Suffering - Food For The Ego

Before entering into the next session, next sutras… questions? Any questions?

Participant: “Swamiji, can you throw some light on the functioning of the cognitive shift?”

SPH: Functioning of?

Participant: “Cognitive shift.”

SPH: Cognitive shift... it’s a wonderful word. Cognitive shift... Usually your mind continuously tends to work towards suffering. For example: if you find yourself totally out of all the problems for some time, few minutes, few moments, you feel something is missing in you; that you are not as you are supposed to be. So you try to find something. That expansion or the emptiness is too much. So you try to create a fence of suffering or you run to any exte... extent. You run to the extreme and try to create some fence. You can exist only with suffering. The moment you eradicate the sufferings you can’t exist as ego. As ego, as a small ‘i’, you can exist only with suffering. So sufferings only gives you that boundary consciousness.

For example, if you don’t have any fear you will not have boundary consciousness. You will be so relaxed, so deeply relaxed, you will not even remember that you have boundary. The moment you have the fear about death only you start entering into the boundary. As long as you don’t have the fear of death, you will not have death; because you are not inside the boundary. The fear of death only creates the boundary for the whole land. As long as you don’t have boundary, whole planet Earth is yours. The moment you put the boundary, you have only that land as yours. So the moment you enter into dukkha, any dukkha… any desire, any desire immediately you will have the problem whether it will be fulfilled or not. Even a small desire like you should come here and take this fruit, it can be simply be fulfilled. It is not at all a big thing, but the intensity of the desire, you will start worrying, “by the time itself I may fall. Somebody else may take away the fruit.” Even if it is a small desire, once the intensity enters into the desire you will have that terrible fear. It’ll be a very simple thing. It’ll be just your everyday routine many time. But the moment the intensity en... enters, you will start having a fear. You will start having the thoughts whether it will be filled or not, whether it will be fulfilled or not - the worry.

The moment intensity enters into any desire, the moment emotional attachment enters into any, to any memory, the fear starts. Any emotional attachment to any memory will let the... it will awaken the fear, then worry. Then you know you are already in the boundary.

Actually as you are, you are a just free being, just a vast expanse of land. Visualize as if you are on the top of a hillock, vast expansive top of the hillock, big... feel it. The problem is, the difficulty is, the moment you think or you get the thought of desire or fear or worry, you make a boundary, you make a fence. More intense the desire, fen... fence is small. More intense the fear, fence is small. More intense the worry, fence becomes much more small. The moment you start identifying yourself with the fence, you lost the eternity; because the eternity is lost, which is your basic right. The problem is you can’t live with such a vast expansive consciousness. You feel it is too much.

Whenever you get the glimpse of it, again you start thinking. Your mind just waits to get some problem, to catch some problem. You can’t survive as a simple “I” without any problem, without any problem. You create something or other, something you create. The problem is one more thing. When you create, you create for the sake of utility to survive, utility to exist; but after few minutes or after few times repeating that same word, you start thinking, it is really a problem. When we put the fence, we put the fence for the sake of our safety, our security. But after seeing the fence two, three times, you really start thinking you can’t go out of it. You yourself caught in the fence. First you build a wall for the sake of security, then finally you start feeling it’s, it has become a prison. So all your identification is utility for the sake of utility.

Unless you identify yourself with your boundary, you will not be able to go to your shop. So the early morning you identify yourself with your boundary to go to your shop. You can do it as a playfully, very playfully. Identify, go and do the job. When you feel it is too much, when you don’t want, relax. It always, it can happen, but you have the fear: “How will I survive?” And even if you die, what is there? Even if you die, what is there? Alright, if you live with this uh insecured feeling, with the fear, if ah, if uh, if you allow the fear, what will happen? You will start getting more and more into this thought system, and a vicious circle. If you live like this, you think you are not going to die? No. Again you are going to enter into death. Little early, that's all. With this vicious cycle little early, that is all.

Now, the survi... question of survival or any desire or fear and worry which is the outcome of these two. Desire and the fear, when they both meet and merge, worry comes. Worry is the child. Desire is mother, worry is, no, no, fear is father, worry is a child. These three creates boundary sense for you. This is what I say, mental setup of mithya. Continuously wor... you work towards ephemeral. Even if you don’t have any problem you start associating yourself with somebody else’s problem. Why do you think people continuously read newspapers and feel satisfied? They associate themself with others problems.

Why do you think you feel, people feel so satisfied when they see somebody dancing in TV? When they see somebody dancing in the TV, they associate themself to that movement. Anyhow they can’t dance, first of all their wife may not let them or the husband will not let them and you can’t have always that beautiful scenes and that background music; that is missing in the life. That is a big problem. Life has no background music. 😀 Life has no background music.

You see, in the movie all these sentiments are shown in a big dham dhum, background music; dham dhum background music, dramatically. But in the live things are very flat. When you see somebody dancing in the TV or movie, you associate yourself with that person and feel satisfied. That is what, cerebral layer, cerebral satisfaction. Same way, when you see somebody is suffering through the newspapers, you feel sympathy. You associate yourself with that person and feel satisfied.

You want some sufferings. It’s a food for your ego. If there is no... nobody comes and tells you that they are suffering or you don’t see anybody who is suffering, you will feel something is missing. That is why you continuously feel happy when you see others suffering. Really you have a subtle kind of happiness when others suffer. Whatever you may say but the truth is this. Truth is this… Really, that is what is happening. Uh understand logically. This is the truth. When somebody suffers you have subtle satisfaction. Actually the problem is, not even we having problem, when you feel that nobody else has got so much of suffering, you have more suffering. You having diffi, problems is one thing. When you think: “Others are all happy. Only I am having more suffering”, your suffering becomes too much.

When you feel: “Oh, so many are in my boat”, then what do you feel? You feel very comfortable. Today one devotee, she came and told me: “Swamiji, I was weeping at the time of meditation. When I saw so many people are weeping, I was very comfortable.” 😀 “I was very happy.”

So, when you see there are some more company for you, you feel very happy, comfortable. You have some friends! When somebody else also is suffering, you have deep satisfaction. Two thing: Either you, you will have your own desire and your own fear, your own worry and suffer. If you don’t get these three enough supply to run your day to day life, you just take the cerebral help. You can take the cerebral help. Actually this three gives you rajasic energy. Desire only makes you run. Morning, early morning if you don’t have some desire, if you don’t remember about your shop, will you go there? If you don’t have a fear, that if you don’t go you will not be able to survive, will you go there? No. If you don’t have these two, you will not be able to move. These two only creates worry. These two says: “Oh”. First you get the desire, then you say: “What I should do?” The planning is worry. Second: Fear. Then after that, after fear what you think, start thinking. “Oh what should I do then now?” Then again what you are planning is worrying.

Plans from fear, plans from greed, is what I call worrying. If you can plan without these two, is what I call creativity. When you, when the planning happens from this two roots, it’s worrying. So these two only gives you enough of rajas to be active. In the modern day, man needs more rajas than his own original fears and desires. That is why you start getting the material supply, raw material supply from TV and newspaper. You get... you acquire little more fear and greed from movies and cinema. You get little more fear and greed through medias. You are not, you don’t have enough of raw material supply, you don't have enough of rajas. So what you do now? You have more raw material supply from the movies. You pick up those big, big sentimental words and attach to your life, attach to your life.

Actually people ask Me: “How can I run my life and spirituality?” You have so much of abundant energy, you can simply balance. You can simply be little more intelligent and live that beautifully and live this also beautifully. But the difficulty is we have acquired too many words. Before any incident happens we continuously replay, replay, replay, re-re-re-re replace …… words inside our system. You’ll be sitting here, your husband or wife will not even remember you, but you will be having continuously fear: “If I go back I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what all I am going to face.” They will not be even remembering you. But sitting here you will be remembering. Actually, they will be having some other fear, they will be having some other desire. They are busy with their desires, their fears and their worries and nobody cares for others worries. I tell you honestly. Nobody cares for others worries. They are only worried that you should not give any worry for them. So they start giving you worries. That is what actually happens. The moment they are, you give them the security that you will not give them worry, they will never give you worries. Nobody will give you worry the moment you give them the security that you will not give them worry. The insecured feeling only makes them to give worry to you.

Anyhow. When you don’t have enough of raw material supply, you start collecting material from media; so that you will have more rajas, you can run for some more time. In those days so many hours... there is no need for people to work so many hours. Now you have to work. So you need little more rajas supply. So you want a fantasy home, dream home. A big cutout you see in the road side “dream home” and big hoardings, cutouts, all these things when you see, you add all those additions. Big jewelry when you see in the cutouts, what do you think? “Ah, that will look grand on me, that will look grand on me.”

But people don’t understand, they’ll get only the jewelry, not that model. We always feel, we’ll get the model also. You are going to get only the soap when you pay 10 rupees, not that model. But both get recorded inside your system, both will get recorded inside your system. You start getting more rajasic, you start running. The rajas is infused, injected into your system. The rajas is injected into your system when you acquire more fear and more greed; these two creates tremendous rajas. You as small “i” can survive only when you have the fence of fantasies, fear and worry. So naturally, your ball rolls always towards the mental setup of mithya, towards the mental setup of mithya. But I tell you, the new way of existence is possible. The new way of existence is possible.