Sharing with the Universe

by Chariji, October 3, 2004, Bangalore, India.

It has been an exciting morning. And from the two speakers, there seems to have emerged this lesson which our society all over the world should first accept with their head, then with their heart: that youth should lead and the old should guide. Yesterday, I think in Mysore, I remarked on this fact that our political parties have taken a very insidious possession of the youth for their own political aims, creating youth forums, youth congress, youth this, youth that, and misusing the youth of the country, to be used by aged politicians for their own ulterior and nefarious needs. Youth, unfortunately, is a time when idealism does exist but wisdom does not. So they fall into the clutches of these political parties and are misused by them, misguided by them. And what begins as a very enthusiastic youth movement ends up as a very corrupt, betrayed youth movement and as a corrupting agent in later life.

As Babuji Maharaj said, "Youth has to be shaped. It is not enough to use them; you have to shape them." He has used the example of using a chair, you see. You cannot do anything with it except sit on it, whereas if it is wood you can do what you like with it. So it is not enough to have a youthful power behind what we are doing. It is necessary to have it guided, with wisdom, towards not merely a desirable, not merely an achievable, but towards an evolutionary oriented goal of self-development. And going along with self-development - development for all. One develops for the sake of all; one makes money for the sake of all.

You know, in India, we have this tradition that the man who earns in the family has to feed everybody in the family. He cannot say, "This is my salary." In the old days, the son came and handed over his earnings to the father, or more often to the mother. He didn't say, "Mother, how much do you want?" Because when we say, "How much do you want?" the aged shrink from asking. They say, "My son asks me how much I want. How can I tell him how much I want? I don't have to ask for it." A sensitive son should know what is the need of the family. [Inaudible] He gives everything and then tells the mother, "Please, now give me ten rupees for my bus fare, taxi fare," or whatever, you see. This is our ancient tradition of the heart.

The modern tradition is where children go abroad, earn a lot of money, and send a hundred dollars to the father or the mother, translate it into rupees and say, "I send my father four thousand five hundred rupees every month. He only earned eleven hundred rupees when he retired. So it should be enough." So you see, we make our parents, not recipients of our love, pathras [receptacle] of our love, but we make them our beggars. And no human being wants to be in the debt of another.

The art of giving with love is where the recipient does not feel obliged or bound by that which he receives, but feels liberated. To give, without the receiver being made to feel that he is receiving something - that is the secret of lovingly giving something. Otherwise it is a mere transaction. "I give, you take. You must be obliged to me."

"No no, he looked after you when you were young until you were married and established. He took care of you in every aspect of your life."

"That is his duty, sir. I could have managed myself." (I have heard some boys saying that.)

But in his old age, can he manage himself? So we have this modern evil, and I suppose it is a necessary evil in a society where the young are forgetful of their love for their parents, the older people, the older generation, and that love is substituted by what we call - rather euphemistically - care for the aged. So we have aged homes, home for the aged people, geriatric homes, etcetera, etcetera, where the people are 'comfortably' relegated. The comfort of the body is not what we should see, because however bodily comfortable you may be, if the heart is not calm, if the heart is not at rest, at peace, there is no comfort in that comfort. There are only pins and needles.

So the youth must learn how to serve. This giving is serving - the famous story of the gopikas and the dust of their feet. They never cared for themselves. If in caring for something else, you still care for yourself, there is no care. It is matlabi, as we say in Hindi - it is selfish. If somebody is drowning and you are thinking, "You know, I would like to save him, but I will drown if I jump in," - that is no service. Therefore it is said, you know, "Greater love hath no man than this: that he give life, his own life, to save another life." It must be totally unthinking, and totally unthinking can be only when you are totally selfless. So this sort of love has to come spontaneously from inside. It cannot calculate the benefits. It cannot calculate the cost to itself. It must be, in a sense, what Babuji used to call madness - deewaana. He said, "Prem ek dewaani hothi hai. Deewani ki avastha - madness." When is something mad? When you don't think of yourself at all.

So this sort of thing can only come by transformation of the heart. Sahaj Marg, you know, does nothing with anything else except your heart. We don't educate you really. Of course we have seminars for the youth, but they are focussed on the heart. You see the sun that shines to heat the water, evaporate it, make it into clouds and put it back as rain, the same sun is necessary in a milder way to open the bud and make it flower. So when it is applied to a flower bud, it makes the bud flower. When it is applied to water, it boils. When it is applied to wood, it can burn it. Same sun depending on where it is applied, how it is applied.

In Sahaj Marg, where it is applied is the heart. How it is applied is a very important thing. Babuji Maharaj has emphasised 'dosage'. [Inaudible] The transmission has to be almost not there. Babuji said, "Subtlest." Without feeling, you must lose your feeling. One moment you are here, next moment you are not here. You wake up after forty minutes, fifty minutes and suddenly you say, "Where was I? What was I? How was I?" That is the real transmission. Superficial transmission makes you shake, makes you see visions, makes vibration.

So abhyasis should be discerning enough to understand what they get and should be able to tell the prefect, "Sir, today transmission was not what it should have been." Of course every transmission is good. But every dosa is good you know. But a nice vengaya [onion] dosa is not the same as what we make at home. The dosa made at home is always the best. Why? Because it is made with love. It is not ingredients that make the dosa. It is not the set dosa we want or the vengaya dosa of Mysore. It is this [points to the heart] that we put into it. Therefore, in India we have this ancient tradition that the mother must prepare the food for the child - nobody else. Because any other woman can be jealous. That is why they say aged people, patients and babies, children, must be fed in secret. You tell your neighbour to feed the child and the child wants a second bottle of milk. And she says, "Ayyo! This damn kid is taking two bottles of milk." Gone!

So you see, the youth, the old, and the sick, they have to be treated with special love - not with the superficial care or hospital care, but with love. So Sahaj Marg opens this heart of yours, which in the Vedic tradition, Yogic tradition, is supposed to be like a bud hanging downwards - adhomukhi, as they say in Sanskrit. Urdhvamukhi - it makes it open. And then comes the divine drop which makes the divine flower. So all that we do here is to achieve this turning of the heart from its down-pointed orientation, which means selfish, earth-bound, gross, and make it urdhvamukhi, which is looking towards the higher approaches of life - aspirational - not ambitious, but aspiration, and open to receive that which drops from above. Education is incidental. We acquire that education incidentally. You know, like every gift is wrapped with something. Wisdom is what is inside, is the pearl.

We must be wise without knowledge. We must be even more wise to use knowledge properly, because the modern life teaches us how we can use the knowledge of the modern time to our crude, often criminal benefit - selfish, self-seeking, "kill the others", "filth", you see, that sort of thing. What the Americans call the killer instinct - without that you cannot succeed in life, whether it is in tennis, or taking away another man's wife or riding on their shoulders to the top of their profession. "Kill him - finish with him once and for all." They say that a dead enemy is best; he cannot rise again. Wisdom says that the only way of removing an enemy is to make him your friend. There is no other way. Because you know that ancient story of Jason and the Argonauts: every time he killed somebody, at a blood drop, new soldiers sprang up. So if you kill one enemy, you get ten enemies. That's what we are discovering with our terrorist activities. This morning you would have seen that horrible news about somewhere in Nagaland. You cannot stop violence by violence. All these lessons we are taught here. If you have an enemy, make a friend of him before you go to sleep. This ancient wisdom even the Bible says: Don't go to sleep with hatred in your heart. Remove it. That's why we have to do cleaning in the evening, after your work is over.

Sahaj Marg has beautifully condensed the entire wisdom of existence, whether earthly or heavenly or in Brahma Loka or anywhere, into this single concept of "Love and you shall not suffer for anything done." So you see, in this process, the saramsha [summary] of the saramsha is this: L-O-V-E. Love your neighbour; love your enemy; love your friend; love your parents. Of course, we all say we love our parents, but that is a sort of a social love, which often has no meaning. "No, no, sir, I love my…" "My son, why is he behaving with me like this?" So this is a sort of expected love, expecting love. Love expects nothing.

The greatest aspect of love is it gives and gives and gives. And the secret of that giving is what is embodied in the story of akshaya patra [vessel of infinite food] - the more you give, the more you can give. And I would like to point out this story of the tree, you see, where one single seed becomes a tree. But if it does not flower and bear fruit, and produce a million seeds in turn, that tree is called a barren tree. In the Bible, there is the story of the barren fig tree. Because the fig is very profuse with seeds. You open a fig fruit and you see all the seeds that are in it. A mango fruit has only one seed. In a fig fruit, there are hundreds of seeds. So the fruit is known by the seeds that it produces. Are we in our life producing seeds for the future? Or are we only producing for ourselves, so that when we die that seed disappears - it has nothing in it that should germinate, and become another tree. So, you must always remember a tree. One seed produces a giant tree. And that giant tree must produce hundreds and thousands of fruits. And each fruit must have hundreds and thousands of seeds. Then the future is bright, the future is growth-oriented, and the future is certain. Otherwise there is an uncertain future full of doubts, miseries, possible dangers, where the world is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking according to my selfishness in myself. [Inaudible]

If you want Him to be with you, it means the universe must be with you. If in this universe, you want to be alone and in comfort and rich, you are anti-Nature, anti-God, anti-Christ. If you are willing to live with the universe as it lives, sharing what you have with the universe, you will find that the provider provides enough, not only for you but for the whole universe.

I hope all of you will strive for these very easily achievable, very satisfying, very fulfilling ideals of life. Because in fulfilling such ideals only, you will find fulfilment in your own life. And when the end of our time comes, we can go with the satisfaction that "I did my duty."

Thank you.