Why is it so, that what you call as the ‘spiritual path’ must be equated with leaving something? Do you find any renunciation in existence? Do you find anything in existence that is insistent on giving up something, or dropping something?
If life were meant for dropping, then that whom you call as ‘God’ should have first of all dropped the universe. When he is running the universe, not dropping it, in spite of the world being as silly, as pointless and as rotten as it is, then why must you think of leaving all the desires behind, and going to the spiritual life, leaving all material behind, and doing something else?
Is the flower ever on the path of renunciation? Are animals, mountains, planets and stars, giving up, renouncing, rejecting, negating? Each is there, fully there, at its own center. You too find your own center. It’s not about giving up, it’s about finding. In that finding you discover, that the useless does not appeal. And the useless never appeals, unless the useless appears useful.
We all often claim that we want to drop this and that: desires, tensions, sorrows, attachments. Drop! If you want to drop, drop. What you stops you? You don’t want to drop. You don’t want to drop because you see something important there, because you still perceive that they are of some use, some value. Your mind senses some attraction there.
The day you realize that there is nothing in them, they would automatically get dropped. But that realization is what is to be gained. Dropping happens after gaining. And that is one mistake that man has made through centuries and centuries of religious practice. We have emphasized so much on ‘giving up’, without realizing that ‘giving up’ is not possible to a mind that has not yet achieved. Achieved what? Achieved the climax, achieve the real, achieve its center.
Yes infrequently, rarely, there have been people who have talked of achieving, who have said, “Gain it fully, and then there would be no need to drop.” Because dropping would then happen as a ripe fruit drops from the tree. It is a celebration, it is the climax of maturity- dropping.
Have you seen a ripe fruit? How does it drop from the tree? Is there any violence and pain involved? No, it’s an auspicious event. A ripe, bright, yellow mango dropping from a tree. Would you say, “It is sanyaas. He is renouncing”? No. It’s a ripe, full, delicious mango.
Compare that to the image that you have of sanyaas – emaciated, life-less, man with no juice in him. Compare his face to that of a ripe mango. Do you see any similarity? The real dropping is- “I am connected to my source.” The mango ripens only when it is connected to its roots. Of course it is connected to the twig, and the twig is connected to the trunk. but ultimately the mango must be connected to the roots, the center, the origin. And the roots are obviously connected to the center of the earth, and the earth is connected to the center of the universe, and so on and so forth. This connectedness to the center has a particular lusciousness, a juiciness, a fullness in it.
Life is about having this lusciousness. That is why the Upanishads say “Rasovaisa.” Dropping is not like unnecessarily clipping leaves, and fruits, and twigs, and raw shoots. When it happens, it happens on its own. It is the result, a climax of your life journey. You have found something so very beautiful, so complete and valuable, that everything else simply does not appeal. Because there is no elseness left. Everything else is just an image of that central valuable.
Imagine you are standing in a room that has a thousand mirrors. And your beloved too is there in the room. And all the mirrors are full with the image of your beloved. That’s all that they are radiating, the image of the beloved. There are thousand different mirrors. Obviously you can look at the differences. You can say that this is mirror number one, mirror two, mirror three, four, thousand. But in every mirror, what do you see? Your beloved. In every single mirror only the beloved appears. Now will you go and embrace the mirror? Though the mirror is reflecting just the beloved, but would you embrace the mirror?
No, you would embrace The Beloved.
Are you getting this? This is renunciation. “The entire universe appears to me as the image of the beloved. Now why should I go and be attached to the images? Who would I rather embrace? The beloved is here. Why should I look at this and that?” So you have to first attain. And in that attainment lies dropping. Remember: attainment not the world. Do not misinterpret. That too has been done. That attainment means that you must have twenty thousand mirrors. We have had people who have said, “To go beyond sex, you should get more, and more, and more sex, and ultimately you will go beyond sex.” What rubbish. It is bullshit. This never happens.
You can keep indulging in desires and satiation of all your complexes all your life, yet you will never go beyond them. Never, never. So those who say, “Unless you lead the life of a householder, how can you enter the next phase?” they are talking rubbish. They do not know life. They are searching for an escape. By leading the life of a householder has anybody ever moved beyond the house? Look at all the old men in all your houses. They are more interested in gossips, and what is going on, and in petty calculations, than the rest of the members of the house. Is that not so? Has age given them any rightness? No. Rightness does not from the passage of time. It comes from being rooted, like the mango. Are you getting it?
And now let come to the world spirituality.
‘Spirit’ means essence or reality. To be spiritual means to know the facts, to live in Truth.
To not to know and live blindly is stupidity.
So, being spiritual is simply about not being stupid.
Spirituality is not at all organised religion. It is not about customs or rituals or beliefs. Spirituality is an awakened state of mind in which the mind really understands.
For more clarity, I invite you to visit my excerpts on the topic spirituality on my blog-
http://prashantadvait.com/2015/06/11/spirituality-is-not-the-renunciation-of-life-it-is-the-art-of-living-fully/
http://prashantadvait.com/2015/01/03/what-is-spirituality/
Q&A-
http://www.querynanswer.com/question/what-is-spirituality/
If life were meant for dropping, then that whom you call as ‘God’ should have first of all dropped the universe. When he is running the universe, not dropping it, in spite of the world being as silly, as pointless and as rotten as it is, then why must you think of leaving all the desires behind, and going to the spiritual life, leaving all material behind, and doing something else?
Is the flower ever on the path of renunciation? Are animals, mountains, planets and stars, giving up, renouncing, rejecting, negating? Each is there, fully there, at its own center. You too find your own center. It’s not about giving up, it’s about finding. In that finding you discover, that the useless does not appeal. And the useless never appeals, unless the useless appears useful.
We all often claim that we want to drop this and that: desires, tensions, sorrows, attachments. Drop! If you want to drop, drop. What you stops you? You don’t want to drop. You don’t want to drop because you see something important there, because you still perceive that they are of some use, some value. Your mind senses some attraction there.
The day you realize that there is nothing in them, they would automatically get dropped. But that realization is what is to be gained. Dropping happens after gaining. And that is one mistake that man has made through centuries and centuries of religious practice. We have emphasized so much on ‘giving up’, without realizing that ‘giving up’ is not possible to a mind that has not yet achieved. Achieved what? Achieved the climax, achieve the real, achieve its center.
Yes infrequently, rarely, there have been people who have talked of achieving, who have said, “Gain it fully, and then there would be no need to drop.” Because dropping would then happen as a ripe fruit drops from the tree. It is a celebration, it is the climax of maturity- dropping.
Have you seen a ripe fruit? How does it drop from the tree? Is there any violence and pain involved? No, it’s an auspicious event. A ripe, bright, yellow mango dropping from a tree. Would you say, “It is sanyaas. He is renouncing”? No. It’s a ripe, full, delicious mango.
Compare that to the image that you have of sanyaas – emaciated, life-less, man with no juice in him. Compare his face to that of a ripe mango. Do you see any similarity? The real dropping is- “I am connected to my source.” The mango ripens only when it is connected to its roots. Of course it is connected to the twig, and the twig is connected to the trunk. but ultimately the mango must be connected to the roots, the center, the origin. And the roots are obviously connected to the center of the earth, and the earth is connected to the center of the universe, and so on and so forth. This connectedness to the center has a particular lusciousness, a juiciness, a fullness in it.
Life is about having this lusciousness. That is why the Upanishads say “Rasovaisa.” Dropping is not like unnecessarily clipping leaves, and fruits, and twigs, and raw shoots. When it happens, it happens on its own. It is the result, a climax of your life journey. You have found something so very beautiful, so complete and valuable, that everything else simply does not appeal. Because there is no elseness left. Everything else is just an image of that central valuable.
Imagine you are standing in a room that has a thousand mirrors. And your beloved too is there in the room. And all the mirrors are full with the image of your beloved. That’s all that they are radiating, the image of the beloved. There are thousand different mirrors. Obviously you can look at the differences. You can say that this is mirror number one, mirror two, mirror three, four, thousand. But in every mirror, what do you see? Your beloved. In every single mirror only the beloved appears. Now will you go and embrace the mirror? Though the mirror is reflecting just the beloved, but would you embrace the mirror?
No, you would embrace The Beloved.
Are you getting this? This is renunciation. “The entire universe appears to me as the image of the beloved. Now why should I go and be attached to the images? Who would I rather embrace? The beloved is here. Why should I look at this and that?” So you have to first attain. And in that attainment lies dropping. Remember: attainment not the world. Do not misinterpret. That too has been done. That attainment means that you must have twenty thousand mirrors. We have had people who have said, “To go beyond sex, you should get more, and more, and more sex, and ultimately you will go beyond sex.” What rubbish. It is bullshit. This never happens.
You can keep indulging in desires and satiation of all your complexes all your life, yet you will never go beyond them. Never, never. So those who say, “Unless you lead the life of a householder, how can you enter the next phase?” they are talking rubbish. They do not know life. They are searching for an escape. By leading the life of a householder has anybody ever moved beyond the house? Look at all the old men in all your houses. They are more interested in gossips, and what is going on, and in petty calculations, than the rest of the members of the house. Is that not so? Has age given them any rightness? No. Rightness does not from the passage of time. It comes from being rooted, like the mango. Are you getting it?
And now let come to the world spirituality.
‘Spirit’ means essence or reality. To be spiritual means to know the facts, to live in Truth.
To not to know and live blindly is stupidity.
So, being spiritual is simply about not being stupid.
Spirituality is not at all organised religion. It is not about customs or rituals or beliefs. Spirituality is an awakened state of mind in which the mind really understands.
For more clarity, I invite you to visit my excerpts on the topic spirituality on my blog-
http://prashantadvait.com/2015/06/11/spirituality-is-not-the-renunciation-of-life-it-is-the-art-of-living-fully/
http://prashantadvait.com/2015/01/03/what-is-spirituality/
Q&A-
http://www.querynanswer.com/question/what-is-spirituality/
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