Listen to your ‘Inner Sense’

          A boy was constantly scratching his head.  His father looked at him one day and said, “Son, why are you always scratching your head?”

          “Well”, the  boy responded, “I guess because I am the only one who knows it itches.”

          This is inner sense! Only you know.  Nobody else can know.  It cannot be observed from the outside.  When you have a headache, only you know – you cannot prove it..  When you are happy, only you know – you cannot prove it.  You cannot put it on the table to be inspected by everybody, dissected, analyzed.

          Inner sense has it own validity.  But because of the scientific training, people have lost trust in their inner sense.  They depend on others.  You depend s much that if somebody says, “You are looking very happy,” you start feeling happy.  If twenty people decide to make you unhappy, they can make you unhappy.  They just have to repeat it the whole – day – whenever you come across them, they have to say to you, “you are looking very unhappy, very sad.  What is the matter? Somebody died or something?” And you will start suspecting; so many people are saying that you are unhappy, you must be. 

          You depend on people’s opinions.  You have depended on people’s opinions so much that you have lost all tract of inner sense.  This inner sense has to be rediscovered, because all that is beautiful and all that is good and all that is divine can be felt only by the inner sense.

          Vivekananda went to Ramakrishna, and he said, “There is no God! I can prove it – there is no God.” He was a very logical skeptical man, well educated in Western philosophical thinking.  Ramakrishna was an uneducated, illiterate person.  And Ramakrishna says, “Okay, so prove!”.

          Vivekananda talked much, gave all the proofs that he had.  And Ramakrishna listened, and then he said, “But my inner sense says God is – and that is the final authority.  All that you are saying is argumentation.  What does your inner sense say?”

          Vivekananda had not even thought about it.  He shrugged his shoulders.  He had read books, he had collected arguments, proofs for and against, and he had tried to decide whether God exists or not according to these proofs. But he had not looked in.  He had not asked his inner sense. 

          It is so stupid, but the skeptical mind is stupid, the logical mind is stupid.

          Ramakrishna said, “Your arguments are beautiful, I enjoyed.  But what can I do? I know! My inner sense says he is.  Just as my inner sense says I am happy, I am ill, I am sad, my stomach is hurting, that today I am not feeling well, so my inner sense says God is.  It is not a question of debate”.

          And Ramakrishna said, “I cannot prove it, but if you want, I can show you,” Nobody had told Vivekananda before that God can be shown.  And before he could say anything Ramakrishna jumped – he was a wild man – he jumped and put his feet on Vivekananda’s chest! And something happened, some energy jumped and Vivekananda  fell into a trance for three hours.  When he opened his eyes, he was a totally different man.

          Ramakrishna said, “What do you say now? God is, or God is not? What does your inner sense say now?”

          He was in such tranquility, such stillness, as he had never known before.  There was such jubilation inside, such well-being, such overflowing well-being.  He had to bow down and touch Ramakrishna’s feet and say, “Yes, God is.”

          It is through the inner sense that God is known.

Needs are very few and a man who understands what is needful will always be happy and blissful. Desires are many, needs are few. Needs can be fulfilled; desires, never. A desire is a need gone crazy. It is impossible to fulfill it. The more you try to fulfill it, the more it goes on asking, asking, asking.

There is a sufi story that when Alexander died and he reached heaven, he was carrying all his weight -- his whole kingdom, gold, diamonds -- of course not in reality, but in an idea.

Ideas have as much weight; in fact an idea is the real weight. He was burdened too much by being Alexander.

The gatekeeper started laughing and he said 'Why are you carrying so much of a burden?' Alexander said 'What burden?' because really he was carrying nothing. Everything was in the head, but the head was very heavy.
The gatekeeper gave him a scale and put an eye on one side of the scale. He told Alexander to put all his weight, all his greatness, treasures, kingdom, on the other side of the scale. Alexander put all his kingdom, all his wealth, his victories, and everything there. That one eye still remained heavier than all his kingdom, so finding no other way, he himself jumped onto the scales, but still the one eye remained heavier.
He said to the gatekeeper, 'I cannot understand how such a small eye can be so weighty. What is it? Are you playing some trick, some magic with me?'
The gatekeeper said, 'This is a human eye. It represents human desire... the outgoing desire.'
'It cannot be fulfilled, howsoever great the kingdom and howsoever great your efforts. Even a single human eye full of desires cannot be fulfilled.'
Then Alexander said 'Then what is the way to fulfill it?'
The gatekeeper threw a little dust into the eye. The eye immediately blinked and lost all its weight. It was immediately weightless.

The story is beautiful.

A little dust of understanding has to be thrown into the eye of desire. The desire disappears and only needs remain, and they are not weighty. Needs are very few... needs are beautiful. Desires are ugly and they make monsters of men. They create mad people.
This has been a good insight for everyone.  Remember it always, and always choose that which is more peaceful.

            Know that you are the creator of your destiny.

            Every thought that we think, every deed that we do, after a certain time becomes fine, goes into seed form so to speak, and lives in the subtle body in a potential form, and after a time it emerges again and  bears its results.  These results condition the life of man.  Thus the human being moulds his own life.  Man is not bound by any other laws excepting those which he makes for himself.

            Once we set in motion a certain power, we have to take the full consequence.  That is the law Karma.

            We are responsible for what we are; and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.  If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future, can be produced by our present actions, so we have to know how to act.

            Men in general lay all the blame of life on their fellow-men, or failing that, on God, or they conjure up a ghost, and say it is fate.  Where is fate, and who is fate?  We reap and what we sow.  We are the makers of our own fate, and who has the blame, none has the praise. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind.  Is that the fault of the wind? Is it the fault of the merciful Father, whose wind of mercy is blowing without ceasing, day and night, whose mercy knows no decay, is it His fault that some of us are happy and some unhappy.  We made our own destiny.  His infinite mercy is open to everyone, at all times, in all places, under all conditions, unfailing, unswerving. Blame neither man, nor God, nor anyone in the world.  When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.  Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny and all the strength and succour you want is within yourself.

Hate will be almost impossible because before you can hate somebody else, first you have to create the poison within yourself.  You can give something to somebody only if you have it.  You can hate only if you are full of hate.  And to be full of hate is to suffer hell.  To be full of hate is to be on fire.  To be full of hate means you are wounding yourself first.  Before you can wound somebody else, you have to wound yourself.  The other may not be wounded, it will depend on the other.  But one thing is absolutely certain; that before you can hate, you have to go through long suffering and misery.  The other may not accept your hatred, may reject it.  The other may be a Buddha – he may simply laugh at it.  He may forgive you, he may not react.  You may not be able to wound him if he is not ready to react.  If you cannot disturb him, what can you do? You will feel impotent before him.

            So it is not necessarily so that the other is going to be wounded.  But one thing is absolutely certain, that if you hate somebody, first you have to wound your own soul in so many ways; you have to be so full of poison that you can throw poison on others.

A kindly woman can make a sad man sing,
With her love and affection winter seems like spring.
Of all the pleasures in life given to a man,
There's nothing beats the touch of a woman's soft hand.

Give Me Strength

This is my prayer to thee, my lord---strike,  strike at the root of penury in my heart.
Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.
Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.
Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.
Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.
And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love. 

                                             (xxxvi - rabindranath tagore - gitanjali)

Life is in community. Life is a communion, so don't try to escape from the world, and don't try to remain in a solitary life. Because the richness is in the community; you are enriched by the community, by your relationships. The more you are related to people, the more you are rich. A solitary person living in a Himalayan cave is very poor, impoverished -- because rivers of relationships don't flow in him. He becomes a desert.
Each time somebody looks into you, a river flows in. Each time somebody shakes a hand with you, an energy moves into you. Each time there is a contact, you gain something. When you drop out of all contacts, out of relationship, and you become a solitary monk in a Himalayan cave, you have almost committed suicide. You are only one percent alive. Just because you breathe, you are alive. This is a sort of death: you are living at the minimum, you are not living at all, you are living very grudgingly, you are living very reluctantly, you are living with a deep complaint that you don't want to live and you have been forced to live. You don't want this world at all: the rainbows and the trees and the stars and the people.... No, you don't want to relate with anybody.
When you don't want to relate with anybody, your contact with God is diminished, TERRIBLY diminished. When you come into relationship with a man, or with a tree, or with an animal, you are coming in contact with God in different forms. To be in the community is the only way to be really alive. Relationship is life, and relationship is beautiful.

Fear can stop energy because basically fear is nothing but a shrinking.

When you are happy you expand, when you are unafraid you expand. When you are afraid you shrink, you hide in your shell, because if you go out there may be some danger. You shrink in every way -- in love, in relationships, in meditation, in every way. You are afraid to go out. You become a turtle and you shrink inside.
Because of that shrinking, fear stops all movement of energy, and if you remain in fear continuously, as many people live, constantly in fear, by and by the elasticity of energy is lost. Then you become a stagnant pool. You are no more flowing, no more a river. Then one feels more and more dead, more and more dead every day.
Life is in contact. Life is in flow... Life is in movement. To be stagnant is to commit suicide. It is just as if you bring your hand near a flame. The moment you feel it is hot, your hand shrinks back. But this is good... this is a natural protection.
One should use fear when needed. When the house is on fire you have to escape. You don't try being unafraid there or you will be a fool. Fear has a natural use. One should remain capable of shrinking also because there are moments when one needs to stop the flow. But those moments should not become one's habitual pattern. One should not start living in that way continuously. One should be able to go out, to come in, to go out, to come in. This is the flexibility: expansion, shrinking, expansion, shrinking.

It is just like breathing. You breathe out, the chest falls down, the lungs shrink. You breathe in, the lungs expand.

People who are very much afraid don't breathe deeply, because even that expansion gives fear. They start breathing very shallowly. Their chest will shrink; they will have a sunken chest.

So that's right. Try to find out ways to make your energy move. Even sometimes anger is good. At least it makes your energy move. If you have to choose between fear and anger, choose anger. At least it will make you more dynamic, more alive. At least you will have some sort of contact with somebody. You may have a good fight with somebody but at least it is some sort of contact. You will not be frozen, you will have some warmth.

So always remember that... but don't go to the other extreme. Expansion is good but you should not become addicted to it. It should not become again a sort of incapacity so that you cannot shrink. The real thing to remember is flexibility: the capacity to move from one end to another, from one extreme to another. A man is young in proportion to his flexibility. Watch a small child. He's so soft, tender and flexible. As you grow old everything becomes tight, hard, inflexible. That is the old age.
Remember, a man can remain absolutely young to the very moment of death if he remains flexible. That will give you a depth of life, a qualitative life.