Let's see what the deepest, darkest rooted FEAR or IGNORANCE in humans is?
It's the FEAR of NO-SELF. It's the FEAR of "EMPTINESS/VOID/NOTHINGNESS/SHOONYA/SHIVA". It's the FEAR of losing the AWARENESS of BEING ALIVE.
We all understand intellectually that "Enlightenment" is DEATH. Self Realization is the ACCEPTANCE of DEATH and SURRENDER of WILL. Liberation is Net Resultant of Self Realization. Falling into or Living in Emptiness/Void/Nothingness is like LIVING THE DEATH. Yes, it seems like a Paradox, but it is not. When one seeks Enlightenment, one intellectually knows that one is asking for death, but ONLY the death of Mind, Emotions, EGO etc. No one is asking for the Death of the Body. No one is asking for the DEATH of LIFE in them. And LIFE here means, living as an Enlightened Being, living as a Spiritual Teacher, or a Guru, or a Saint, or a Mystic, or something else on those lines or a Mother or Bread Earner of the family and something on worldly lines. THEY ARE NOT ASKING FOR ALL THIS. Right? Rarely anyone would seek Enlightenment if it brings death to the body if it brings death to the living being itself. WHY? Because of the FEAR. What Fear? Fear that one may become physically challenged and may not have anyone by their side to take care of them. Fear of not being able to earn a decent living for himself/herself. Fear of not being able to operate their body in a proper way. Fear of being NOBODY, Fear of being UNKNOWN to the world forever. Fear of not being able to LIVE the Bliss of being an Enlightened person. Fear of NOT being able to lecture/teach people. Fear of not being able to write any books, Fear of not being able to DISPLAY their knowledge/path/wisdom to anyone. Fear of not being able to show or tell anyone what mystical powers they have got. Why? Because all these FEARS are tied to ONLY one thing, Fear of not having a BODY and if one is able to OVERCOME that, there still lies a FEAR OF DEATH OF LIFE, FEAR OF LOSING ALIVENESS WITHIN. It is VERY DIFFICULT, ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to sense, understand this Fear, or see the FACE of this Underlying Fear. Everyone wants to FEEL ALIVE, have an AWARENESS or SENSE of being ALIVE. Nobody wants to LOSE that. The whole effort of doing ANYTHING in life is trying to FEEL ALIVE at one or many levels, through one or many aspects, many ways. The pursuit of life is just this, isn't it? People are FEARFUL of getting into deep, dark depression or psychosis or any other mental imbalance. Why? BECAUSE they fear LOSING that ALIVENESS, they fear the loss of AWARENESS that SENSE of BEING ALIVE.
Now let's understand this "Sense/Awareness of Aliveness" little more. Why do you think people drink alcohol or drugs, or do adventure sports, or sex, build relationships, or go speed racing, or anything like that? To STRENGTHEN their Awareness of being Alive. Isn't it? In simple words, we say "we feel alive" by doing so. Even HELPING others, Financially, Emotionally, Physically, Professionally, Mentally, Intellectually, Spiritually or whichever way, makes us FEEL ALIVE. What are OTHER WORDS that we wrap this ALIVENESS into? We say we feel meaningful, purposeful, useful, thrilled, excited, blissful, happy, elevated, successful etc in life. But all these words are DIFFERENT ways of Wrapping the Sense/Awareness of ALIVENESS WITHIN. When we are sick, even with Fever, or Migraine, or Viral or anything, why do we want to get up from the bed as soon as possible? Why do we want to come out of it as soon as possible? Because IT TOOK AWAY our Sense/Awareness of BEING ALIVE. It takes away our ALIVENESS, physically, mentally or whichever way you want to look at it. Why do we fear Depression, Psychosis or any other physical or mental disability because it takes away our sense/awareness of being alive, right? Why do you think some Spiritual Enthusiasts are so much into and after Kundalini and Energy experiences, why do you think people want to have Mystical Experiences? Why do you think people even want to feel Divine Energy (wrapped as DIVINE LOVE), or a Divine Person's Energy? It makes them FEEL HIGHLY ALIVE. They wrap this "HIGHLY ALIVE FEELING" into other words, like Divine Love, Worthy of being Divine, Deserving Enlightenment or Liberation and all that, there could be MANY MANY wrappings and NICE WORDS for all this. But regardless of all words and wrappings, at the core, at the root, it is nothing but AWARENESS OF BEING ALIVE. So AT ALL COST we want to KEEP THAT, MAINTAIN THAT, sense of being alive. At NO COST we are EVER ready to GIVE IT UP. Who is this who doesn't want to give it up? Who is it in us who is clinging to it? EGO! Not the REAL YOU.
Why? EGO can NEVER understand what it means to be truly ALIVE. Ego doesn't know that who we are is ETERNAL ALIVENESS. Ego wants to have Aliveness Felt, Retained, Defined in its own way of understanding. Ego is part of MIND, it will NEVER understand that it's not something for the EGO to understand EVER. Ego fears, What if after being Enlightened/Self-Realized, NO REFLECTION comes out? What if there is NO LIVING BEING left to EVEN KNOW whether there is/was someone Enlightened, or became Pure Consciousness or Divine? All this is NOT for an understanding of EGO. So it FEARS, it RUNS AWAY from all this and clings to its own meanings and definitions of being alive.
It is NOT WRONG to have this FEAR, it is NOT WRONG to FEEL this way, it is NOT WRONG to Acknowledge that it's a HARD thing to live with. The First STEP is to ACCEPT and ACKNOWLEDGE that you have this Fear, instead of running away, or hiding somewhere or putting up a face that says no no I am fine. Once you ACCEPT and YOU KNOW that you have ACCEPTED, then we can do something about it. If you do not accept that there is a hair or dust in your eye and you keep on endlessly blinking and thinking oh I see fine, then HOW CAN YOU DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT? You are DENYING it's PRESENCE. So first thing is to accept that "it's OK to have this fear", "it's OK to be this way", ACCEPT the PRESENCE of this FEAR.
Why is it OK to feel this way? Why is it OK to have this Fear? Why is it OK to have an ATTACHMENT to this FEAR? The answer is simple!
Didn't we all SIGN-UP to be packaged as HUMANS who will have Ego, Fears, Anxieties, Emotions and all that? Did we not sign-up to be ABLE TO FUNCTION IN DUALITY/IGNORANCE/MAYA/DREAM WORLD/ILLUSIONARY WORLD? Now how can we FUNCTION in DUALITY without having FEARS? Doesn't fear GUARDS us in one way or the other all through our life? Doesn't Fear HELPS US STAY ALIVE by not taking useless risks? Doesn't it WARN us on time? Isn't ANXIETY that gut feeling which tells us sometimes that there is something wrong and we take necessary actions timely? Isn't EGO actually the BIGGEST PROTECTOR of our Body and MIND? Isn't it the Ego who is always busy in "Self Preservation" in one way or the other, and so we can stay ALIVE to this date, to this age? Aren't our Attachments responsible for SHAPING our life to a greater extent? Did not Attachments defined and made us who we are today? Did not attachments MADE US, SHOWED US that we are Loving, Caring, Passionate Human Beings. So then WHO SAYS ALL THIS NEEDS TO BE DISCARDED OR DELETED OR NEGLECTED OR REMOVED? Why do we need to do that? No way! We do not need to kill or discard or give away all these. We need to SEE THEM AS THEY ARE. We need to SEE THEIR TRUE PURPOSE that they are there for. These are TOOLS for us to LIVE and should be understood that way and left as is. No need to FIGHT them or try to Kill them. It won't work. Enlightened people have FEARS too, they show up as stomach growling or sudden change in energy and they immediately take action to SAVE their body, their energy. Do they NOT HAVE RIGHT to save their body? Do they not have right to exist in Body? Do they have no right to save their energy? Do they have no right to be human? Do they have no right to exist and play roles in Maya, Dream World? YES, THEY DO HAVE ALL THESE RIGHTS STILL! Being Enlightened doesn't mean feeling so IMMORTAL that you start driving your car in opposite direction in the wrong lane. It doesn't mean keep talking, lecturing, spending energy on others endlessly. It doesn't mean not eating or drinking or fulfilling other bodily needs as they arise. It doesn't mean STOP LIVING in any way. It doesn't mean Not Feeling ALIVE in any way. But TRULY ALIVE, not the Ego's understanding of Being Alive. So how can any Enlightened, Self-realized or No-Self person LIVE in their BODY and LIVE on this Planet Earth without WEARING THEIR GARB/Clothes/Costume OF EGO AGAIN? Once Ego is understood for its TRUE purpose and meaning, ALL Enlightened/Self Realized people WEAR it again, like a Costume, to play, to live in this world. They not only wear their Ego back, they wear Anger and Emotions too. You think I will NOT get Angry if someone punches me, God swear I will punch them back. You think I will not push people away from me if I think they are not there yet for me to do something about them? Yes, I will, this is Ego in function. Do you think I do not pat or hug or show love to my son or kids/people around me? I do, those are Emotions put to right use. So After being Enlightened/Self-Realized, we again start with ALL that we had before, it's like completing the 360 degrees circle journey. You are back again on the same starting point and you start in the RIGHT PERSPECTIVE now. You use the tools (fears, ego, emotions etc) for their right purpose, for living here and living in the body. So there is NOTHING wrong with Fears, Emotions and Ego, ALL you need to do is UNDERSTAND THEM IN RIGHT PERSPECTIVE.
~ Guru
While Paramananda is
BLISS ITSELF, it means “becoming bliss”, it doesn’t come and go and it’s the
Ocean itself, not the wave. It's a continuous existence, it's existential.
Posts
