Saturday, July 7, 2018

Bang On The Door - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

It's been there for ages - this slim 100-page book. I finally picked it up. Nice stuff. As with all masters, I can do nothing more than quote them. So I will do the same here as well.

"The search for unity, the unifying factor, is the real spiritual journey. Unfortunately, the so-called spiritual journey has divided human beings and torn apart the whole society."

Religion is the banana skin and spirituality is the banana. People have thrown away the banana and are holding on to the skin.

Everything is changing except some centered point in you. Stay with that. It is the same principle that is beneath the entire existence.

There is a definite difference in the quality of perception that brings unification with the object of perception. That is why saints through all time have spoken of uniting with the ultimate, uniting with the source, uniting with the rhythm.

Success in life is attending to this source, inquiry of the course and living in that joy and unconditional love. 

Our feelings have simply become words. They are not coming from the source. The innocent person of long ago simply had to observe creation to feel and experience beauty. The inner chamber could open very easily.  Gratefulness and gratitude could flow very easily. 

Bang on your inner door. See that there is no dearth of love in you, there is no lack of anything whatsoever inside you. Bang on the door with full force. Just knocking will not help.

Think only one thing; everybody is one - one person, one life. More innocence, more good, more love.

Grace is that gratitude that can remain all the time. When there is gratitude, complaints disappear. Ungratefulness is the lower journey. Gratitude is the middle. Grace is the higher journey.

For a question, we seek an answer. For wonder, we don't seek an answer.  Question is related to sorrow. Wonder is related to joy.

The purpose of knowledge is to make you realise how ignorant tyou are. "I don't know!"

Talking about what you know may be creative but definitely less creative than when you talk about something that you don't know.

Gratefulness is essential. When we recognise our helplessness we need to put a distance between ourselves and what is happening - a distance from every action.

As our intelligence grows we become crooked. Maintaining innocence in spite of intelligence is wisdom, is enlightenment. Ego is nothing but being unnatural. Naturalness is being home, feeling cloe to everyone. Distance is ego. 

Blessed are those who are confused. Confusion means your previous knowledge has broken down.

The beautiful "I don't know". That is what is needed today. Innocence. And that is love.

Words are inadequate to express the truth. Language is always found to be limited. Truth cannot be captured by words.

The sweetness in you blossoms when you realise that you are part of the whole, a part of existence.

This body is not my flesh. This bread is my flesh. This flesh is my bread. Know the difference betwen the physical body and the flesh, and this entire world becomes your body. That is cosmic consciousness.

True intimacy is one sided and nonjudgmental. It starts from the inside. The test for truth is to kick it. If it comes back it is true. Coming back to the source is the nature of everything in creation.

True intimacy is nonjudgmental. It is not looking at whether the other person loves you or not, whether the other person treats you well or not. That is none of your business. When you doubt whether the other person loves you or not, then your love goes down.

There is no way you can know the love of another person. Someone may say "I love you" and if you think they mean that and if you think someone who doesn't say "I love you" does not really love you, then you are mistaken.  In true intimacy, you stop looking at the act and you start being in love. So if you are determined to love somebody, do not even think whether they love you or not. You love them. That is enough.

True love s coming back to the self. That is true intimacy. Take it for granted that everybody in creation, everything in creation loves you because everything has come from love and goes back to love and remains in love. In creation everything is intimate, everything feels, expeiences intimacy. Oneness with existence is intimacy.

If you doubt whether you are being loved or not, your capacity to love goes down. You will stop loving. If you feel you have been contributing enough, loving enough, then you are not loving enough, because in love you always feel inadequacy. Any amount you do, you feel that it is inadequate.

When this gets turned around you say - I have loved enough. What did I get in return? I have loved so much. What did I get? I have not been cared for.  In true intimacy, there is dsapassion. Dispassion is that delicate balance beyond pain and sorrow.  The highest wisdom that can ever be achieved on this planet is dispassion. The moment you become dispassionate, there is nothing but love. There is nothing but intimacy. There are no two.

All work happens through intention. Desire is that intention becoming a feverish thought inside of you.

If something is there, it is there. If something is not there, it is not there. So what? In your trying to give something up, you are holding on to it even more. Nothing is yours and everything is yours.

Your needs will be met. Relax. When you have relaxed so completely, not possessing anything in the head or wanting to possess anything in the head, you will see the substace comes before the need for it arises.

When the need is there, what is needed will come.

Longing comes out of gratefulness and love.

Grace and knowledge can cut the bonding of karma. To cut the root of suffering. 

First, the physical body is purified through hatha yoga. Then silence purifies speech. Meditation purifies the mind. If you are aware and are centered, you can burn the karma.

Be totally helpless.

If you know you are a human being, and if you are just Being, you are already enlightened.

You cannot love with your effort. You have no control over love. It is the other way around. Love controls you. When there's love you are pulled. You are drawn towards it. Love governs your life. You can't govern love.

You are very small. Love happens to you. It is beyond your manipulation. All you can do is drop your stresses and all that is blocking the flow of love and being natural. If you are natural you are allowing love to flow through you. Anything unnatural blocks love. Distress blocks love. Eliminate the root cause of tension and it flows through you. 

If you can see divinity in everyone, then all your relationships are relationships with god. 

Love is what you are made of. The consciousness in you is love. When you become love you dissolve. You go beyond. 

Simple and powerful stuff. To find the Source and tune into it. To be one with everyone and everything. To know that I will get what I need. To know that to love is but to be natural and release all stresses. To just flow.

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