Walk the Straight and Narrow Path Few
people ever attain True Happiness in their lifetime.
Few people even come close. Most human beings wander in darkness and desperation
and never know what it means to be truly free.
Being free to do whatever we ‘want’ to do is not true freedom.
True freedom is to be free from all wants and desires. Only true freedom is really desirable. Having an intense desire for True Freedom, “Moksha”,
is a prerequisite for attaining liberation; but to attain desirelessness (true
freedom), even the desire to be desireless must be abandoned.
In other words, we need to drop all our images and expectations. If
we have an image of our self, then we cannot be free. Our self image is created
in the mind and it is the greatest (or we could say, ‘final’) obstacle to attaining
true freedom. If our practices are rooted
in our self-image, then our practices are not really solid.
If our practices are not solid, then we are standing on flimsy ground and
we are likely to fall. This is exactly
why so many people fall off the spiritual path.
As long as we are in our ego, our life remains unstable. While
living in an egotistical world, it is very easy to fall prey to the trappings
of ego—whether one’s own ego traps or the ego traps of others.
All of us are interacting in this world of “Samsara” (the world of ego-interplay). We relate to one another as ‘persons’, and personality
is nothing but ego-flavoring. As many persons
as there are, that many flavors of ego there are. Very few people really see the soul in others,
but those who do see the soul will see the soul everywhere and in everything (in
people, animals, birds, and all other living beings). When we stop seeing ourselves as souls we begin
to relate to others as objects and in the process we lose our objectivity.
When we stop seeing ourselves as souls we become subjectively involved
with ourselves and others. Being self-centered
means being caught up in our little ego. When
so many people are caught up in their ego and trying to relate to one another
through ego, there is bound to be much conflict, confusion, and frustration. So,
how do we get out of this mess and attain true happiness in our life?
First of all, we cannot rely on our feelings, because most of our feelings
are ego-feelings—they are born out of our ego and persona.
Many people fall into this trap—they validate their invalid feelings and
in the process they become invalids. We
become helpless and hopeless when we follow the voice of ego. The problem is, if we have been listening to
our ego our whole life, we will believe we are actually listening to our self—we
will think we are the ego, we will think and ‘feel’ we are this ‘person’.
But in fact, we are so much more than a ‘person.’ We are far, far beyond
the ego or anything that can be fashioned in the mind. Our
Real Self is eternal, pure (untainted by ego), free (imageless), full (free of
wants and desires), ever-new (dynamic), and far and beyond the mind, intellect,
senses, or body. ‘Knowing our self’ means to know our True Self.
Knowing our True Self means to be our Self, and being our Self means to
be Real. Being real means to really be
what we truly are—our Real Self. We
have to manifest our Real Self. This is the challenge before each and every living
being—the challenge to be ourselves—which means to be true to our Real Self.
Living in the world of Samsara is a challenge, because we come into this
world with impressions and tendencies, and from the very outset our mind is impressed
and influenced by the environment in which we have been placed (according to our
past karmas—actions performed in previous lives). Every
human being is unique, each having a peculiar mindset, emotional makeup, and distinct
physical characteristics. Every human being is constantly undergoing change
at every moment of life and at the same time is interacting with other persons
who are also constantly changing, and all of us are living in a constantly changing
environment. Living in such a seemingly chaotic world we all desire stability
and peace, and so we create, organize, and categorize things to fit into our images.
We make laws and form clubs, societies, and nations.
But ultimately, unless we discover the inner law of our own being, we will
not be able to maintain order in our own mind. This is why so many people fail in their practices
and become just ordinary persons who follow the whims and tendencies of their
mind. In other words, if a person does
not go beyond himself (does not become more than a ‘person’), then everything
that person does is only done from the mind and has no real depth; hence, that
‘person’ sooner or later falls off and is eaten up by the world of Samsara. Attaining True Happiness, or Liberation, really means
to attain ‘nothing’. When ‘nothingness’ is attained one revels in one’s
own true nature, which is devoid of everything mental, emotional, and
material. When one is established in that State of Being,
one is not moved by anything. To reach that highest state, one cannot
deviate from the path of Truth. To
attain that pinnacle of Consciousness, one must walk the straight and
narrow path. We
need to stay focused and alert at all times and in all places.
Whether working or resting, playing or exercising, speaking or listening
we need to stay tuned to our real nature. If
the mind is connected to the inner self, then our outer expressions will only
reinforce that connection. But if our mind
is disturbed, our behavior will also be disturbing. The mind is only disturbed when we are confused,
and we are only confused when we lie to ourselves and go against our true nature.
Anyone who deviates from his or her real nature suffers the consequences
in the form of ignorance. That is, the more we lie to ourselves the more
we lose our innate intelligence, and eventually we forget who and what we really
are. This is the sorry state of so many
unhappy people—and it all began with a lie. That lie is the lie that our ego can make us
happy, or that by appeasing the mind we can find peace. No one ever became happy by listening to their
ego or trying to satisfy the whims of the mind. Anyone who is a slave of their mind and ego
can NEVER be happy. Period. Full stop. When
we put a stop to all our mind games and simplify our life, our mind becomes one-pointed
and we automatically enter into the state of meditation wherein we realize our
eternal nature. Established in our eternal self, we are never again shaken by
anything that is temporary or unreal. We remain on the path and reach the summit of
Absolute Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss—SatChitAnand. Om Tat Sat |