A Commentary of Bhakti Sutras
Vol. 4 Rejoicing Without Conflict
By H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
At St. Mathicu du Pare Canadian Ashram on July 21st, 2002
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Love and discipline are so opposite in nature. A discipline simply not required when there is love. Have you noticed? You don’t have to discipline yourself to do something which you love. Where there is interest, there is no need of a discipline, there is no need of a rule, there is no need of a law. Lovers know no rules. Rules belong to the head and heart knows no laws. But you can not disgorge the discipline, you can not discard that law. Discipline is required. Don’t think conflict alone create chaos, love creates confusion and chaos. Even in ordre to maintain love, you need certain discipline. Narada said you have to perserve, you have to perserve the laws, you have to maintain the discipline.
Same with food and other day to day matters. Lokopi tavdeva bhojanadi vyapara stvasharira dharanavadhi. Even in your day to day activity is good to have some discipline. Discipline is required where it doesn’t interest you. In a state of static love, nothing interest you. People who are in love, they don’t care when they eat, when they sleep, what they do. He said don’t ignore that. Sometime you love some works, you keep working, keep working, keep working, you don’t eat properly. And you continue doing like this, the body has only certain amount of elasticity after that you collapse. Don’t do anything too much.
There is a saying Atisa vadra verche – anything in extreme should be dropped. Even it is meditation, even it is love, even it is talking. You know, when you love somebody, you over-power them, you suffocate them, you talk too much. You nauseate them, they want to run away from you. (laughter) Have some discipline, have some restrain. That is the way to perserve love. Otherwise, love turns so old. Why do so many loved marriage break up so fast? Six months to one year... people break, they divorce their marriage, their relationship. Not those who have lukewarm love but those who have intense love. It’s they who are in trouble. Because they express everything too much. Observe certain discipline, center back to the self. Your focus is always on the other. Even in worldly matter, day to day matter, like eating food, excising, walking, doing things follow certain rules, certain discipline. You may not like it but still do it. For that will uphold you. Discipline is shriveling the freedom. It appears that way but I tell you discipline will give freedom too. It’s so difficult for a child to brush its teeth everyday, the mother is on the back. “Did you brush your teeth morning and night?” And the discipline brings the freedom of toothache, decay tooth. See the other side of discipline, it brings you freedom in the long run. And only freedom can elevate us to the divine love. Hmm... Follow certain discipline. Don’t have to rigid about it because you are beyond discipline. Love takes you beyond the rules. But yet, it’s good to have certain rules. Police can violate the traffice rules. An ambulance can go the way they want to go, they can drive left, they can drive right when it’s needed. They use it only when it is needed. They don’t overtake every car that passes by. But they do when it is needed. Rules and discipline are there to be broken sometime but they shold exist too! Only then you can break it.
Tallakshannani vachyante nana matbhedat
Now, Narada said I’ll enunciate the signs of love in various different opinions. Love knows no boundary. It can accommodate all the opposite values in its lap. Intellect often does not appreciate different opinions though they rise from intellect. But heart can accommodate all different opinions. One who has a big heart can acknowledge other’s stand point. They will not say “Only I am correct!” He says “This is one view point, that is also another one view point. I am correct, you can also be correct.” Someone says now it is night, it is correct. Someone else says it is day time now. It is also correct but somewhere else. (laughter) Tallakshannani vachyante nana matbhedat. Differences of opinion, many sages have come out signs or qualities of love. Narada first mentioned all the others great seers and then put his own opinion. This was the way of the sages. They will put the opinion of other great man first, these are their opinions and it is my opinion along with these.
Poojadishu anurag iti Parasharyah
Love to do pooja is according to Parasharyah, a sign of love. Now, what is pooja? Pooja is considered to be a ritual that is what commonly understood and known. Pooja means that which is born out of fullness. An action, an expression that comes out of fullness of heart is pooja. Poo means fullness. Ja means that is born out of it. When there is so much of love, when every particle of you is throbbing with love that energy expresses itself in some actions that action is called pooja. The nature loves you and what does the nature do to you? The nature gives you food, it gives you grain, it showers water on you. It charms you with millions of flowers and gives you fragrants. It feeds you. And it takes sun and moon around you, gives you different type of lights. It gives you light of moon in the night and the bright sun when you needed in the day time. This act of nature for you is pooja. And the rishi invented a similar ritual, a small ritual called it pooja. You also imitate the whole thing to the divine. You say to the divine “Let my light always goes around you, around you.” This is called Aarti. Aarti means the total estacy, the total joy, total pleasure is Arrti. It is a custom in India even today, any guest comes or some honorable person comes home or any wedding or ceremony at home or in the temple, they light a lamp or camphor take it around you, saying “Let there be light all around you.” This is pooja. An expression of gratefulness is pooja. An expression of immense gratitude is pooja. Parasharyah said the love to express is a sign of divine love. When there is love, you won’t say “Let me alone. Let me keep it to myself.” When you are happy, you want to share that with everybody. When you love something, you take the telephone and dial everybody and you have to talk, talk, talk for a long time to express what you love otherwise you can’t sleep. (laughter) it stifles you. This is a sort of pooja. Expressing the fullness of your heart. Expressing the gratitude. That is worship. The nature worships you and you reciprocate. For divine dwells in every particle of this creation. Poojadishu anurag iti Parasharyah Love to do acts similar to pooja is a sign of love.
Kathadishviti Gargah But Gargah has different opinion. Gargah, Gargah rishi was of different idea or opinion. Gargah rishi was of different opinion. What it says—talking about it, telling stories—is a sign of love. When you love somebody, you don’t stop talking about them. You can’t stop talking about them and you tell the stories, “You know what happened?”. You can find this with the grandparents when they first become grand parents, first grandchild is born in their family. They talk about the baby all the time. For them it is a unique child, they’ve never seen anybody like that. I heard a grandparent saying, “You know my grandson is just 4 months old, but he can watch TV and figure out what is happening there. (laughter) When he gabbles, the bulls was winning the match, he was raising his fingers like that.” (laughter) What do the baby know? They think, “Oh, very brilliant boy. You keep anything in front of him, he’ll kick it. He knows soccer, seems to be great soccer player!” Four-months old baby? Soccer player!? But for parents, for grandparents, that’s the joy. If the father is a soccer fan and he wishes his son also does all that. They can’t stop talking about the child. They think, “See, he looks at me.” whenever there’s something, “Oh, you look he knows. The baby is very special. Never seen a child so special.” (laughter) Every mother feels the child is so special. Every grandparent, their child is out of this world. This is Gargah, this is the sign of love.
Another sign of Divine Love is praising, talking about, telling stories. Tell stories, people by hearing it will feel elevated. Talk negative things you can put down people, even an enthusiastic person and you see, “This is hopeless, that is hopeless, that is hopeless, everything is hopeless. There is no hope in the world.” They come to you with some little hope and then they go back with feeling even hopeless. (laughter) This is not a sign of good company. A good company is one with whom you go and whatever you talk, and when you go away from them, you do feel light, you feel uplifted, you feel inspired. Others you feel more doubtful, drowning, miserable and walk away from them. Such company is a bad company. The sign of love is stories, rejoicing in the stories. Divine Love manifests in so many ways in this planet. Hmm...
Atmarati avirodhena iti Shandilyah.
Rishi Shandilyah said, “It’s rejoicing in oneself without any conflict.” Rejoicing in the Self without any conflict, sign of love. You know when you begin to enjoy anything, suddenly some conflict arises in you. How many of you notice this? Many of you notice it. You are happy, suddenly comes, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t be feeling this happy. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.” The conflict comes and puts an end to your joy. Conflict again I say is the handwork of the intellect, rejoicing is that of the heart. So when there’s a conflict between the intellect and the heart, you cannot rejoice without conflict. But it is the deep meditation the self dawning of the understand “who I am” can put an end to this conflict of intellect and the heart and the love. Sign of love is rejoicing without conflict. Reposing in oneself without conflict. Shandilyah was another rishi who also spoke on Divine Love, but he was so chaotic. There is a colloquial expression in India if someone just does whatever they want to, we say, “They are doing the Shandilyah technique.” means he is just hotchpotch does anything, but he has arrived the good result, because he has no conflict in doing anything, rejoicing without conflict. A work you do, a holiday you enjoy, a service you’re engaged in or conversation you do, all these can be done without conflict. And how? By relaxing into the Self. But this may not work for anybody.
So Narada says, “But my opinion is—Naradastu tadarpita akhilacharata tadvismarne param vyakulteti, but my opinion is” he says, “when conflict arises or you do something good, offer everything to the Divine, I would prefer that offer all my good and bad deeds everything at the feet of the Divine.” And whenever I am miserable, I simply have to remember because I have forgotten the Divinity. It’s when they forgot the God loves me, I’m miserable. In the worst situation, condition, if I can just remember the Divine loves me, that there is this Divine unconditional love, my misery will not be there. Sorrow or misery means going away from Self, for this being Self is all joyful, and you become utterly restless when you are away from it, this is another sign of love. Restlessness when the presence is not available, sign of love.
Love and longing, they go together. How can you long for something that you don’t love? And if there is no longing, there’s no love at all. And for love to live longer, longing is essencial. And longing needs a little distance, a gap. It has been like that in the life of Gopis, it’s what Narada says. The gopis couldnot forget for a moment his presence. Forgetfulness of his presence brought so much restlessness in them. The restlessness of longing reminds them back of that pleasure, of that love. Love and longing they go together, they have to be together. That’s longing is Radha, love is sham. They say, “Radha sham” what do you mean? The longing for the Divine Love. Radhe govind, govind is love, radha is longing.
Lack of this understanding, we try to get rid of the longing. There is no proper solution or understanding, we become more and more and more miserable. When we become miserable, we start hating the people for our cause of the misery. Bhakti Sutras just lift them up from this mess. The ancient rishi made a rule in India the particular month, August month you know, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law cannot be in the same house. So the daughter-in-law is usually sent to their parents’ house one month. She has to go and live away from the husband for one month. That is the month of maximum business for the postal services. One month because she stays away from her beloved, her husband and there are lot of letters, those days there were no phone calls. So longing would increase, one-month for a period kept aside for longing. There is a place for longing. Do not suffocate anybody. Keep a little space. Two feverish people get together suffocate each other. They find their love has disappeared, evaporated somewhere.
Love is not an action. It is your very existence, your very being, your very nature. And longing is the integral part of it. Love can never be completed, do you know why? Completion means boundaries, the end of it. Love can never find it because the longing keeps it. Longgg...ing keeps it infinity, endless. So it’s incompleted. Rejoicing in the incompleteness is what the Gopis did. Astya evam evam, it did happen like that. There is an example the love of the gopis for Krishna. Yatha vraj gopikanam, like the Gopis in Brindaven. Krishna was just 15 years old when he left Brindaven. That young boy had won the hearts of the entire community, they were mesmerize by his presence, by his love, by his looks, by his glance. That is an example of love.
Tadarpita akhilacharata tad vismarne param vyakulteti.
So whatever action that has happened through you, offer them all. Relax. Akhilacha—all the actions. Don’t have to take that as an excuse to do whatever you want to do. Like the Gopis, they thought about Krishna, experienced His presence. They were so intoxicated. It did happen that way. It is an example. Hmm...
Jai Jai Radha Ramana Hari Bol
Jai Jai Radha Ramana Hari Bol
Jai Jai Radha Ramana Hari Bol
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