And then there will be a sudden upsurge of a new type of happiness you have not known. When there is no one to resist, even headache is not painful. The fight creates the pain. The pain means always fighting against the pain - that's the real pain.

Jesus accepts. This is how his life has come to the cross. This is the destiny. This is what in the East they have always called fate, bhagya, the kismat. So there is no point in arguing with your fate, there is no point in fighting it. You cannot do anything; it is happening. Only one thing is possible for you - you can flow with it or you can fight with it. If you fight, it becomes more agony. If you flow with it, the agony is less. And if you can flow totally, agony has disappeared. You have become the flow.

Try it when you have a headache, try it when you have an ill body, try it when you have some pain - just flow with it. And once, if you can allow, you will have come to one of the most deepest secrets of life - that pain disappears if you flow with it. And if you can flow totally, pain becomes happiness.

But this is not something logical to be understood. You can comprehend it intellectually, but that won't do. Try it existentially. There are everyday situations. Every moment something is wrong. Flow with it, and see how you transform the whole situation. And through that transformation you transcend it.

A Buddha can never be in pain; that is impossible. Only an ego can be in pain. Ego is a must to be in pain. And if the ego is there, you can transform your pleasures also into pain; if the ego is not there, you can transform your pains into pleasures. The secret lies with the ego.

THE LAST STATE OF VAIRAGYA, DESIRELESSNESS: CESSATION OF ALL DESIRING BY KNOWING THE INNERMOST NATURE OF PURUSHA, THE SUPREME SELF

How it happens? Just by knowing the innermost core of yourself, the purusha, the dweller within. Just by knowing it! Patanjali says, Buddha says, Lao Tzu says, just by knowing it, all desires disappear.

This is mysterious, and the logical mind is bound to ask how it can happen just by knowing themselves all desires disappear. It happens because now knowing themselves all desires have arisen. Desires are simply the ignorance of the self. Why? All that you are seeking through desires is there, hidden in the Self. If you know the Self, desires will disappear.

For example, you are asking for power. Everybody is asking for power. Power creates madness in everybody. It seems to be just human society has existed in such a way that everybody is power-addicted.

The child is born; the child is helpless. This is the first feeling you all carry always with you. The child is born, he is helpless, and a helpless child wants power. That's natural because everybody is more powerful than him. The mother is powerful, the father is powerful, the brothers are powerful, everybody is powerful, and the child is absolutely helpless. Of course, the first desire that arises is to have power - how to grow powerful how to be dominating. And the child starts being political from that very moment. He starts learning tricks how to dominate.

If he cries too much, he comes to know that he can dominate through crying. He can dominate the whole house just by crying. He learns crying. And women continue it even when they are not children. They have learned the secret, and they continue it. And they have to continue it because they remain helpless. That's power politics.

He knows a trick, and he can create disturbance. And he can create such a disturbance that you have to accept and compromise with him. And every moment he feels deeply that the only thing that is needed is power, more power. He will learn, he will go to school, he will grow he will love, but behind everything - his education, love, play - he will be finding how to get more power.

 Through education he will want to dominate, how to come first in the class so he can be dominating, how to get more money so he can be dominating, how to go on growing the influence and the territory of domination. The whole life he will be after power.

Many lives are simply wasted. And even if you get power, what you are going to do? Simply a childish wish is fulfilled. So when you become a Napoleon or a Hitler, suddenly you become aware that the whole effort has been useless, futile. Just a childish wish has been fulfilled, that's all. Now what to do? What to do with this power? If the wish is fulfilled you are frustrated. If the wish is not fulfilled you are frustrated, and it cannot be fulfilled absolutely, because no one can be so powerful that he can feel, "Now it is enough" - no one! The world is so complex that even a Hitler feels powerless in moments, even a Napoleon will feel powerless in moments. Nobody can feel absolute power, and nothing can satisfy you.

But when somebody comes to know one's Self, one comes to know the Source of absolute power. Then the desire for power disappears because you were already a king and you were only thinking that you were a beggar. And you were struggling to be a bigger beggar, a greater beggar, and you were already the king. Suddenly you come to realize that you don't lack anything. You are not helpless. You are the source of all energies, you are the very source of life. That childhood feeling of powerlessness was created by others. And it is a vicious circle they created in you because it was created in them by their parents, and so on and so forth.

Your parents are creating the feeling in you that you are powerless. Why? Because only through this they can feel they are powerful. You may be thinking that you love children very much. That doesn't seem to be the case. You love power, and when you get children, when you become mothers and fathers, you are powerful. Nobody may be listening to you; you may be nothing in the world, but at least in the boundaries of your home you are powerful. You can at least torture small children.

And look at fathers and mothers: they torture! And they torture in such a loving way that you cannot even say to them that "You are torturing." They are torturing for "their own good", for the children's own good! They are helping them to grow. They feel powerful. Psychologists say that many people go to the teaching profession just to feel powerful, because thirty children at your disposal, you are just a king.

It is reported that Aurangajeb was imprisoned by his son. When he was imprisoned, he wrote a letter and he said, "Only one wish, if you can fulfill, it will be good, and I will be very happy. You just send thirty children to me so that I can teach them in my imprisonment."

The son has been reported to have said, "My father has always remained a king, and he cannot lose his kingdom. So even in the prison he needs thirty children so he can teach them."

Look! Go into a school! The teacher sitting on his chair-and absolute power, just the master of everything that is happening there. People want children not because they love, because if they love, really, the world will be totally different. If you love your child the world will be totally different.

You will not help him to be helpless, to feel helpless, you will give him so much love that he would feel he is powerful. If you give love, then he will never be asking for power. He will not become a political leader; he will not go for elections. He will not try to accumulate money and go mad after it, because he knows it is useless - he is already powerful; love is enough.

But nobody is giving love, then he will create substitutes. All your desires, whether of power, of money, prestige, they all show that something had been taught to you in your childhood, something has been conditioned in your bio-computer and you are following that conditioning without looking inside, that whatsoever you are asking is already there.

Patanjali's whole effort is to put your bio-computer in silence so that it doesn't interfere. This is what meditation is. It is putting your bio-computer, for certain moments, into silence, into a non-chattering state, so that you can look within and hear your deepest nature. Just a glimpse will change you because then this biocomputer cannot deceive you. This bio-computer goes on saying that, "Do this, do that!" It goes on continuously manipulating you, that "You must have more power; otherwise you are nobody."

If you look within, there is no need to be anybody; there is no need to be somebody. You are already accepted as you are. The whole existence accepts you, is happy about you. You are a flowering - an individual flowering, different from any other, unique, and God welcomes you; otherwise you could not be here. You are here only because you are accepted. You are here only because God loves you or the universe loves you or the existence needs you. You are needed.

Once you know your innermost nature, what Patanjali calls the purusha - the purusha means the inner dweller... The body is just a house. The inner dweller, the inner-dwelling consciousness, is purusha. Once you know this inner-dwelling consciousness, nothing is needed. You are enough, more than enough. You are perfect as you are. You are absolutely accepted, welcomed. The existence becomes a blessing. Desires disappear; they were part of self-ignorance. With self-knowledge, they disappear, they evaporate.

Abhyasa, constant inner practice, conscious effort to be more and more alert, to be more and more master of oneself, to be less and less dominated by habits, by mechanical, robot-like mechanisms - and vairagya, desirelessness: these two attained one becomes a yogi; these two attained one has attained the goal.

I will repeat: but don't create a fight. Allow all this happening to be more and more spontaneous. Don't fight with the negative. Rather, create the positive. Don't fight with sex, with food, with anything. Rather, find out what it is that gives you happiness, from where it comes - move in that direction. Desires, by and by, go on disappearing.

And second: be more and more conscious. Whatsoever is happening, be more and more conscious. And remain in that moment, and accept that moment. Don't ask for something else. You will not be creating misery then. If pain is there, let it be there. Remain in it and flow in it. The only condition is, remain alert. Knowingly, watchfully, move into it, flow into it. Don't resist!

When pain disappears, the desire for pleasure also disappears. When you are not in anguish, you don't ask for indulgence. When anguish is not there, indulgence becomes meaningless. And more and more you go on falling into the inner abyss. And it is so blissful, it is such a deep ecstasy, that even a glimpse of it and the whole world becomes meaningless. Then all that this world can give to you is of no use.

And this should not become a fighting attitude - you should not become a warrior, you should become a meditator. If you are meditating, spontaneously things will happen to you which will go on transforming and changing you. Start fighting and you have started suppression. And suppression will lead you into more and more misery. And you cannot deceive.

Many people are there who are not only deceiving others, they go on deceiving themselves. They think they are not in misery; they go on saying they are not in misery. But their whole existence is miserable. When they are saying that they are not in misery, their faces, their eyes, their heart, everything, is in misery.

I will tell you one anecdote, and then finish. I have heard:

Once it happened that twelve ladies reached purgatory. The officiating angel asked them,"Were any of you unfaithful to your husbands while on earth? If someone was unfaithful to her husband, she should raise her hand." Blushingly, hesitating, by and by eleven ladies raised their hands. The officiating angel took his phone, called into the phone, "Hello! Is that hell? Have you got room for twelve unfaithful wives there? - one of them, stone deaf!"

It isn't needed whether you say or not. Your face, your very being, shows everything. You may say you are not miserable, but the way you say it, the way you are, shows you are miserable. You cannot deceive, and there is no point - because no one can deceive anybody else, you can only deceive yourself.

Remember, if you are miserable, you have created all this. Let it penetrate deep in your heart that you have created your sufferings because this is going to be the formula, the key. If you have created your sufferings, only then can you destroy it. If someone else has created them, you are helpless. You have created your miseries, you can destroy them. You have created them through wrong habits, wrong attitudes, addictions, desires.

Drop this pattern! Look fresh! And this very life is the ultimate joy that is possible to human consciousness.

Talks on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Chapter 9 - Practice and Desirelessness

 

 

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