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like Elizabeth Spring Tao who was born here yesterday
we come into the world we come from being fully at home and feeling that release that comes we
have a little shadow of it when we come home at the end of the day those of you that have a home
and put your feet up or relax or have a cup of tea or whatever that is that feeling of coming home or
coming to a safe space or feeling back at peace or at one and when we get separated from that
which and that's separation I want to keep reiterating is created by the mind that's what
the basic issue of the ignorance that is the root of suffering that the Buddha keeps pointing out
basic root of suffering is thought the clinging of the Mind things which separate one from all of it
now once that separation has occurred there is incredible pain we can call it being thrown out
of the Garden of Eden we call it original sin whatever you want to call that I mean there are
different metaphors within different systems but there is incredible pain and in some profound way
all of our actions henceforth are an attempt to return to that being for me under maharaji's
blanket or in the heart of God or in the hand or being the one coming back into the one
and we develop a whole set of techniques that we say make us feel good make us give us a
feeling for the moment of yeah ah and some of those give us that moment so intensely
and the rest of our life is so so much pain of our separateness and so devoid of that feeling
that once we find one of those things for example it might be a moment of sexual orgasm it might
be a moment of Surfing when you transcend the dualism between you and nature it could be when
you're doing something like cooking the way you turn into just the joy of the process it could be
it could be any number of things it could be any number of things that when that occurs
and it works it reinforces the behavior and you start to do that behavior more and more because
it feels good it takes away the pain of the separateness and the use of drugs the use of
material possessions the use of relationships all of it when you get busy and get obsessed
with relationships and wanting to get closer and closer to somebody it is trying to get to
the place where you come back into that Oneness it is it's that yearning and you can feel it permeate
the universe of people's consciousness so when you look at addictions from that point of view
you see that it's not like evil it is just an attempt to get back the problem is that
most behaviors that get you back is like what maharaji said about drugs he said it
will allow you to be in the presence of Christ but you can only stay two hours
he said it would be better to become Christ than visit him and that's what you find out with most
addictive things that they give you a short rush but they don't allow you to remain at home
they just allow you the taste of it and then the minute you get thrown out because you weren't
wearing the wedding garment the minute you go back to heaven but you can't stay because you didn't
come in it's the right way you end up feeling like I did something wrong I'm bad and then that starts
a reaction of mind so that you get you come down then you feel guilt I must be bad I should have
done something else why didn't I do the practices that would have allowed me to stay there rather
than the thing that's short-term because you see your predicament what happens is that the
the opportunity for the immediate gratification it's like What's called the in the psychology the
choice of the the little candy bar now or the big candy bar later and with little children
they'll always grab for the little candy bar now because they want what they can get now they don't
they don't have any delay of gratification and spiritual practices compared to having
sex or compared to taking Coke or something is more like delayed gratification versus immediate
gratification so when you start to stand back and see your predicament and see what you're doing
there is a way from a spiritual perspective in which you
begin with that slight bit of awareness to extricate yourself
from the chain of reactivity that we're talking about the chain of reactivity that goes from
I'm feeling this hunger and then I'll go for the gratification and then ah and then the coming down
and then oh [ __ ] and then I should have done it the other way and then I'm bad and there's
a whole chain of thoughts that go on every one of those is just keeping the whole process going
and as you develop the spaciousness you start to look at where you can intervene in the process
of the sequence that goes on as the awareness gets deeper you intervene
at different places in the sequence for example the yearning the hunger starts
and like for me for example I can I've had strong addictions to food so that when I am
feeling unloved I'll eat and I'll get fat it's a pattern and then I'll hate myself
loathing because of my body and so on and I'll go through it now I understand the psychodynamics
of that at one level but let's take it from this point of view of the mind for a moment
the first place I began to intervene was when menendra of my meditation teacher said ramdas
don't you see that it's just old Karma running off and I began to break in at the point that after I
had eaten too much to reduce my anxiety because my mother fed me food when I was upset and I learned
that pattern and all that stuff I start to instead of going into I'm no good and revulsion and all
the sequence I break the chain at that point and then I just go back into my spiritual practices
okay instead of carrying out that whole sequence I I shortcut there as the witness gets stronger
you start to go back in the chain further and further until as the dis the separateness is
starting to come and the feeling of hunger and as you're about to eat you start to
notice the fact that you're about to do that and you your mind anticipates the
whole sequence and you in a sense begin to see The Emptiness of the form you're about to take
and for generally when people come to me with addictions I'm inclined to say start doing
spiritual practices start doing the studies that will allow you to see yourself in a new way that
will allow you to understand what that hunger is you're feeding in a new way to just get a little
different perspective on it don't worry about the addiction it will fall away when it will fall away
and when you do it again just notice it and the one the line I always used how poignant I am
how poignant The Human Condition You know I'm so gentle with myself and what I have watched is the
patterns of my obsessions and addictions have changed over time there's no doubt about that
and yet I didn't deal with them directly head on for the most part because what you see is
and this is something that I'm sure I I create a lot of waves in many people including people
that I love very dearly that I'm close to I see that a lot of the programs to deal with addiction
end up creating a new addiction to being not addicted that is as bad as the addiction itself
that I mean when you meet somebody that says I haven't smoked in three years two
months ten days and four hours you realize that their mind is as stuck as their mind
was stuck in smoking maybe they won't die of cancer but they'll probably die of uptightness
I mean I I'm being a little facetious but in general I'm saying that dealing with things
that are which you're caught in the minute you start to stop them you invest them in a way and
so my suggestion is that you just keep cultivating the practices and every time you don't see when I
if I get up in the morning and I got up and I decided to stay in the dream state and not
get up to do my sitting that could start a whole sequence of you're no good you'll never get to God
but in the time I'm saying you're no good you never get to God I could have been doing mantra
and when I realized and I began to sit in meditation and watch the sequence of
my behavior I saw that all my recriminations didn't help anything particularly they weren't
really functional except trying to make me feel comfortable with myself and the better thing
would be the minute I notice that I've lost it or I've gotten caught or I'm stuck or I just started
to do something just pick up a holy book do a mantra think of maharaji whatever sing a song
I mean I'll start driving to town and I'm going to give a lecture and I start to get uptight okay oh
my god do I know what I'm going to talk about you know and it's all it's a neurotic pattern
I know it from years back it's my I mean I can give you a whole psychodynamic storyline about
what that's about I look at it I think ah there it is at that moment I started SRI Guru charanas
and six minutes later I'm in a different space than I was before now you could say
from a psychological that's denial and you should work with that but the fact is that
thus far what's happening is it's getting less and less and I'm able to hang in here now with
very little of that old anxiety that used to be crippling it used to be crippling I've
worked with some of it but psychologically but a lot of it is just it's become uninteresting
just become an interesting and I just flip gears immediately I flip gears because the minute you
get lost in identification with your personality to the exclusion of identification with your soul
right that's what's happened you've lost it you've lost it and there are a thousand
times each day you lose it and if you get caught in your soul to the exclusion of
your personality you lost it equally as much and that's the balance of us as human beings
hello I'm Mark animator of after school I hope you enjoyed this inspiring message from ramdas who is
one of my favorite speakers to illustrate the love serve remember Foundation carries on the teachings
of ramdas through online courses Retreats books meditation music and more you can support ramdas's
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