When tamasic (pertaining to inertness and procrastination)
people terrorists can have unity,
why not sattvik (pertaining to peace and nobility)?
But sattvik people are too proud of their sattvikta.
So that is religion, groupism. Spirituality must unite us.
In religion, what do we say?“
God is there, He is everywhere.
My God is better than your God.
The worship that I do of my God is better than
your worship of your God is.”
We divide individuals, we divide families, we divide nations,
communities, based on religion.
Spirituality is all about experience,
it is all about love.
It unites communities, nations.
Many citizens can come under one roof
and approach spirituality with love.
Terrorists have unity.
When tamasic people, terrorists, can have unity,
why not sattvik?
But sattvik people are too proud of their sattvikta.
So that is religion, groupism.
Spirituality must unite us.
Common experience, common experience that
we dwell in love, we breathe love, we exhale love,
we absorb and we lose it.
So spirituality is a lot better because it has experience.
The knowledge that God is there, it is okay,
but experience, once it starts backing this knowledge,
it becomes substantial,
it becomes worthwhile. When I say, “God is there,”
it is a belief.
But when I say with conviction, with experience
backing my knowledge that, “God is there,”
then it has a different meaning to it.
So experience is great.
Every day when we meditate and one experience is
better than the other experience, then what happens?
Experience, at some point, will lose its importance.
And this is very welcome.
We have to, just as we move away from religious tendencies,
we also have to move away from spirituality,
because that is also limiting us only to experiences.
Then what comes beyond it?
What is beyond experience?
When we observe ourself that during certain mornings
when I become, let us say angry,
my meditations are not good.
When I am happy,
when I am more compassionate, when everything is good,
peaceful in my heart, that time my meditations are great.
So we move away from this idea of experience.
Of course, experience always defines that
particular state of becoming, improves my experience.
When I am happy and compassionate, jovial, kind,
it deepens my meditation. Per contra, when I am angry,
irritable, just because chai (tea) was not hot enough,
or there was too much sugar,
and then you meditate, it will not be as good.
So becoming takes over.
This is the field of reality.
How do we tackle reality? With the right attitude,
where my becoming is more significant.
Then a stage comes
which is only this much – ‘myself versus God’.
There are only two of us left.
We have made
a long headway within the family and community.
It is not that we do not interact with family.
In fact our interaction heightens to a different level.
Though you may not be communicable at times,
but there is greater communion between
each of the family members,
if they are meditating well together.
When all these things are transcended
and when we come to this realm of
‘me versus God,’ – in Vaishnava tradition it is
called prapanna state, state of surrender.
This reminds us of the relationship that
Meera had with Lord Krishna.
Of course, Meera did a mischief.
She left everything. That was a mistake on her part.
That is why she had to wait
and wait, and wait, and wait and wait and wait.
She got nothing but frustrations all her life.
It took a long time before she could have
the darshan (divine vision) of the Lord.
But she could have had it,
if she had managed well her emotions,
while being in the palace.
It is only about ‘me versus Him’ at that stage.
When there is lesser and lesser of ‘me’, ‘myself’ and ‘I’,
then there will be more and more of ‘Him’.