Learn to feel yourself in
other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the
winds. Spit out your actions, good or had, and never think of them again. What
is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of
death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your
good deeds; be azad. The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach
atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it, but be careful never to
do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all,
both good and had. Do not keep the good and give only the had. God helps those
who do not help themselves.
When you have acquired the
feeling of non-attachment, there will then be neither good nor evil for you. It
is only selfishness that causes the difference between good and evil. It is a
very hard thing to understand, but you will come to learn in time that nothing
in the universe has power over you until you allow it to exercise such a power.
Nothing has power over the self of man, until the self becomes a fool and loses
independence. So, by non attachment you overcome and deny the power of anything
to act upon you. It is very easy to say that nothing has the right to act upon
you until you allow it to do so; but what is the true sign of the man who…. Is
neither happy nor unhappy when acted upon by the external world? The sign is
that good or ill fortune causes no change in his mind: in all conditions he
continues to remain the same.
All these things which we
call causes of misery and evil, we shall laugh at when we at that wonderful
state of equality, that sameness. This is what is called in Vedanta attaining
to freedom. The sign of approaching that freedom is more and more of this
sameness and equality. In misery and happiness the same, in success and defeat
the same such a mind is nearing that state of freedom.
He who has succeeded in
attaching or detaching his mind to or from the centre’s at will has succeeded
in Pratyahara, which means, “gathering towards,” checking the outgoing powers
of the mind, freeing it from the thralldom of the sense. When we can do this,
we shall really possess character; then alone we shall have taken a long step
towards freedom; before that we are mere machines.
The sage wants liberty; he
finds that sense objects are all vain and that there is no end to pleasures and
pains. How many rich people in the world want to find fresh pleasures! All
pleasures are old, and they want new ones. Do you not see how many foolish
things they are inventing every day, just to titillate the nerves for a moment,
and that done, how there comes a reaction? The majority of people are just like
a flock of sheep. If the leading sheep falls into a ditch, all the rest follow
and break their necks. In the same way, what one leading member of a society
does all the others do without thinking what they are doing. When a man begins
to see the vanity of worldly things, he will feel he ought not to be thus
played upon or borne along by nature. That is slavery. If a man has a few kind
words said to him, he begins to smile, and when he hears a few harsh words, he
begins to weep. He is a slave to a bit of bread, to a breath of air; a slave to
dress, a slave to patriotism to country to name and to fame. He is thus in the
midst of slavery and the real man has become buried within through his bondage.
What you call man is a slave. When one realizes all this slavery then comes the
desire to be free; an intense desire comes. If a piece of burning charcoal be
placed on a man’s head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be
the struggle for freedom of a man who really understands that he is a slave of
nature.
Be free, and then have any
number of personalities you like. Then we will play like the actor who comes
upon the stage and plays the part of a beggar. Contrast him with the actual
beggar walking in the streets. The scene is perhaps, the same in both cases the
words are perhaps the same but yet what difference, the one enjoys his beggary
while the other is suffering misery from it. And what makes this difference?
The one is free and the other is bound. The actor knows his beggary is not
true, but that he has assumed it for play, while the real beggar thinks that it
is his too familiar states and that he has to bear it whether he wills it or
not. This is the law. So long as we have no knowledge of our real nature, we
are beggars, jostled about by every force in nature; and made slaves of by
everything in nature; we cry all over the world for help but help never comes
to us; we cry to imaginary beings and yet it never comes. But still we hope
help will come and thus in weeping wailing and hoping one life is passed, and
the same play goes on and on.
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