Love and detachment

Half of the time we suffer from inability to love and other  half of the time we suffer from the inability to detach from those who we love.

We experience three types emotions such as attraction, neutral or resistance towards fellow beings due to multivarious reasons. At times due to our own prejudice,ideas and judgement and other times due to the way they behave in general or the way they treat us.

What is love ? At the surface level love is a emotion. At a deeper level to love means to give our energy.Time is the most valuable energy we can give the other person. Taking time to serve the society is one way to practice Universal love and brotherhood.Service is one way by which we move from individual love towards universal love.

What is detachment? In the surface level detachment is space.It sometimes seems to be a scary word or something applicable only for saints.But if we understand its a simple concept.

( simple not necessarily easy. )

Detachment is Non expectation of anything material or emotional even after giving that from our side. Whatever we give or do is because we like to do that.  Do our part and stay back don't be demotivated with the reciprocation from the other side.Indirectly we are surrendering the result of our action.

Service is the manifestation of love. Surrender is the manifestation of detachment .Amalgamation and application of service and surrender,  love and detachment is a very high level of human evolution.

Its a two way flow, we can serve out of love or we can serve and create love.

We can surrender as a manifestation of detachment or surrender can create the condition of detachment.

Love is not fancy words or thoughts,service is love.

Service is good thoughts, good words,good action.

Detachment is not closing our heart and being rigid, it's doing the best with everything and everyone and surrendering the consequences. 

Babuju says "Make love and acceptance the two fulcrums of your life".

Daaji says there are three stages of Acceptance, "Acceptance, Cheerful acceptance, acceptance even without the idea of acceptance ".

This last stage of Acceptance, I.e. acceptance without the idea of acceptance is surrender, which is nothing but non expectation of detachment.

" When the light returns to the source it takes nothing of what it has illuminated" - Rumi

"They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.Once they were particles of light, now they are radiant sun" - Rumi

"Service is constantly thinking good for others".-Babuji 

" I slept and saw that life is all joy,

I woke and saw that life is all service, 

I served and saw that service is all joy"- khalil Gibran 

What you seek is seeking you

 "What you seek is seeking you" - Rumi.

Have you observed the process of life in which the things which happen to us are the things we have been seeking knowingly or unknowingly. 

Sometimes we have repetitive thinking of something due to desire and sometimes we have repetitive thinking due to fear.In either way by repetitive thinking we are only attracting that which we are thinking about.That is why there is so much emphasis on positive thinking.

At times a closer observation of life shows that life is not always a series of interdependent events, at times the events are independent. Let's take a mundane example,  it's not always that hard work leads to money,  money gives a comfortable lifestyle and a comfortable lifestyle leads to satisfaction. 

I have seen cases where people lead a comfortable life without hardwork or money, that is when I understood that they have been seeking that knowingly or unknowingly.whether they are satisfied with what they have or still feel dissatisfied is a different question.

Same way some people keep on working hard without enjoying a lifestyle shift, without their knowledge they have been seeking hard work.They may still be happy about it ,that's a different question.

But what these things show is that, it's our seeking which is leading us. But now comes the question of why we seek or fear different things? That's because each of us is driven by different bag of karma or samskara which acts as a seed behind the tree of our thoughts and intentions.

When human life is a combination of destiny and free will,  how can we use our free will to seek? At times in life we want something, nature gives us what we want but after that there are times when we do not know to handle that which we have got. 

So do we know to use our free will to seek the right thing ?

Mahatma Gandhi says " Seek truth to find God".

"We seek outside the wonders we carry within"-Rumi

Seek Within!

Moderation-Reflections

 "Out beyond the ideas of right doing and wrong doing, there is a place I will meet you there"- Rumi

While religious journey is more about vice and virtue, a spiritual journey is more about negation and holy nothingness. A state of Reality is a state in which moderation is practiced in every aspect.

"Moderation is a saintly character" says Lalaji. White and black gives grey, Babuji says grey is the color of reality .Chariji says God is not either this or that, He is both this and that.

Just as a bird flies with both the wings, just as humans walk with both the legs,  moderation is all about integrating the spiritual and material aspects of life.Moderation is all about integrating the heart and the mind.When this integration is achieved we move from duality to a state of unity which is the beginning of reality.

Moderation between silence and words,

Moderation between holding on and letting go,

Moderation in knowing and applying, 

Moderation in being and doing,

Moderation in activity and passivity 

When we start applying moderation in the small things of day to day life, the big things will automatically be taken care by itself. 

Moderation in eating,  moderation in doing, moderation in speaking, moderation in expressing and above all moderation in thinking.

Moderation is raising above dualities, moderation is a liberative state and a reality condition which we need to practice and achieve permanency in it.

Affection - Reflections

 While feelings of affection keeps us happy I have been wondering why we form strong emotional bonds with some people when we come across so many people in our life. Why some people are so special to us and even after many years we have a special feeling of warmth and love when we think about them.

There are many reasons for us to develop a strong emotional bond with another person. Someone might have done something good to us,some help,support, should have expressed care and concern ,manifested kindness all this because of their nature but we might be touched by that and start liking them for being good to us.This is liking the person for what they are to us.

We start liking certain people because we share some common interest with them , we find joy in discussing about common interests with those people. 

There are few people whom we like because of their good nature or there is something in them be it their character or skill or looks  or knowledge which we admire ,feel inspired or impressed about them. This is liking a person for what they are in general.

There are still others whom we like because they like us and their affection touches our heart.

At times we might be a little quick to like someone without fully understanding them then end up feeling hurt when we feel they did not live upto our affection or at times just because we like someone we develop unknowing expectations and feel hurt when our expectations are not met.

Some people react to hurt feelings through a defensive mechanism of detachment, they are careful in not letting another person into their emotional realm beyond a certain boundary so that they don't get into hurt feelings in the course of the journey but some people forget the hurt feelings which they have faced in the past and enjoy the flow of affection.

I personally don't support total detachment because just because someone let us down or hurt us does not mean every other person we meet will be the same. We should not always close our heart to love and affection, there are many good souls in this world. Why should we deny ourselves the joy of love for the fear of hurt? 

We should be sensitive ,grateful and reciprocate to those who are affectionate towards us. With regards to those we like, lowering the expectation and enjoying the flow of affection with a little space is a wonderful thing.