Chapter 1 - A Bridge To The Divine
Day 4
It cannot be an object of desire. When the desires cease, then love can be felt, experienced. Don’t make love an object of desire. Desire means what?
Not now, not this, something in the future. Desire simply means, ‘not now, not this-that and then’. Desire causes such feverishness, love is such a cooling impact, don't make love an object of desire, the goal of your desire.
When the desires calm down, you realise that love is right here-Now. That is why Buddha said that desires are the cause of sorrow and misery. Love is the goal of all desires and when you cannot have, when you cannot experience or achieve that love, then hatred and anger come.
The desire for love brings all other imperfections, for e.g. frustration. Whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, desire brings frustration. This is the nature of desire. Love cannot be achieved by just desiring it because it is the cessation of desire.
It is the source or goal of all desires. Then what is that cessation? How does one stop that? It is taking a break from all activities, whether worldly or spiritual, whether religious or material-being centred in both activities.
There is a feverishness to do something, to achieve something. You say, “I don't want anything material,” but then it could switch over to wanting to achieve some heaven, some spiritual merit, or bliss or some state of consciousness.
See, you are still holding on to the desire and the action, but it has shifted from the material to the more ethereal, non-material. Our mind is so tricky. You cannot leave activity just like that. So what can you do? If you are 100% in an activity, then you become free from the activity.
You are able to rest from that activity. This is what we don't do. Being 100% in an activity centres you. Desire is not being involved 100% in action. Suppose you want to drive and go to Los Angeles-you just drive and go, but if you just sit and keep thinking about it, it creates the feverishness.
This is desire. Desire is chewing on to something and not swallowing it - not really acting on it. Those activities which you have to do, do them and rest. Those which you don't need to do, leave them and rest.
Being centred, letting go. However important an activity is, are you able to let go of it in a moment? Then you will see that it does not bother your mind, it does not bother you and it increases your efficiency.
It is your attachment to an activity that makes that activity suffer, whether it is spiritual or material. Your obsession to act, your inability to retire and repose in the Self brings you frustration.
Do anything with 100% and you will be able to drop it effortlessly. This ability to let go comes to you. Often you let go of things when you are frustrated. When you can drop and quit in a moment, without getting frustrated, then Yoga happens - you have retired back to the Self.
You are holding onto things, onto activities and that holding on creates frustration. This is what desire does. Desire is trying to hold on to air in a fist. How much air can you hold in the fist?
The more you tighten your grip, the lesser air you can hold. Love is like the vast sky and the sky cannot be held in the fist. You have to open your palm. That is nirodha - when you open your palm, the entire sky is in there and if you hold a mirror in your hand, you can have the sun, the moon - everything.
A small palm can hold the sun, but not the fist. Being centred, being 100% in activity and rest. This is the way to be in divine love.
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