The question is not about
what you like.
The question is about
does everything around you like you,
have you made yourself in such a way
that nobody can help liking you?
You like something,
you dislike something,
it doesn’t mean anything,
because
both what you like
and what you dislike
are two different kinds of bondages.
Both what you like
and what you dislike
distort your perception.
If you like somebody,
you’ll exaggerate them in your mind.
If you dislike somebody,
for sure you’ll exaggerate them in your mind.
Exaggeration means
you’re unable to see things as they are.
If you’re unable to see things as they are,
you can never handle life the way it should be.
So liking and disliking exaggerates
either in positive ways or in negative ways,
but it exaggerates
or it distorts life.
So what you like is not important.
Have you made yourself in such a way,
not just people,
just everything likes you,
every creature around you likes your presence,
even the flowers,
the plants and the trees like you?
‘How can the plants and the trees like me?’
They’re very sensitive to who you are.
They’re extremely sensitive to who you are.
They respond accordingly.
If you make yourself in such a way
that the very earth that you walk upon likes you,
then you will see
everything in your life will become a blessing.
If everything around you dislikes you,
you will see
everything that could be a well-being
could become a curse.
Right now
there is no curse sitting upon human life.
It is things that people want,
it’s things that people aspire for,
things that they work for,
strive to have in their life,
which turn into curses in their life
their work,
their property,
their relationships,
their own body,
their own mind
which is the cancer of their life.
Misery is not raining.
Never it’s raining misery.
It’s just that things that you like
have become source of misery.
If you strive to make yourself in such a way
you cannot be helped
nobody can help liking you,
life will blossom better,
everything will yield their best to you,
not their worst.
But if you go by what you like,
not always life will yield its best;
you may have everything and still have nothing.
So spiritual process
is not about pursuing what you like,
it’s about striving to make yourself in such a way
even the birds like you,
the squirrels like you
it’s about making yourself in such a way
that every atom in this Existence likes you,
wants to yield to you.
If Existence does not yield to you,
you do what you want,
nothing will work in real sense.
You may do something,
you may become something,
you may earn a living,
you may make a living,
but nothing will happen.
You will just go through a cycle
without nothing tremendous touching your life.
For those of you who’re living in the ashram,
I want you to learn
to stand,
walk,
sit,
breathe,
in such a way that even the stones around you like you.
‘How do I know whether they like me or not?’
You will know for sure.
If you are sensitive about being like that,
you will also know
you will also be sensitive enough to know that.
You
If you are never sensitive about these aspects,
you will not have the sensitivity to know,
otherwise distinctly you will know.
Do not become in such a way
everything has to be shouted into your ears.
You must become in such a way
if you look at somebody before they speak, you know.
For this,
you need a certain sense of
receptivity
Receptivity will not happen to you
if you’re too full of yourself.
The less you are
the more you receive,
the more you are less you receive.
If you’re too full of yourself,
nothing bigger than your nonsense will happen to you.
If there’s no such thing as ‘myself’,
you simply sit here,
the whole existence will dance within you,
you will become an instrument of the Creator,
otherwise you will be a bundle of
thoughts, emotions, prejudices and rubbish.
This is the choice every human being has
either to exist here as a limb of the Creator,
as a Ishanga we’re calling them these days (Laughs),
or
to exist here
as a bundle of thoughts,
emotions
and nonsense that you have gathered.
This choice is available to us every moment of our life
continuously choosing,
continuously choosing to be like that.
If this striving is there
it will deliver you to a different place of gracefulness,
where
every stone,
every pebble,
every rock,
every tree,
every atom in the existence speaks to you
in a language that you can know,
otherwise you are alone in this vast existence
feeling constantly insecure,
unstable,
psychologically challenged.
This is the choice.
It is not a gift,
it is a choice.
One makes the right choice,
right things will happen;
one makes the wrong choice, wrong things will happen.
It’s a very fair and just existence,
I want you to know.
It doesn’t spare anybody.
It’s not like a social structure
that some people can get away with wrong things.
In this existence it doesn’t spare anybody.
It doesn’t matter who you are,
if you jump off the roof,
the earth will break your leg.
Yes?
Raja Ranka Fakir (Laughs) (Referring to Kabir’s song, indicating all kinds of people)
everybody
nobody is spared.
it doesn’t matter who you are,
no exemptions,
and nobody is barred.
anybody who is willing,
for everybody the possibility is open.
For everybody
the stick is also there
You make the right choices everything is open;
make the wrong choices everything will knead you in a different way.
So if pain comes,
suffering comes,
misery happens it’s not time to look around.
This is always the problem.
If you’re miserable, you think somebody else needs to be fixed.
No, no, no, no.
If you’re miserable,
this (Referring to oneself) needs to be fixed, not somebody else.
‘No I’m miserable, fix the situation for me’.
No, no, no,
if you’re miserable, who should be fixed?
If you are sick, who should be given the medicine?
Shall we give it to somebody else when you’re sick?
If you’re hungry, shall we give the food to somebody else?
No,
it only works if you give it to this (Referring to oneself), isn’t it?
If food is like that,
medicine is like that,
is that not true with every other aspect?
That if you’re miserable,
something else or somebody else need not be fixed,
only this one (Referring to oneself) needs to be fixed.
Just to understand this simple fact,
people take lifetimes. (Laughs)
They think something else has to be fixed.
On a certain day,
Shankaran Pillai went drinking with his friends.
Yogis and drunkards both are timeless, you know.
They don’t know the passage of time.
He went drinking.
He intended to go back home at 8’o clock,
but drink after drink and time
he became unconscious of time.
When he looked at the watch (Gestures) (Laughter),
it was 02:30 AM.
So he thought it’s really late,
and he wants to get back home quickly
so he took a short cut.
And he was walking through his shortcut
on his unsteady legs and he fell into a thorny bush.
The whole face was scratched up.
So in this condition
he went home and tried to find the keyhole.
That took another half-an-hour. (Laughter)
Opened,
went inside,
went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror,
he was bleeding all over the face.
So he opened the medicine chest fixed himself
whichever way he could
and
quietly crawled into the bed and slept.
Morning 8’o clock,
his wife took a bucket of cold water
and threw it in his face;
he got up.
Said, ‘You idiot, once again drinking?’
He said,
‘No honey, I haven’t touched a drop.
Six months ago when I promised,
since then I haven’t touched a drop.’
She held him by the shirt,
dragged him into the bathroom and showed him,
the band-aid was all over the mirror. (Laughter/Applause)
It doesn’t work like that.
Only somebody who is completely unconscious will do such things.
If it’s hurting here you’ll fix it there (Gestures),
because you’re completely unconscious or inebriated.
So whenever you’re miserable you want to fix that one and that one and that one;
no, no, no;
this one (Referring to oneself) needs to be fixed.
If you put band-aid on the mirror it doesn’t heal your wounds.
You have to attend to the wound.
and
both your miseries and joys are caused from inside.
So it needs to be attended here, not somewhere else.
The sooner you learn this,
the more graceful and wonderful your life will become.