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Even before you have committed the act, the warning is already ringing—and what does it say? ‘How dare you!’ You know where you stand. That is where most of our actions come from.
Rest is your natural state, but you cannot be at rest because you are terrified. So, you keep running.
The kind of work that you do in the world is indicative of something very important within you.
So, I am not asking you to go and find great work; I am asking you to be great within. If you are great within, obviously you will be doing great work. And if you are not great within, even if coincidently you chance upon great work, you will be a misfit. You will either spoil the work, or you will quit, or you will be thrown out.
Live Long Enough to Reach the Right Place
That’s the thing with teachers. They listen to the question or they look at the student, and they know what the matter is. And often the entire reply or the entire solution is contained in the first sentence of their answer, but it is quite possible that they may go on and speak for another twenty minutes, or they may go on and write an entire book to explain things to the questioner.
You are nobody to ask. You are nobody at all! When you don’t even exist, who are you to desire so much? But by desiring so much, you convince yourself that you do exist.
The root pervades the fruit: Īśā vāsyamidaṁ sarvaṁ. The Īśā is the root. ‘Sarvaṁ’ refers to this entire expanse of your universe, which is the tree of consciousness.
If you really want to know the Truth of this tree or if you really want to enjoy the juice of this tree, what is more advisable? Keep running behind the whole expanse, or come straight to the root that is so near to you?
You will be chasing so much, and then you will be requiring so much to chase it.
The verse is telling us exactly how much money we need. First thing: Mā gṛdhaḥ. Don’t covet, don’t desire a lot. You do need something, but you need only as much as is needed to go within. That should decide the upper limit of your material requirement and the upper limit of your consumption.
Having said that, the seer is again mischievously smiling. He is saying, ‘But that much you will anyway get from Him.’ Tena tyaktena bhuñjithā. ‘So, son, you require very little, and this little that you require you don’t have to worry about earning. This much you will get as a gift from Him, provided your honest and sole objective is Him.’
Put in everything into your mission, and then whatsoever is left—tyaktena, ‘parityakta’, the leftover, whatsoever is the leftover—that much you can eat.
The moneys didn’t come to you so that you may personally consume them. The moneys came to you so that they can be spent in furthering the mission. Remember this.
This life is a big fat chunk of donation. You haven’t earned it, it is a donation.
Now, how much of my life do I spend in personal gratification? What does the father say? Tena tyaktena bhuñjithā. In your entire day, after doing everything that is possible for the right work, if you get, let’s say, ten minutes as spare, then you can probably spend those ten minutes in your personal gratification. But only those ten minutes. Mā gṛdhaḥ—don’t ask for more.’
This verse is then a philosophy of life. It tells you everything that you really need to know.
Equally, if one resonates with the Upanishads, one will be able to appreciate all religions, any and every religion. Because all the streams, all the religious streams, whenever they flew and wherever they came from, they all have the same heart. The outer characteristics are different; the heart is the same.
Upanishads are a must if you are a genuine seeker of the Truth.
If you have not been able to unravel your past, then you will simply relive your past.
Go back, return to the past again and again. Why must you return to the past again and again? Because your fundamental tendencies have not changed. So, when you are returning to the past, you are actually looking at yourself as you are right now.
So, who are you? You are much the same as you were two years back. So, how do you know yourself? Just look at what you did two years back. That’s exactly what is happening in your life right now. Worse still, that is also what is waiting to happen tomorrow.
Many see him as the spiritual face of the vegan movement.
septuagenarian
