Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.Twenty-two. The soul dwells eternally within us all. The soul has ears, the soul can hear; the soul has eyes, the soul can see. What our mind cannot comprehend, our soul can understand. The address our heart will never find, there our soul makes its home. Human life stands upon four pillars: physical intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. The first two of these four chambers see the coming and going of our mind, the heart too has access to the third, while the soul moves freely through all four chambers; yet the soul’s balanced development occurs in the fourth chamber. The growth or decay of the soul is governed by certain distinct principles and foundations of faith—this has no explanation, cannot be fully expressed through any words. Its influence can only be understood and felt by one whose soul has connection with the Divine Being. When we love someone’s external form, that love eventually fades, because the enchantment of form is momentary. But if we love someone enchanted by the beauty of their soul, that love is eternal, because the beauty of the soul is eternal. The soul alone is the imperishable entity—the riches of the mind may become victims of circumstance or fade due to external causes, the heart’s demands will one day be exhausted, the body will one day decay, only the soul will endure, ageless, indestructible, immortal. The soul abandons one body and seeks its new refuge in another. This transmigration is eternal, therefore when someone is bound in the bonds of the soul, those bonds can never break. When one soul, judging similarity and affinity, seeks out another soul, there is no mistake. The soul’s love for its spiritual companion is the only pure love. When two people’s breath, faith, thoughts, actions—all of these revolve in the same manner within the same orbit, then the strongest bond is created between them. The most beautiful meaning of life lies within this. Sometimes we see that even upon seeing someone for the first time—someone we neither know nor recognize—it feels as though we have known them for countless lifetimes. We want to draw that stranger close, want to sit beside them and talk, want to make them an intimate friend. Why does this happen? Why does our subconscious mind consider such a complete stranger as our own? And sometimes we see that we consciously avoid certain familiar people; even when they approach us to chat, we run away. Why do we do this? That person has done me no harm. Then why? There is no logical explanation for these two types of incidents. In the first case, the moment we see that stranger, something within us keeps saying repeatedly: this person is not a stranger. In the second case, upon seeing that familiar person, we feel that if I remain in this person’s company, I can never be at peace. In both cases, two souls have sought to draw each other close or push each other away, and so our brain has sent us two different types of signals. In just this mysterious way, two souls become connected or disconnected with each other. This selection process of the soul is quite useful in deciding with whom to mingle, whom to avoid. The same person might appeal to one while another cannot tolerate them at all. Whoever finds someone appealing feels more comfortable mixing with them; that is, when an invisible connection is established between two souls, then those two souls seek to unite.
There was a boy who could not walk, but he could sing beautifully. There was a girl who could not speak properly, but she was quite strong. One day they met. They fell in love with each other, and they married. The boy would sit in his wheelchair and sing, while the girl would push his chair and take him to different places. Whatever people gave them in their joy became their livelihood. Two souls became one and lived beautifully with the completeness of a single soul. The unity of souls inspires people to think beautifully and to manifest the reflection of that thought. There are no fixed rules for coming close or moving away. Each person loves in their own way, expresses themselves, or withdraws according to their own principles. Whatever principle appeals to someone’s heart, they want to draw close to a person who follows that principle. The right path is different for each person. The path that is right for me might be utterly wrong for someone else. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the path our soul reveals to us is the right path for us.Twenty-three. During our lifetime, among all the people we encounter, each one carries certain human qualities that, if we could absorb them into our own lives and practice them regularly, would make life beautiful. When we think about someone, we become so busy judging whether they are good or bad that their beautiful aspects don’t even cross our minds. Consequently, we judge them according to our own disposition and reach a verdict about them. This kind of self-imposed, arbitrary satisfaction is deeply self-destructive. The real truth is this: no one actually lives with an evil heart. Due to circumstances and various external impulses, people gradually drift away from their inner beautiful thoughts and feelings. When people indulge their dormant cruel instincts in hopes of gaining something, their animal nature awakens. At such times, their mind too guides their thoughts and actions toward cruelty and ruthlessness. The interesting thing is that most of the time, our words and writings give others the wrong impression about us. Perhaps for some reason, or even for no reason at all, we say something or write something in a moment. Yet others hold onto those words or writings and, misunderstanding them, reach conclusions about us that give them peace and comfort. People make the decision they want to make, or the decision that makes them more acceptable to others—whether it’s right or wrong. The actual facts or the correctness of the real conclusion plays little role in their acceptance or rejection of decisions. Temporary silence solves many problems, and often prevents problems from arising in the first place. There are four fundamental principles for being happy: not passing judgment on anything according to our own opinions—let the courts handle that job instead; forgetting whatever causes us pain; forgiving others not to show magnanimity, but to keep ourselves at peace; taking everything simply, because whether we can take things simply or not makes no difference—whatever exists and will exist, remains as it is and will remain so. There’s little point in worrying about who thinks what about whom, or even what someone said about us. If someone calls a rose a thorn, and someone else calls it jasmine, what difference does it make to the rose? The rose will spread its own fragrance, and the rose’s thorns will prick just the same. The rose won’t change into cauliflower because of someone’s words! Ordinary eyes see people divided into various categories. This one is Muslim, that one Hindu, that one Buddhist, that one Christian, this one fair, that one dark, this one tall, that one short—dividing them up like this. But extraordinary eyes see only the humanity in people. When you know how to look at the heart, the outer shell of a person no longer catches your eye. That looking is the real seeing. Everything external about a person is as easy to lose as it is to acquire. But a person’s heart remains as it is, always. It’s through knowing that heart that we truly know the person. When we want to help someone recognize their good qualities, if we start by telling them, “You are like this, you are like that, this is bad about you, that is bad,” then they will defend themselves by any means necessary, and even if they are wrong, they will cling to that wrong, staying distant from us from the very beginning.
He will not heed any of our words. A better approach would be: without wounding him over what he is like, if we can skillfully make him understand what he could become, then he will think no ill of us, and will gladly accept all our counsel. When a person accepts someone’s advice, it is less because of the merit of the advice itself than because of the merit of the advisor. We generally refuse to accept anything from someone we dislike, no matter how good their words might be. Far from helping someone through aggressive criticism, one cannot even become acceptable to them. Why would I listen to someone who is not acceptable to me? If I wish to approach someone, to reshape them in my own way, to make their life beautiful, even if I am a vast ocean, I must still think of myself as water, without which I have no existence at all. If they are water, then I must make myself thirsty for them, must believe that my very existence is imperiled without them. To love someone is like playing with fire—in that game everything will burn to ash, not even smoke will remain. And to love the Creator or one’s own soul means either I will possess the object of my love in my own way, or I myself will be utterly consumed in the fire of that love. In such complete dissolution lies all of life’s joy and peace.Twenty-four. We must learn how to communicate with others, how to speak, what can be said, and what cannot. We need to master the art of restraining our own urge to speak so that we can truly listen to others, allow others to speak. When connecting with anyone, the first essential quality is patience. To reach conclusions or make comments about someone without properly knowing them, or about any matter without gaining a clear understanding, is nothing but foolishness. My behavior, my words, my decisions can make me appear as a saint or a devil in others’ eyes. If we could remove the external veil and see beneath, we would glimpse the true person. If we only observe someone’s outward appearance, what we think we know about them is not who they really are. To look into someone’s heart, one must look with the eyes of one’s own heart. Those whose hearts are blind cannot perceive the existence of the Creator within others. When we can feel something good in someone, when we know how to embrace the goodness in others, our own feelings become beautiful and pure. The joy we derive from this is the credit of our heart’s own wealth. The emptier one’s heart is, the more one seeks emptiness in others’ hearts. Do not judge how much better you are than others. Simply assume you are the worst among all, and believe that you have not come to this world to remain bad. You have all the qualities needed to be good—if you can properly harmonize this self-confidence with your willpower, you will become a far more evolved person than you are now. Complacency paralyzes human beings. We have not been given the right or responsibility to judge what heaven is like, what hell is like, who is bad, who is evil, who is beautiful to look at, who is ugly, who is fortunate, who is unfortunate, who is virtuous, who is sinful, who is of good character, who is of bad character. We do not even know ourselves properly—how can we know others? Who can say who is beloved of the Creator and who is not? How does it occur to us that I alone am pure, I alone am right, and everyone else is mistaken? Judging others is not our work. The more we criticize others, the more indifferent we become to our own unattractive aspects. If we must consider at all, we should reflect upon people’s elevated qualities, we should contemplate those. From such contemplation will emerge how much we need to develop ourselves if we wish to live like others. No one—no friend, no parents, no teacher, no religious guide—can ever tell us what is good for us and what is bad. We must listen carefully to that “I” who dwells within us. The voice of our heart never speaks anything false. Instead of wasting life searching for water, if only we could make the heart understand how thirsty we are dying in search of water, then the inexhaustible source of water would reveal itself before our very eyes. With a water-filled pitcher lying in infinite neglect in a corner of our heart’s chamber, we run futilely across the entire world searching for a single drop of water.
Twenty-five. To live life properly, two things are essential to understand: when to hold on, and when to let go. If we can maintain the balance between these two in life, life won’t be altogether bad. When we live believing in eternal bliss in some heaven after death or endless suffering in hell—the very things we do to attain that heavenly joy after death bring us that same joy even before death arrives. We don’t need to wait until death to feel the happiness of good deeds, nor do we need to wait until death to feel the anguish of bad deeds. This journey toward post-mortem life begins long before death itself; at the very start of this path, we must understand clearly when, where, how, and what is the right time to renounce our attachment to which things. To live, we need to know far more about letting go than we do about holding on. When clinging to something renders our own life meaningless, it’s better to release it. Good and bad, love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge—life is the coexistence of such opposing forces. If we don’t understand our responsibilities toward ourselves and others, unnecessary troubles crowd into life, bringing nothing but suffering. If we let go of something that shouldn’t be abandoned, it causes us great anguish. If we hold onto something that should be released for our salvation, it sometimes destroys us completely. What we hold onto and what we let go depends on two things: what we prioritize, and what our decision is about it. Whatever our decision may be, if we have the preparation and capacity to remain steadfast in that decision until the end, the gains and losses don’t cause us much harm. However difficult it may be, mastering this sense of timing—when to let go or when to hold on—while accepting everything, is quite challenging. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn this art. Life once asked Death, “Why do people love me and hate you?” Death smiled and replied, “Because people see you through the magic of enchanting lies, while they see me as a painful truth.” To understand what happiness is, we first need to invoke infinite sorrow. To reduce pain, we must increase pain; relief is found by diving deep into the vast ocean of discomfort. One who doesn’t know clamor can never recognize silence. One of life’s most difficult tasks is letting things go—whether it’s love or hatred, anger or hurt, profit or loss, friend or enemy, work or idleness—changing states and positions isn’t easy. Whether holding onto something or letting it go, we must wage war with ourselves in both actions. Even after many days, perhaps only one regret will remain in our minds: Alas! What I clung to and spent all this time with was never really mine. Some time has been stolen away needlessly by false attachments. It’s better to live empty-handed than to live with the wrong things.
Twenty-six. Letting go does not mean forgetting. Letting go means accepting the lessons that whatever has happened has taught me. To live life, we must hold onto some beautiful memories, but we cannot hold onto the events that are bound to those memories. This is what life is. We must learn from what causes us pain—learn so thoroughly that we can use that knowledge to guide our lives carefully forward. Experiencing the same pain twice means we are not truly living our time, but wasting it. Such a life has no real meaning. Life is sustained by love. This love can be between man and woman, love for one’s cherished work, love for precious moments, love hidden within beloved things. Love has no definition, no levels, no boundaries that can contain it. Without love, life becomes meaningless, stagnant, immobile. The best way to free ourselves from what keeps us anxious, fearful, and bewildered is not to hold it within us, but to let it go—to push it out from within ourselves or remove ourselves from it entirely, remaining detached from its patterns. This is a difficult battle. Each time we let go, memories return to disturb us. When we let go, something new comes to fill that empty space, and most importantly, at the end of the day, victory is mine. Keeping the philosophy of suffering close when the path to genuine well-being lies ahead is not a life philosophy but a death philosophy. The only way to survive is to release whatever increases pain when held onto. Humans can forgive, but they can never truly forget. Memory will inevitably return to cause pain. What need is there to increase suffering by holding on? Let it go, release it, be well, let others be well; there is still time. The birth of new relationships means the invisible death of old ones. Dragging life along in the name of relationships means trying to bring balance to life by making sorrow a companion—inviting complications, difficult circumstances, tears, and despair into existence. It is not so simple to make everything simple so easily. I know new steps always evoke fear. This is the rule. Unknown paths always create anxiety. This is how it is. We prefer to keep close what is happening rather than embrace what has not yet occurred. This is human nature. Think about it—you are as you are today, and because you are as you are, you are well, but yesterday you were not like this. Yesterday you did something you had not done the day before. And while doing it, you became as anxious as you are today. But if yesterday you had not embraced the unknown, would today’s well-being have entered your life? Today’s fear becomes tomorrow’s familiarity—this is what living means. Life never stops for anyone or anything. All that’s needed is one small step to move life forward, nothing more. Our hearts will show us the path to walk on new roads. Why so much thinking? Life’s lessons, the soul’s liberation, the heart’s love—all of this is possible if we do not cling to the present’s wretched state. Life does not mean looking back and calculating pain; life means looking ahead and seeking happiness.
When friends and loved ones choose to walk their own path, when they find happiness in that journey, the mental maturity to not impose my philosophy of well-being and good living upon them—this is what we call lived life.Twenty-seven. What certainty do we have that what we know to be right is actually right? And what certainty do we have that what we know to be wrong is actually wrong? Our own explanations of our thoughts to ourselves make the world around us right or wrong. Each person’s world takes a different form. When someone speaks harshly to us, we feel hurt. Why do we feel hurt? In our undergraduate studies, we had a course called Numerical Analysis. In that course, we were taught a theory called the Runge-Kutta theory—named, needless to say, after two mathematicians. In the country where someone was given the name Kutta at birth, surely no one calls anyone else “kutta” as an insult. The experience of feeling hurt when called kutta has never occurred to anyone in that country. Similarly, when we feel hurt by someone’s words or behavior, that word or gesture creates an echo in our brain of some past experience that had hurt us before. In reality, no one’s words or actions hurt us—it is our capacity for being hurt, or our inability to remain detached from their words and actions, that hurts us. If we ourselves do not wish it, nothing in the world has any power to hurt us. “You are as peaceful as a tree, brother. Saying something to you is the same as saying it to a tree”—observe these two expressions. The same comparison to a tree gives peace in the first instance and disturbance in the second. Here, rather than the power of words themselves, it is whether the words evoke positive or negative thoughts in our minds that determines what kind of impact those words have on our minds. How long does the pain last? How intense is the pain? None of this is determined by the pain itself, but rather by how we receive or reject that pain. Allowing someone to leave our life or removing ourselves from their life does not mean that I have forgotten the sorrow, anguish, and pain I received from them. Rather, it means I am giving them and myself time and opportunity to mend or change—so that if they or I ever truly feel the need to mend or change ourselves, that path remains open. If we do not step back or make them step back before making such decisions, the infinite pain of that moment can end the relationship forever. Whether the relationship is rebuilt or ends completely, whatever happens, making that decision after stepping away ourselves or making them step away is beneficial and auspicious for both. Time is a wondrous magician. We must let time pass. Time sets everything right. This is exactly what we cannot do. We want to hold onto time. We mistakenly want to hold onto time only until time destroys everything. Our greatest weakness is that we cannot grasp time’s mysterious game. Letting go is not easy. Letting go causes much anguish. The present anguish increases further. Yet sometimes it is better to let anguish increase. The only way to reduce anguish is to let anguish increase. Happiness is not found on the path of happiness; happiness is found on the path of sorrow. All roads leading to joy are paved with pain. If it becomes such that letting go is simply not possible, then we must very carefully observe what is happening and what is not happening in our measured emotions.
We must learn to accept with equanimity the positive or negative changes in our mental state and circumstances that result from whatever unfolds. By practicing this continually, we will one day emerge from our old ‘self’ and become a new ‘self’—one that cannot be held captive by illusory dreams or the enchantment of happiness. True happiness is discovered only through liberating ourselves from attachment, fascination, and intoxication with the wrong things. At day’s end, no one remains with the self except the self alone—nothing else remains. To keep that self trapped in the wrong place is equivalent to death. The less wealth one possesses in the heart, the greater one’s fear of loss. While material wealth chains the human soul in bondage, wealth of spirit liberates us from those very chains. Then happiness becomes an inexhaustible spring—eternal, constant. When life is lived not according to the whims of one’s heart, but according to the wisdom that dwells within the heart, life becomes a harmonious dwelling place of joy, happiness, peace, and contentment.Twenty-eight. Walking the path that touches dreams is neither comfortable nor pleasant. Sometimes, where the very act of living brings fear that overwhelms us, we must practice the art of living. Not prudence—if you want something good in life, you need a touch of madness. We must embrace the dream we live by within our very existence and, for a time at least, remove all the “mine,” “yours,” and “theirs” from our lives. To live for a dream means to blend, merge, and harmonize ourselves with what we want to achieve, what we want to become. Unless I can completely destroy the self I am now, I will never meet the dream version of myself. One self’s death gives birth to another. When releasing the old self with the right hand, you must grasp the new self with the left. When releasing the old self with the left hand, you must grasp the new self with the right. If we let go with both hands, it may well be that once we have completely released what we’re letting go of, we become unable to embrace anything new. If we hold on with both hands, it may well be that once what we’re grasping completely takes hold of us, we become unable to abandon anything old. The emptiness of the unnecessary often becomes a barrier to accepting the necessary. Similarly, the presence of the necessary sometimes becomes a barrier to rejecting the unnecessary. Such calculations are what we call living by coming to terms with life’s equations. We must love the world, learn to bind it in affection’s embrace. If we can do this, then we can live in a world made of love. A world of love is the safest, most peaceful, most serene; in such a world, life is lived and savored most beautifully. In our life’s story, we will not prominently place anything that prevents us from being well, anything that only adds more pages of tears to memory’s diary. A life’s story has many chapters. The more chapters of suffering increase in the story, the heavier the story’s basket becomes, and carrying that basket into old age means we have lived a life that is weary, exhausted, dejected, and failed. What sense does that make? Whatever comes to life—joy or sorrow—all is temporary. Life flows forward, leaving everything behind. We must live in such a way that present joy doesn’t obscure future hopes, and present suffering doesn’t eclipse future possibilities. True danger and walls—both exist within our hearts. When some past event or experience shrouds us in fear about the present, the first necessary task is to dispassionately set aside all emotions connected to that fear or notion. Then consider: where is the source of our fear actually located? Often we find that our fear concerns precisely those things beyond the reach of our thoughts and vision. A computer without any viruses is most likely unused or defunct. Viruses are an inseparable companion of computers. Just as there is no computer without viruses, there is no mind without anxiety. Exclude fear and mental formation remains incomplete. Perhaps even in the heart of the world’s most fearless person lies considerable fear alongside love for his wife. Viruses need anti-virus software to be removed; fear requires the awakening of the soul to be dispelled. Our life is like that single string of the ektara—if held at just the right tension, it can create beautiful music. Otherwise, discord is the only destiny.
That sense of proportion, understood at the right moment, is what we call wisdom, intuition, realization. The outer self and the inner self—two completely different entities. Our consciousness creates the connection between these two. A harmonious interplay between them makes life’s journey joyful. The birds of despair will certainly fly around our heads, but we must take care that they don’t build nests in our hair. To make life meaningful, two things must be done. First: carefully avoid the abyss that appears to be existence. Second: tenderly embrace the existence that appears to be an abyss. Life is greater than all our dreams, life is more constant than all our nightmares. Whether we can touch our dreams or not, whether we can escape our nightmares or not—none of this matters much; but life must never lose its color. The art of cohabiting with dreams, or the initiation of dwelling with nightmares—greater than both these arts in life is this: accepting life exactly as it is.
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