Group Discussion 27th November, 1947 | Madras, India
You would not seek God if you do not want security, an ultimate permanency. In yourself you are insecure, the world around you is catastrophic, and you want an assurance of continuity; and, therefore, you want to identify yourself with what you call God. Therefore, you are not seeking God but only gratification. Gratification through God is just like gratification through drink though the one is a refined ideation, and the other a gross desire.
Similar is the man who identifies himself with an ideal like beauty and pursues it. As any ideal is only a creation of the mind, that too is impermanent, and that exists only as long as you find gratification in it and accept it. Thus, due to our inward poverty, we seek only gratification through things, relationship, and ideation such as God, ideal, etc; we do not seek God or an ideal as we drop them the moment we do not find pleasure in them.
There are however certain rare moments when the state of non-relationship exists in contra-distinction to relationship which exists only on the basis of pleasure and pain. But in that sense of complete self-immolation, there is no asking; in that state of non-relationship with another, when you love somebody, there is that quality of non-demand. At those moments, you are left silent; later on, further reactions come. It happens to someone, one in a million, and he is a happy man. Once he knows what it is, it is like a scent that is perfuming his whole life.
Why are we not awake to such moments much more often? Why do we not realise that our pursuit of drunkenness, God or an ideal is only the pursuit of our escape from facing the actual, and therefore reduces us to a state of dullness and insensitivity? It is because of various hindrances like conclusions, beliefs, trying to avoid death, worship of God and non-existence of affection. By being aware of these hindrances, they can be dissolved.
Tags: escape, understanding
Not a member yet? Create an Account