by Gurani Anjali
Liberation is accepting life. Accepting it, getting rid of asmita (I-am-ness). Getting rid of the kleshas (affliction, pain, distress). It is all this. They all come in the course of time. In the course of every daily activity. They come so you can be liberated. To be free of the worry, the anxiety, the weight of asmita, me-ness. The minute you think that you are the doer, you lose out. The minute you see yourself doing something, the minute you are doing, and say “I am doing this, I did too much,” you lose. Never must you say “I did too much.” Never must you say, “I can’t do it.” Whenever there is that sense of asmita, you know there is no liberation.
We are always experiencing liberation and bondage in our action and reactions. It is through the “how,” “where,” “when” and “why” we do what we do that we know how liberated and how much in bondage we are.
Doing sadhana is a wonderful thing. It gives you time to reflect. It helps you to recognize what is to be done to attain perfection. It is in the karmic cycle of affairs that one knows if one is bound or free. The minute a little fear comes in, the minute a little attachment comes in, you know you’re stuck, you’re bound, you’re not free. But when there is a freedom of movement with no me in it, you know you’re liberated. Now there are times when you do what you like to do and you do it very freely and you feel the free movement of it. But what about the things you don’t like to do but you have to do? That is where the challenge comes in. That is the place for you to purify yourself. You say, “I don’t like to do this, I know I am stuck but I’m going to do it,” but in the doing of it, learn to loosen up, lighten up. Free yourself of that sticky feeling that you’re feeling. When you really don’t want to be there, but you’re there, or when you really don’t want to do this, but you’re doing it, in that period of doing, you will have to let go. It is the law of cause and effect that will allow you to release your asmita. After you have finished with that process, if you go back to thinking, “oh I wasted so much time,” whatever you did was lost. Then you accumulate more negative karma. Then you say I shouldn’t have been here. You got released in the moment, but then you went back and said, “I’ve wasted so much time, I should have been some where else.” Then you reap double negative karma. But to come out of it even though you go into an affair of some circumstance with very negative influences, saying, “oh I can’t do it, I really don’t want to, I hate to do it, I don’t want to do it, it upsets me, I don’t want to do it.” Even so, you say “okay, but I’ll do it anyway.” That allowance, that doing, opens a door. You walk in and you do. In this process of doing, you release yourself even though you went in with negative feelings. You don’t want to do it but in the process of doing, you get free. Then when you get out, if you go back into the position which you went in with: oh, I wasted a lot of time. I shouldn’t have gone. I shouldn’t, . . . Many times that has happened. That happens to people. You start off thinking, “I don’t want to” but when you are doing you get into it because that is the law of life. You have to release yourself in order to get into whatever you don’t want to get into and so the releasing takes place. But then you close the door behind you by saying “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that.” Right away, whatever you did was lost. It is like you never did it. So your need for liberation will be according to your undertakings. Do your sadhana. Read the great sacred texts. Read the stories of great lives. Look and listen. Use all your senses to reach into the unmanifest. Om shanti.