Beyond the layers of existence

🌷 Katho Upanishad 🌷

       

      Chapter 4

   

      Beyond the layers of existence

    🌻Day 38 🌻

विज्ञानसारथिर्यस्तु मनः प्रग्रहवान्नरः ।

सोऽध्वनः पारमप्नोति तद्विष्णो परमं पदम् ॥

With that scientific temper and subtlety of feeling, one attains that abode of Vishnu!

Question: When you die will you recognize your friends and everybody?

Sri Sri : Yes, when you die , the first person you meet is your Guru. Then you meet your mother, ancestors, father, and grandparents. They all shake your hands and welcome you.

Question: why does the divine split itself into so many forms, make all this drama, and one day go back to its original form?

Sri Sri : it does, by its own grace. It blesses “Ok, you are gasping for breath. You legs

are tired, arms are tired. You have swam enough. Your skin is getting soggy.” Doesn’t your skin get soggy when you are in the water too long? Then you say, “Enough is Enough”, take a towel and wipe yourself, in the same way.

Question: What is suffering?

Sri Sri : If you know pain is just momentary – it just comes and goes, you don’t mind the pain. You go to doctor and he gives you a prick. You don’t mind the pain. You are doing exercise with dumbbells and it pains. You enjoy that pain. Why you don’t

like suffering, because in suffering you feel, “Oh! This is death.’ You associate death with suffering. That is why there is fear. Just simple pain doesn’t give you suffering. You willingly undergo many pains.

By understanding this, layer by layer, going scientifically, “I pay more attention to my mind than to the senses, and to the intellect more than to the mind.” Because the mind goes up and down. Sometimes, the mind likes this, doesn’t like that. You always justify what you like, justify what you don’t like. Like that you see mind, intellect, beyond that is ego. Why this is so? “Because its mine. Someone saying some words to somebody else doesn’t bother me.” But if they said that to me then “why did the say that to me?” if you go beyond that and see, it is just their opinion. If someone passes a derogatory remark on you, how do you see it beyond the ego? With compassion, “Ok, they are saying something because they are upset.” You don’t get hurt. When someone calls the person next to you stupid, you see it as a witness but when he does the same to you, there is a difference. Do you see the difference? If you can see that also from the same angle, as though they are fighting with somebody else, then you see it beyond ego. Then you say, “He must be tired, stressed out” , instead of taking it as a personal attack on you, you will see the state of mind, intention or

 consciousness behind the action.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

Katho Upanishad