Chapter 13 - Embers Covered In Ash
Day 65
The power, by which water transforms into water vapour, rises up and falls down as rain is the same power by which we see with the eyes and hear with the ears.
There is no difference between these two, the energy of life and the energy of the sun. In the Gita, when Krishna was asked where he is.
He replied - "I exist in everyone's stomach as hunger. I am also the power of digestion." After saying this, he told Arjuna, "You think that you are Arjuna of the Pandavas? Even Arjuna is me.
The one who is speaking is me, and the one who is listening is also me." The whole word is created through one energy. I am the center point of that energy."
This is the essence of Vedanta and the essence of the Shiva Sutras. Even if only a part of this sutra enters your mind, it will automatically create complete faith, trust and confidence in you.
Krishna goes on to say, “I am not only creating all this, but I am also annihilating it. The end of creation also happens through me. I alone am responsible”.
How does this come about? Imagine that you come back from the office in the evening and switch on the TV. You are the one who turns it on, right? If you do not turn it on, it will not start automatically.
And who watches TV after turning it on? Who switches it off after watching? The TV is switched on by you, you watch it and you alone turn it off when you finish watching.
Say you are ready to have a meal, and all the items are placed nicely on a plate or a banana leaf. You will eat to your heart's content and after finishing, you will fold the leaf and throw it away.
You do not keep the leaf, saying, “The food was so nicely placed on this leaf. This would be foolishness. Is it not?” There is an end to any work that has started.
We breathe in, and we also have to breathe out. Can you say, "Let me hold onto all the air that I inhale"? If you say "Let the air that breathe out stay out," can life continue?
It is the same with creation. "I have created all this from my energy, in the same way I will sustain it and when it is no longer required I will destroy it."
This is complete knowledge. You make decoration for a marriage by building an arch and placing banana tree stems. After the ceremony, you remove all the decorations. Is it not?
Another example is when you arrange dolls for the festival of Dassera. All the preparations are carefully made, elaborately arranging the dolls and making steps with wooden planks, boxes and bricks.
There is festivity in each house when the dolls are decorated. A miniature park is created, fountains are turned on, and sweets are distributed to children.
Children cry when all this comes to an end - after the tenth day, Vijaya Dashami, everything goes back in the box. The elders say, Everything is over. How long do you want to keep it for?"
Then they take down everything. We created it, kept it for a few days and took it down. Why? This is just like a game. Suppose you draw beautiful rangoli (traditional decorative designs made with powder) in front of the house.
Do you keep the rangoli intact forever? No, it is not. It is so natural for us to draw rangoli and afterwards wipe it away. Similarly, an enlightened person creates a world of his own and brings it to an end when it is no longer required.
You wear new clothes and later discard them. Likewise, you make friends with someone, and after some days as the friendship becomes closer, it is possible that it may become sour and end. Is it not?
Yet when both people have a deep understanding of the Self then the relationship will not have problems. In any other relationship, which may be so strong that both say, "I am here for you, and you are here for me," a time may come when each says, "I do not know you."
Maybe not today, but one day it will happen, for sure. If a friendship is not so deep, then it has less of a chance of going sour. Is it not? Suppose new neighbours move in next door.
You welcome them with homemade treats and talk with them. You share plates and boxes across the wall that separates the two houses. On some days you eat in one house, and sometimes in the other.
This will continue for some days, and then a separation will occur, and the story will change. This is only natural. Do you understand? Do not think that spiritual knowledge is some great thing that exists somewhere outside you.
Only when we go deep in knowledge is it possible to keep harmony and unity intact. Until we find the source of knowledge, as long as we are missing spiritual knowledge, or knowledge of the self.
We will only wander along the periphery of life. If this is the case, our friendships will not deepen nor will our problems find a resolution. Even though an enlightened person is involved in action, he is beyond action and has attained a higher state.
These are the words of an enlightened one. Sometimes we try to understand others when it is difficult even to understand ourselves. We do not understand our own mind, but we still judge others, what they are feeling and what they are doing.
There is nothing more foolish. It is like trying to extract oil from
sand. We have not understood this properly. The phrase "extracting oil from sand" means that oil is extracted from the desert, but not from the sand.
We have not understood our own mind, yet we try to understand the mind of others.
