by Gurani Anjali
How does a person reach greatness? How is a home built? How is a friend befriended? How does a relationship endure? How are great monuments built? How are children born? How do I continue to exist for you? How do you continue to exist for me? How? Any answers? I am looking for just one word. Would you like me to say it? You already know it, so why should I say it?
If I were to say it, you would say, “Oh, I knew that!” But you don’t really know it. You know it with your mind, but you don’t know it with your heart. You haven’t embodied it yet. It takes embodiment to know that word. It takes just one word to endure a relationship, to give birth to a baby, to bring life into the world, to build a house, to build a monument. The word is sacrifice. Just one word.
Without sacrifice, not even love is possible. Love is not a thing. No thing we experience is a thing “out there.” We try to say love is this or that, but the minute you say love is, it isn’t. Love is no, no, no thing. It is not a thing. Then what is it? This you must find out. You see, I can’t say everything. This is the power of the guru, not to say everything. The guru is to pull everything from within, to pull everything out of you.
There is a place called Sagara. There is a place called Jerusalem. There is a place called Mecca, a place called Medina. There is a place called Amityville. These places where people are seeking higher knowledge and where knowledge is imparted are holy ground, are places of sacrifice. In these places the wise sacrifice. In Mecca and Medina there is a great deal of power. Why? Because a life stood up to impart knowledge and to make the ignorant wise. In Jerusalem a life was sacrificed. Sagara is the name of the place where Kapila spent his last days. Do you know who Kapila was? He created the Samkhya that you are learning. Kapila spent his last days on the banks of a river in Calcutta, the place of my birth. He sacrificed there. Wherever you stand up and sacrifice, you make that place holy.
The place of sacrifice is a very painful place. Every place where one has to sacrifice is full of pain and torture. Believe me, I know. Think of carrying a baby in the womb for nine months, sometimes ten, seven or even five months, depending on the karma . It takes sacrifice to bring a life into the world. Then it takes sacrifice to rear the child up, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. All of you who are mothers know what I am talking about. It takes a lot of sacrifice, and the sacrifice doesn’t stop. Sacrifice does not stop.
Sacrifice is just like the breath. You have to keep on breathing, or else what happens? You die! It takes sacrifice. You have to keep breathing. Sacrifice is like that. You can say, “I have a sore throat, I’ve got a headache, I have a fever,” but still you go on. You still go on breathing. Even though you say, “My chest hurts, my this hurts, my that hurts,” you’ve got to keep on breathing. Sacrifice is like that. You have to keep on doing even though you are suffering. Sacrifice is suffering.
There are many thankless hearts in the world. You rarely get a thank you with a full heart. You wait for the golden day when that thank you will come after all your struggle, but no, you don’t get a sincere thank you. You get crucified. Accept the cross. Like Christ said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Get nailed on the cross. Are you ready to do that? That’s what spiritual life means. You have to keep on breathing and you have to keep on sacrificing . You cannot look for that thank you and hope it will come. The thank you only comes when you see a realized being there. Then you can say, “Ah, my work is complete. I did it.” But you won’t even get a thank you from that realized being, the one you helped get realized. Even that is hard to come by.
Sacrifice is very, very powerful. At the same time it is a must, it is a necessity. It is a real need in life. It is needed. You yourself have to sacrifice every day. Sometimes you go to work when you have a bad fever. You could call in sick, but if you do that too much they will definitely fire you. So you have to sacrifice the pain that you have. You have to endure that pain. You go to work because you have to live. So you sacrifice even for yourself. You keep on breathing. Breathing and sacrifice go hand in hand. If you are not sacrificing, you are not going to breathe. You would die. So you might as well sacrifice. Let go. Forget it.
You know the game. In life there is no reward. No matter how much you cry, you may get a little something from time to time, but actually it’s just crumbs. Nonetheless, just do in the doing and continue.
No great monument was built by fantasizing and saying, “Oh, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that.” No. A monument wasn’t built with that, with fantasies. A monument was built with sacrifice. Sacrifice encompasses love, encompasses endurance, encompasses devotion. It encompasses commitment, it encompasses meditation, it encompasses everything. In sacrifice everything is locked in. Everything is locked into sacrifice. Sacrifice is very, very important.
When you find yourself not remembering the word “sacrifice”, it is because you have not embodied it yet. You have to embody it. It has to become your flesh. Then you will be able to be crucified. And you will love it. Then you will say, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” You will be able to let go even at that moment. Are you hearing what I am saying? Even at that moment you will forgive. You will even enjoy this crucifixion. The cup is bitter but the taste is sweet because there is nonpossession, there is no thing. Sacrifice.
If you have a problem, remember your breath. You have to go through life inhaling and exhaling. Do not get stuck in any place. The breath never gets stuck. It stops a moment, but it keeps going. It lets go. It goes into the inhalation and it goes into the exhalation. It goes into the exhalation and stops a moment or two, then lets go of the exhalation and goes back into the inhalation. The experience is going into the satcitananda, going into the fire of brahman, paramatman. For a moment or two it all stops there. And then it goes, continues. The breath never stops.
Being in the human condition, we are conditioned to possess, to hold, to have the need of this or that. We tend to hold–to hold onto promises, to hold onto everything. But the fact of life is that everything is subject to change. This is terrifying, isn’t it? Every single thing is subject to change at any given moment. So why hold on? Just let it go. Let it go, but with sacrifice. How do you do that? You have to become a yogi, you have to give birth to a yogi. You have to become a bodhisattva. You have to take that golden oath. Continue to meditate and sacrifice until all sentient beings are self-realized. That is how you live. Survive, lessening each other’s burden, caring for each other. Bring joy and laughter to another. Lessen someone’s burden. Bring someone peace. Show someone the path. This must be lived. Then you can be.
Sacrifice is very important. With the mind we hold on and we don’t want to sacrifice. But life requires sacrifice, regardless of how much we hold on. The way of life is like the breath. Just inhale and exhale. Everything is subject to change and everything is moving. A child cries all night, a husband yells and screams. A wife is disappointed. No food, no this, no that. There are so many suffering people in the world, and yet they survive. They cry one minute, the next minute they are smiling. Everything is subject to change; nothing ever remains the same.
In our hearts we have to cultivate compassion. Compassion. It is very hard to cultivate compassion in a land of plenty. If you want something, go and get it. This is how it is in most cases now. There is no one to stop you. Go and take whatever you want. You can have it, you can have it, sure you can have it. One thing that is different between East and West is that in the East you find beggars all over. Everywhere you turn, there is a beggar, looking for a handout, crying out, “Ma, Ma,” constantly asking for something, constantly asking. And you are constantly giving.
In the East it is very easy to cultivate compassion. The suffering is always put right in your face. You see a leper in front of you, or a maimed individual, or a mother with five kids walking on the street. Here in the West a mother cannot even take care of one child. Terrible. Over there she is dragging five kids. Each child is holding on to the other, and they are pulling themselves through the street. Their bodies are all weak, and they are sick, almost dying out there on the road. But the mother is holding on to the five little ones and she is going. That is a woman for you. That is suffering. Over here you do not see that. You do not find that. Over here if you have no money you go to welfare. It is very nice, but everything is sanitized, you see, sanitized. You don’t see the pain. In the East you can see the pain. It is very open. They come and pull out of you your compassionate heart. They pull it out of you and you cannot help but give. But you cannot give to all of them or you would die yourself.
Over here you do not have that opportunity to see the sick, the suffering, the maimed, the lunatics. What you see are mannequins, those meticulous looking things in the department stores with their nice clothes and cleanshaven looks. You look at those things that are nicely manicured and cleancut, and you think you are supposed to be like that. So what do you do? The average person becomes a mannequin too. What you see, you become.
How are great places born? How is a home sustained, built, kept? Through sacrificing, not by acquiring more things, not by having new furniture, new curtains, new carpets. No, a lot of people think that they want to have a “nice” home. They do not want to have a home; they want to have a “nice” home. There is a difference between a nice home and a home. A home has warmth that comes from the soul, from within. A home has care, care and warmth, not just gas and electric. A home secures and holds a relationship. It sustains and is sustained through sacrifice.
To sacrifice you have to see the other. You have to see the other. You cannot demand anything of the other. You cannot want anything from anyone. It is very hard to get anything from someone. Everyone is in need and is in want. Everyone is needing and wanting. So how can you want from someone who is wanting and needing? Such people cannot give. As long as people are wanting or needing, they are in no position to give. They can be there as a body in your presence reflecting to you that you are also in that position. This is life, this is truth, this is reality. A person may have a lot of wealth, but then you look at him or her and you begin to see that all that wealth was born through a great deal of pain. So how can you want what that person wanted?
You have to see the other. To be a friend, you have to see someone and say, “Ah, my friend, bewitched am I, caught in the rapture of one passing by. As the spinning goes by and the turning is there, I am caught in the rapture of one passing by, one passing by, one passing by.” This is life, this is reality. We have to be there for the other. You have to be there with that feeling, with that heartfelt feeling of “This human being is not going to be here forever.” In two minutes that person in front of you may not be there. Something drastic could happen.
We always take security from the past and we think that because it was like that yesterday, it is going to be the same today, and it will continue tomorrow. This is foolishness. This is real insecurity. We depend on samskaras, the past. Because he was there, or she was there, or they were there yesterday, we think they are going to be there tomorrow. Forget it! The yogi lives just with today. There is no tomorrow. There is no yesterday, no past. Forget it! It is over! You have to be in the moment without expecting anything from the other.
The only one you can expect something from is yourself. Expect from you. Expect how you can be warm in the moment. Give more and you will be amazed. You are like the ocean. You never dry up. You are full of wealth and power. You have everything. Feel you are the ocean, and in that moment be ready to give of yourself. But do not become vulnerable to the other’s greed. Be watchful of it, mindful. Use your intelligence, because there are individuals who will exploit you. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The power lies in the hands of the giver. The power also lies in the hands of the taker. Your damnation or your survival is in your hands, in your taking and in your giving. There is so much life. Just live it one day at a time.
There are so many great lives that have lived. How did they become so great? Today we can sit and talk about their lives. Christmas is coming, and all through the Christian world people are going to be singing about Christ. Likewise, every year in the place called Sagara, all the devotees and all the people who do yoga take pilgrimage to Sagara to remember Kapila and how he spent his last days in the cold and in the rain of the monsoons. He shrivelled up and left the body. But he gave to the world the jewel that money cannot buy: knowledge, knowledge.
To live and coexist is very easy to do. It is very easy to coexist, to live me for you and you for me. It seems easy to be for each other. But the klesas will not allow you to see it. The klesas–avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa (ignorance, 1-amness, attachment, aversion and clinging w life) will not allow it. The power of lust, the power of greed, the power of ignorance keep us from knowing reality and will not allow one to coexist peacefully.
Despite all this, we are very peaceful beings. We can exist peacefully, right? Don’t you feel you can exist very peacefully? You can live and give to one another. Don’t you feel you can do that? But why is it that we don’t do it? The ego comes in. The play of illusion comes in and does not allow that to happen. This comes from the klesas, from ignorance (avidya), not knowing the reality of life, not knowing the truth. That reality can come only from embodiment. For that, one must sacrifice. Sacrifice is a must. There is no way out. Om Shanti.
Question:
Now that my son is a year old, he is into everything. He explores and wants to touch everything. I feel tom apart sometimes. My question is, how do discipline him and still give him space to grow?
The Gurani’s response:
Well, he has the space to grow and he can grow all by himself. All you have to do is give him food and warmth. Make sure he has everything, because through his exploring he finds out about this world he is in. He is only one year in this world. You have been here for many years, so you have gotten accustomed to control. Now you have a child in your presence, and the child is telling you, “Let go! Don’t control!” The child is teaching the parents not to control. Do not possess. Let the child go.
Do not possess. Let the child go here and there. If you don’t want the child to touch something, just put it in a place where he cannot reach. That is part of growing up, learning about his life. He must be allowed the space to go wherever he wants to go and get into whatever he wants. Just be a guide and watch that he does not get hurt. He doesn’t know where he is yet. And believe me, many people in their forties, fifties, and sixties, not to mention those in their twenties and thirties, still do not know that they are here. So before you try discipling a one year old, try it on yourself first.
I hoped you liked my answer. Maybe you did, maybe you did not, but we both shared in an experience right now, and that’s the important thing.
Om Shanti.
Continue to walk.
Stop and face each other. We stand face to face.
Neither I see me, nor you see you. Then where are we?
Where am I? Who am I, that you should stop and look at me?
Om Shanti.
Continue to walk. Stop.
Face North. Face East. Face West. Face South.
(This is repeated five times.)
Look up. Look down. Look up. Look down.
Look up. Look down. Look behind you.
Look in front of you. Look up. Look down.
Look to the left. Look to the right.
Look in back of you. Look in front of you.
Look up. Look down. Look up. Look down.
Look behind you. Look in front of you.
Look up. Look down. Look up. Look down.
Look to yourself.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
I hope you have been blessed with knowledge this morning. I hope you have made a connection. I wish you a prosperous life, and may you make the ultimate connection between the jiva-atman and the parama-atman. My sacrifice is to make certain that every sentient being makes that connection. To that end, I will continue to sacrifice. May you do the same. Om Shanti.
Let us end this meditation with the Gayatri Mantra.
(Gayatri Mantra)
Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti