Remember that scene from Star Wars where Han says to Luke, "Don't get cocky kid."?
Seven months ago I started my spiritual journey thinking it was a blast. I was finally getting the answers no one had been able to provide.
Well, those seven months just turned into one big joke. Yet again, I have been reminded of the perils of sticking too close to the body-idea of life. The funny thing is, I thought I had crossed that point and reached a place where I could achieve an objectivity only given to meditators or people who have transcended the physical. Boy, was I wrong.
It is not that something has to happen to you personally. An isolated event which by rights ought not to affect you at all can completely shatter your sense of whoever-you-think-you-are. It is as if you are a leaf floating on water and somebody tosses a rock several feet from where you are. The core of violence is far away but the agitation still reaches you, shaking you out of your complacency.
I wish I could sound like I am not complaining, but words are insufficient for such expressions. I am not complaining, rather, merely stating the obvious.
Drastic changes in my life have come about thanks to Sadhguru, but those changes are not enough. My relationships, friendships, professional abilities have all skyrocketed, yet I feel terribly lost. Because I am not yet fully cognizant of who I am. There was some bleak assumption on my part when I started doing my kriya but that is no more. All the changes that I so gladly welcomed into my life were only outward. Inside, it is my misfortune to realize now, I am still the same fool embodying this piece of earth that I was, albeit, minus a few quirks that bothered other people more than me. I have not changed at all.
The realization of one's own inadequacy and the inability to see it in time is the only reason why someone would come up with a term like "delusions of grandeur." The man who seeks to accomplish something material is a mere "also ran" in that category when compared to the man who tried to find himself only to find out that he had assumed he actually had.
When one's strengths turn out to be mere obstinacy. When one's beliefs turn out to be mere fantasies. When one's whole approach to life turns out to be a mistake. After that, there is only one conclusion. Laddie, go back and start from scratch because whatever you thought you had learned, you haven't. You have just gathered a bunch of information that looks like knowledge. It might, in truth, be knowledge, but you have yet to "get it."
It is like they used to teach us in computer class, data is information presented in an organized way. Alas, in the realm of yoga, mere data is not enough. Organization of information is great. It is fun to get the "data" of life, but the thing does not stop there. It is insufficient merely to process the data with this mortal intellect. What is needed is to transcend to the point where the data comes alive and speaks to you - through you.
However, that is simultaneously the peril and advantage of being human. A peril because it can bind you to things that do not matter. An advantage because only a human can realize the bondage and has the capability to break free from it. So, as far as realizing the bondage and attempting to be free, I am that much ahead of the game, but it is not enough. Serious purpose is still lacking.
I looked on my spiritual process as a good job or something, like "easy street here I come." But that darn street is anything but easy. If one seriously puts one's mind to it, progressing spiritually is more difficult than coining money in a slump economy. Seriously!
Last August I got a new roommate where I live. He aptly fit the old adage about fat people being jolly people. He was both obese and jolly. And after a few drinks (more like a whole bottle daily), he was too dashed jolly. I could not wake up at 3 in the morning to take a piss without him clinking a whiskey-glass at me and asking (in Punjabi), "Are you going to office tomorrow, or can we have a few quick ones?" I used to mentally mutter to myself, "It is 3 o'clock, dash it, go to sleep." And verbally to him (also in Punjabi), "Uh, yes, office." That is in the pre-Sadhguru era.
Then I started doing my kriya and he was like (in Punjabi of course), "Oh! I have lost my drinking partner." And around April he said, in the same language, I really don't like parenthesis, "I have lost my chicken partner."
Well, you know what it is like when two men get drunk and share the same room. We could not do anything else, so we talked. We swapped our life histories as we saw fit and by the end of one month, September last year, we were, as the saying goes, thick as thieves if not thicker.
The previous Sunday, July 15, that blighter put me properly and precisely in the spot when he suffered a brain hemorrhage and went into a coma, finally expiring on Thursday morning.
One incident, and I lost all my spirituality. I realized that I am still firmly embedded in the material world and have made no progress. There is information to spare and then more. I have read books which, if I had seen people reading previously, I would have registered mental scorn at, and they all say the same thing. The body is temporary. Life is eternal. This data has yet to descend into my consciousness.
But, as the Bible says, "Out of evil, cometh good." That sounds a bit harsh, so let us paraphrase. "Out of everything that one perceives as negative, there is something positive can be harvested."
Right now I am in the process of reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. The man's life is nothing short of a miracle.
It is a miracle that at this point of spiritual turmoil, my own guru, with countless demands on his time, chooses to come of his own choice to Delhi. In one week my humble, bumble, confused self will be in his presence. What I had to learn, if I have failed to learn, perhaps through his grace, I finally will.
Shambho.
Seven months ago I started my spiritual journey thinking it was a blast. I was finally getting the answers no one had been able to provide.
Well, those seven months just turned into one big joke. Yet again, I have been reminded of the perils of sticking too close to the body-idea of life. The funny thing is, I thought I had crossed that point and reached a place where I could achieve an objectivity only given to meditators or people who have transcended the physical. Boy, was I wrong.
It is not that something has to happen to you personally. An isolated event which by rights ought not to affect you at all can completely shatter your sense of whoever-you-think-you-are. It is as if you are a leaf floating on water and somebody tosses a rock several feet from where you are. The core of violence is far away but the agitation still reaches you, shaking you out of your complacency.
I wish I could sound like I am not complaining, but words are insufficient for such expressions. I am not complaining, rather, merely stating the obvious.
Drastic changes in my life have come about thanks to Sadhguru, but those changes are not enough. My relationships, friendships, professional abilities have all skyrocketed, yet I feel terribly lost. Because I am not yet fully cognizant of who I am. There was some bleak assumption on my part when I started doing my kriya but that is no more. All the changes that I so gladly welcomed into my life were only outward. Inside, it is my misfortune to realize now, I am still the same fool embodying this piece of earth that I was, albeit, minus a few quirks that bothered other people more than me. I have not changed at all.
The realization of one's own inadequacy and the inability to see it in time is the only reason why someone would come up with a term like "delusions of grandeur." The man who seeks to accomplish something material is a mere "also ran" in that category when compared to the man who tried to find himself only to find out that he had assumed he actually had.
When one's strengths turn out to be mere obstinacy. When one's beliefs turn out to be mere fantasies. When one's whole approach to life turns out to be a mistake. After that, there is only one conclusion. Laddie, go back and start from scratch because whatever you thought you had learned, you haven't. You have just gathered a bunch of information that looks like knowledge. It might, in truth, be knowledge, but you have yet to "get it."
It is like they used to teach us in computer class, data is information presented in an organized way. Alas, in the realm of yoga, mere data is not enough. Organization of information is great. It is fun to get the "data" of life, but the thing does not stop there. It is insufficient merely to process the data with this mortal intellect. What is needed is to transcend to the point where the data comes alive and speaks to you - through you.
However, that is simultaneously the peril and advantage of being human. A peril because it can bind you to things that do not matter. An advantage because only a human can realize the bondage and has the capability to break free from it. So, as far as realizing the bondage and attempting to be free, I am that much ahead of the game, but it is not enough. Serious purpose is still lacking.
I looked on my spiritual process as a good job or something, like "easy street here I come." But that darn street is anything but easy. If one seriously puts one's mind to it, progressing spiritually is more difficult than coining money in a slump economy. Seriously!
Last August I got a new roommate where I live. He aptly fit the old adage about fat people being jolly people. He was both obese and jolly. And after a few drinks (more like a whole bottle daily), he was too dashed jolly. I could not wake up at 3 in the morning to take a piss without him clinking a whiskey-glass at me and asking (in Punjabi), "Are you going to office tomorrow, or can we have a few quick ones?" I used to mentally mutter to myself, "It is 3 o'clock, dash it, go to sleep." And verbally to him (also in Punjabi), "Uh, yes, office." That is in the pre-Sadhguru era.
Then I started doing my kriya and he was like (in Punjabi of course), "Oh! I have lost my drinking partner." And around April he said, in the same language, I really don't like parenthesis, "I have lost my chicken partner."
Well, you know what it is like when two men get drunk and share the same room. We could not do anything else, so we talked. We swapped our life histories as we saw fit and by the end of one month, September last year, we were, as the saying goes, thick as thieves if not thicker.
The previous Sunday, July 15, that blighter put me properly and precisely in the spot when he suffered a brain hemorrhage and went into a coma, finally expiring on Thursday morning.
One incident, and I lost all my spirituality. I realized that I am still firmly embedded in the material world and have made no progress. There is information to spare and then more. I have read books which, if I had seen people reading previously, I would have registered mental scorn at, and they all say the same thing. The body is temporary. Life is eternal. This data has yet to descend into my consciousness.
But, as the Bible says, "Out of evil, cometh good." That sounds a bit harsh, so let us paraphrase. "Out of everything that one perceives as negative, there is something positive can be harvested."
Right now I am in the process of reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. The man's life is nothing short of a miracle.
It is a miracle that at this point of spiritual turmoil, my own guru, with countless demands on his time, chooses to come of his own choice to Delhi. In one week my humble, bumble, confused self will be in his presence. What I had to learn, if I have failed to learn, perhaps through his grace, I finally will.
Shambho.
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