“From False to Truth (Nizhalilirundhau Nijathukku)”

From False to Truth (Nizhalilirundhau Nijathukku)

All relationships are a contract expecting returns; we bring up our son with the expectation that he will look after us later in life. One day a lady came to the ashram with her niece. The niece was telling her that the jewels that the lady was wearing were very beautiful and asked if she might not consider giving them to her instead of giving them all to her daughter. The lady replied that after she died she would ensure that the jewels were given both to her daughter and the niece. The girl wanted to know when she would die! The lady replied that it would be a while as she was still quite young. The girl said that she wanted her to die immediately! Man’s attitude is always “What for me…what for me…?” We take things for granted.

A German troupe after the world war left an open aircraft in a mountainous village and left. The village people have never heard of an aircraft nor seen the likes of it. They gathered around it and started speculating as to what it might be. Thoughts and imagination poured out. One man concluded by logic that it was a bullock cart. The rest agreed and they started using it as a bullock cart. 6 months passed and a young boy returned to the village after his education. He inspected the aircraft and discovered that it has certain gear mechanisms. He accidentally started the engine and got the vehicle to move. He declared that it was a tractor. The villagers agreed and started using it as a tractor from then on. Yet another 6 months later, a retired army officer came to the village and saw what was happening. He had a mighty laugh and told the villagers that it was actually an aircraft capable of flying in the air! He flew it and showed it to them. It then dawned on the villagers that they had drastically underused the vehicle all those days.

Our body is a gift from God. Most of us use it as a bullock cart or as a tractor. Some of us even use it as a hand cart! Those of us who associate ourselves with mostly external things like a home, a car and other basic amenities use our bodies as a bullock cart. Those of us, who also move into art, creativity, philosophy and such things involving our heart, use our bodies as a tractor. We will find a certain fulfillment in ourselves. A poet who has given birth to a poem will be happier than a woman who has given birth to a child. In the latter case, the womb is centered in the stomach whereas in the former it is centered in the heart or the Anahata chakra. The man who enters into spirituality and develops a thirst for gnana (true knowledge) and finally becomes a Gnani (an enlightened person) uses his body as an aircraft. What should we do to use our body as an aircraft? The difference between the army officer and the villagers is knowledge of the mechanisms of the aircraft. In the same way, there are mechanisms inside us called the chakras. A man who has no knowledge of these mechanisms moves slowly on the ground whereas a Gnani (an enlightened person) flies. Man is not designed to be a worm trodden under the feet of people. He is designed to fly in the air. If you learn how to use the seven chakras in the body, you will become a Gnani. Like how the villagers had no inkling that the device could fly, man has no idea that he can become a Gnani. He is the loser in the end.

## Anahata

By giving love, this chakra opens and by asking for attention, it locks. ‘Attention need’ locks this chakra. We often ask each other “Don’t you have a heart?”. We don’t mean the physical heart do we? If we did, the other person would not even be standing there in front of us! What we actually mean is “Don’t you have any love or care to give?”. The Anahatha chakra stands for love. We are all the time seeking others’ love and opinions. A mother may say, “I work all morning in the kitchen to prepare for my son’s school and I eat only after he leaves for school.” All of this is to get a ‘good mother’ signature from your son. All our activities are nothing but a signature campaign. The husband asks for a ‘good husband’ signature from the wife, the brother asks for a ‘good brother’ signature from the sister and so on. If you look deeply into your activities, you will see that the focus of your entire life is on how to get attention or good opinions from others. All of us make statements such as “I haven’t done harm to even an ant. I love the whole world.” It is easy to love a nation but difficult to love your neighbor. When you say that you love the nation, you don’t have to do anything tangible to prove it because ‘nation’ is something abstract, it is not a clear representation. But when you say you love your neighbor, you have to do something tangible to prove it and there comes the problem! Don’t turn this statement on your neighbor, I am telling this to you!

Because we don’t know who we are, we depend so much on others’ opinions and think that what they think and say about us is what we really are. When a parcel goes to Mumbai, there is a label on it saying ‘Mumbai’. Like this, each person puts a label on you. The labels may be ‘You are dark’, ‘You are rich’, ‘You are intelligent’, ‘You will not prosper’ and so on. You collect all these labels and make an average of them and conclude that it is what you are. You score yourselves with others’ marks. What will happen if someone decides to put minus 20 on you? You will fail! In order not to fail, you go around bending to each person’s whims. The truth is, your life is kept as a gamble with others and their lives kept with you. Your life becomes a castle that is built with cards. You get a card from your Father and make it a building block of your castle. You get cards from your Mother, Husband, Sister, Brother and so on and place them to make the castle grow. If anyone decides to remove his or her card, the castle will collapse. In order to maintain the castle, we ward off anyone trying to remove a card. Suddenly in this whole process of warding off, our own hands fall on the castle and the castle collapses. This collapse is what the world calls depression. The husband takes a big bowl and begs for attention from his wife and vice versa. When people don’t respond, we complain that they are not giving us their attention. A Mother-in-law and Daughter-in-law fight all day in house, yet cannot stay without each other! Why? They enjoy the attention they are getting from each other all day. Attention is like an addiction. It is as bad as drug addiction. Why do we crave for attention? We crave because attention is equal to energy. If 100 people cast their attention on you, you feel rejuvenated. If there are 1000 people assembled when a politician goes on the dais, his speech is in a certain plane and if there are 1 lakh people assembled, his voice and his promises are on a higher plane! When the energy in us is low, we crave for attention. If our energy is high, we will start giving attention to others. This meditation opens the Anahata chakra to give energy to others.

A small story – There is a book called the ‘Brahmasutram’. If there be a book in this world which will tire you at just a glance of it, it is this. If there be a book on the ultimate philosophy, it is this. An Enlightened Master by name Vachaspati Mishra told one of his disciples to write the complete commentary on the book and also gave his daughter in marriage to the disciple. The disciple started writing and days became months and months became years. He finished writing and only the title of the book remained to be given. He looked up and saw an old lady lighting a lamp near him. He asked her who she was and she told him not to bother and to concentrate on completing the book. He replied that he had finished and asked who she was again. She replied, “I am your wife”. The man was shocked and overcome by grief. He had started writing soon after their marriage and the girl never wanted to disturb him. He asked her why she had not attempted even once to intervene, for which she replied that she was quite happy serving him while he was at his job and never felt the need to intervene. He had written the book for 30 years. He titled it ‘Bamati’, the name of his wife.

Today, can you read the newspaper without disturbance for just 10 minutes in the morning? The wife feels that the newspaper is being given more attention than she is. Can the wife watch her favorite television serials in peace? The husband immediately feels that the television is becoming a nuisance in the house. You might conclude that in the story above, the girl has lost her youth at the end of it all. No! She has actually used the full energy of the Anahata chakra and hence never experienced attention need. Because of her, a priceless book that is a ready-reckonor for the great saints of today has been gifted to the world of philosophy. She lives even after she has died, we all die as we are living.

Let us dwell upon a technique from Vaishnavism. Each of you should select a stranger (of the same sex) from this room as your partner. For the next 48 hours, you will look into his comforts and take care of him in the same way as you would take care of yourself. We are used to thinking of ourselves all the time that if we think about others for even 5 minutes, we wait with a notebook for their signature. Try to forget yourself and take care of the other person whole-heartedly. When a mosquito bites you, you scream at your wife for not lighting a mosquito repellant coil. Now, in the next 48 hours, instead of doing this, immediately shift your thought to your partner and check if he has a mosquito repellant in his room. If there is no running hot water in your bathroom, find out if your partner has running water for himself in his bathroom. Shift your center from ‘I’ and ‘What for me’ to ‘He’ and ‘What for him’. When you are in the queue waiting for food, don’t grab the plate for yourself, give the plate to your partner first. Offer him a chair first before grabbing the chair for yourself. This 48-hour meditation technique is not to create a friendship with your partner or to exchange addresses him, it is just to shift the center from ‘I’ to ‘You’ that’s all. The key here is to see with what commitment you are taking care of your partner.

Think of your partner as God. If you cannot see God in the man who is in front of you, where else are you going to see God? If you cannot give attention to people who are tangible, how are you going to serve God whom you haven’t even seen? When you shift your center to him, you will discover a new dimension opening up in you. You don’t have to open your pocket to him, open only your heart.

Ramakrishna beautifully says that when a calf is born, it makes a sound ‘humm’ which means ‘I’. It suffers from that day onwards by being made to plough the field most of the time. Once it dies, its skin is used to make percussion instruments. When tapped on, it makes the sound ‘dhum’ which means ‘You’, it is then that it starts giving joy to those around it! The energy in you needs to be brimming in order to give it to others. Mahamantra is a technique for keeping the energy in this condition.

The lady of the house would have spent considerable time in the kitchen preparing food. The moment it is served on the table, the husband comments ‘There is less salt in this dish’. A lady sent her husband to the market to buy vegetables one early morning. He bought ladies finger and came back. She cursed him for buying such overgrown ladies finger. The next day, he went to market and took pains to select very tender ladies finger and brought it home. The wife took a look and said that it was too tender to make the dish she had in mind. The third day, the husband went to the market and fell at the shopkeeper’s feet and begged her to select the right kind of ladies fingers and took it back home. The wife commented “Oh you have bought ladies finger yet again today!”.