Spiritual Straight Talk
Experiencing Life Fully
All teachings of self-knowledge will only deceive you. When you come to a living experience that, ‘this body is not me,' then there is a different kind of wisdom in you. There is a different kind of understanding in you. But when you understand only intellectually, it leads only to deceptive states. When you experientially know, it is very different. Why you are saying, "It is not me," is because you don't want it to be you, isn't it?
A philosophy like that will just give you some semblance of balance in your life, but it does not liberate you from the deeper karma, because you are only trying to avoid it, and in that avoidance you find a little balance in day-to-day life. But if a person applies this philosophy, you will see, slowly they will become joyless. They will become reasonably balanced and stable, at the same time they will slowly become lifeless. If you bring such lifelessness into you, that itself is a very negative karma because you are just suppressing life.���
The most beautiful thing that has been said about this is when Krishna said: "Hesitation is the worst sin," because with hesitation you kill life. Anything that suppresses life is the worst sin. Suppression does not mean, "Okay, now I want to eat, I do not eat." This is not suppression. People always think, "If I don't do what I want to do," it is suppression. No!
Whether hunger or food, if you sit here and experience hunger totally, it is wonderful, it is releasing; or if you experience food totally, it is releasing. But you neither experience hunger fully, nor food fully?this is karma. It is saying, "this is not me." This ‘not me, not me', the nethi process is a very different process. Denying what is happening within you is self-denial. If you deprive yourself of any experience, whether it is pain, suffering, joy or whatever it is, if you avoid it, that is big karma. If you go through it, it is not so much of a karma.
Today, in the name of civilization or etiquette, educated people are not able to experience any of their emotions fully. They cannot cry fully, they cannot laugh loudly. For everything, they have got etiquette. With this you will see, slowly they will become joyless. A deep sense of frustration will establish itself. On the other hand, you will see simple people who laugh and cry as it comes, they are so much more free. They have not accumulated heaps on them yet; but people with practiced etiquette accumulate heaps on their head.
The very process of life is dissolution of karma. Every living moment of your life, if you live it totally, you dissolve enormous amounts of karma. Living totally does not mean just having fun. Anything and everything that comes, you just experience it fully, intensely.
Enjoyed reading Khabar magazine? Subscribe to Khabar and get a full digital copy of this Indian-American community magazine.
