23. *Love and responsibility*

Love and responsibility always go hand in hand. When you truly love, you will take up total responsibility as well. People think that sannyasis are those who run away from responsibility. Understand: When you forego responsibility towards your own family, you are taking up responsibility for a much bigger family, for humanity at large, for a family which is millions of times bigger than your own. People don't understand this and they simply criticize.

Responsibility is something that can be easily shrugged. The more responsibility you take up, the more you expand and the divine energy will automatically flow in you! I always tell my healers to take up as much responsibility for the suffering and pain around them as they can and to continually heal people.

When you feel that you are responsible for the pain around you, you will automatically stand up to help reduce it in some way or the other. People often think that it is enough if they do things for their own family. This is a way of contraction, not expansion. You need to expand for growth to happen. Existence will automatically flow through you when you take up responsibility.

People tell me, 'Swamiji, it is enough if I am able to feed my family properly*.*' Be very clear: this is just an excuse to draw a tight boundary around yourself; a way to contract yourself.

You might have heard of the famous lines of Bodhi Dharma:

Buddham sharanam gachami Dhammam sharanam gachami Sangam sharanam gachami

It means:

I surrender to Buddha; I surrender to Dhamma - the teachings of Buddha; I surrender to the Sanga or institution created by Buddha.

It is very easy to surrender to Buddha or any master. You don't have to do much for it. Masters are so alluring because of their divinity. It doesn't take much from your side to do this. People tell me that the moment they see me, they feel a certain belief and faith in me. I tell you, it is not a big deal. The Existential energy that is flowing through this form simply pulls you, that's all!

The next statement: I surrender to the teachings of Buddha, is a little more difficult to follow than the first, because the moment you say this, you have to show that you are following it! For example, I say to you, 'Be blissful'. That is my teaching. What do you then say? 'No, no Swamiji, it is not practical…' Be very clear: I say only practical things. You start thinking that I am enlightened and that I don't know anything about your so-called practical life.

I say only those things that you can become in day-to-day life. I am sharing my experience with you when I say, 'Be blissful.' I am not just preaching the words. Understand that first. When I say, 'Be blissful', I am drawing you to experience the bliss that I am in. And it is perfectly practical because I am alive here in front of you, experiencing it!

The third line says: 'I surrender to the institution created by Buddha.' Here starts the real problem. This requires a tremendous responsibility to be taken upon oneself.

Understand that masters live in their mission more than in their body. Only 33% of their energy is in their body. The remaining 66% is in their mission and teachings. That is the kind of responsibility they taken up. I always tell people that I get my energy from my movement, not from the food that I eat.

Masters never take up birth to fulfill any karma or unfulfilled desires in themselves, because they don't have any karma to be fulfilled. They take birth out of sheer compassion, sheer love to kindle divinity in people.

Masters live more in their words and movement than in their body. That is why I always tell you to drop my form and become sensitive to the energy in my mission instead.

But what do you do? You try to keep holding my elbow all the time! Instead of doing my work, which is your own flowering, you tag behind me wanting to be around me all the time. You never understand when I say this to you.

Guaranteed Solutions

Understand that when you do the work of a divine mission, you are doing two things. One is meditation for your own spiritual growth and the second is service to society which is the greatest responsibility. The second is only a by-product. The transformation that happens in you while you are doing the work is the actual mission of transforming you!

So just take on responsibility with joy! You will feel selfless love growing in you. The whole world will become your family. When you are confronted with seemingly high responsibilities, simply nod your head to them. Mere nodding without resistance is enough. The rest will be taken care of by Existence.

Have you heard of the mysore pak, the famous Indian sweet? It will look and feel heavy, but the moment you put it in your mouth, it will melt and dissolve and give you a renewed source of energy. Likewise, when you simply nod your head to any heavy responsibility, you will immediately get the energy to execute it. The very act of taking up responsibility will bring the necessary energy into you. This is the loving energy of Existence that you need to discover in you.

To take up responsibility, you need to love the whole of Existence without discrimination. When you love without discrimination, you can take up responsibility without discrimination. Responsibility is nothing but the ability to respond spontaneously. When you can respond without a thought, without a plan, ready to take on anything, you have arrived!

Q: I want to be loving but I am unable to let go...

To be totally loving is a big challenge for the ego. To be totally loving is to merge oneself with the Whole. This is great trouble for the ego. You are right now fragmented; you are not integrated. When you are fragmented, you simply play with your different fragments and escape, that's all. To become loving means to become integrated. But you are scared because when you become integrated, you grow as a whole. Your parts have to die and become a whole.

You are so used to being fragmented that you feel threatened when you have to integrate yourself. Your ego refuses to allow it to happen. When you become loving, you are melting your ego. Earlier your ego was hard; it was solid and you felt good. What will happen when your ego melts? You will feel like you are losing your whole identity, your grip.

If you just decide to let go at least once, you will feel such a tremendous freedom, such liberation inside yourself. You need courage to let go and become loving. As a first step, at least become aware of this deep inside; the rest will automatically happen. Awareness is the key to open any lock.

When you start loving beyond names and forms, you are not losing anything, you are only losing what you are not; the illusion which you need to lose. What you have gained is reality. So just have faith and don't fear when you find yourself merging with the whole.

Just let go and watch the inner transformation happen in you. You will then realize how foolishly you were holding on to the ways of your ego; you will realize how much you missed because you were behind the mask of ego.

And understand that real love never calculates. Real love is from the heart and the heart never calculates. Only the mind calculates. It is time to move from the mind to the heart. You have listened enough to your mind. Decide now and listen to your heart. When you live with your heart, you will never regret anything in life because there will be completeness in anything that you do.

You can never experience true love with your mind. You can experience it only with your heart. Love needs to be experienced at the very center of your being. The center of your being is totally silent; it does not know any words or thoughts. No thought can ever penetrate it.

That is why time and again masters tell you to go deep inside yourself to discover your real nature. Your center is your true nature. This is actually you. But you seek to find yourself in all other places – in relationships, in material things and what not. You continuously miss seeing the truth. It is now time to look in.

We continuously talk about love, simply because we are missing it; simply because we have not had a taste of it. When a person is thirsty, he talks and dreams of water all the time. The moment he has quenched his thirst, he will stop talking about it. We need to let go and experience true love, the love that merges you with the whole. Then we will stop talking about it.

102 Love is actually surrender. But it becomes a fight for most of us. When I say surrender, I don't mean surrendering out of acceptance. I mean surrendering out of a deep understanding. When you surrender out of acceptance, you are compromising. Love can never be a compromise. The moment you compromise, it is not love. Only when you understand and dissolve, it is love.

When you are with a master, you have a lifetime opportunity to discover love; you have the opportunity to die and resurrect with true love. The alchemy process that happens in the presence of a master will give you no option but to die and be born again with true love. All you need to do is be willing to dissolve in his presence. When you have the courage to do this, you are ready to take a leap into higher consciousness that is called love.

Love is not an object, it is the subject. It is you. You become love, that's all. Then you will start loving without a reason. You will love the trees, the flowers, the earth and what not. You will simply radiate love and merge with Existence.

The root is love

You see, when you grow in love, you learn to include everything and everyone. When you see a master, you will understand how encompassing he is. He never excludes anything or anyone. He sees no imperfections in anyone. He is just pure love, that's all. And pure love sees no imperfections.

Existence is pure love. Society is always against pure love. Deep inside, society is actually against Existence or God. All its worship is mere hypocrisy. It hides in the name of worship. The best way not to follow anything deeply is to start worshipping it! Society escapes in the name of worship. When you worship, you don't have to do anything else! And people will not trouble you because you are worshipping! But what happens to your inner space? It remains where it was.

Society never approves of letting go and loving every plant and animal with love. It would tell you that you are mad. It will approve only of love that is governed by give and take; love that comes with a reason.

But I tell you: don't give up. Keep on loving with all your heart. See Existence in everything. Feel the plants with tenderness in your heart. See the animals as if they were your own. See every person, stone or tree as a part of God. That is real worship. It is easy to worship God in the temple. The real worship is seeing everything as God. Start with your neighbor first.

People never go to the root of anything; that is the problem. The root of God is love. The root of God lies in seeing Him in everything. People are afraid to go to the root and so they delude themselves in superficial layers. They don't have the courage to explore beyond a certain point in anything in life. That is why they don't allow you also to explore. They tell you what they have found is the truth. They tell you that it is enough if you follow what they are saying.

Have the courage to go deep inside and love. You will start feeling the common thread of Existence in all that you see. You will understand that all that you see are illusory happenings held together by the real thread that is Existence. Automatically, you will start loving everything in the same way without any trouble because you will see only Existence in everything. This is the real shift in consciousness.

You can talk for years about Existence or God, and still not have any experience of it. Of course, your ego will be nice and solid because you will feel that you know so much about God! But if you look in, there will be no solid experience. And because you have no solid experience, you will keep getting caught in words, because if you stop talking, there is nothing left; there is no experience.

So start feeling love towards everything simply for what it is. Understand: because all of you are here, I am talking to you. If you were not here, I would be continuing to talk to this banyan tree, to these plants, to these animals! Every leaf here talks. That is the language of love!

For years people have been telling you that you are an advanced species of animals. Be very clear, even animals are not merely animals. Each and every atom on this earth is divine, a part of Existence. If you understand this clearly, you will be able to start feeling for everything around you.

Your mind does not need love, but your being needs it. Love is an adventure where you go into dissolution. When you are not, love is. We don't have the courage to 'not be' and so we hold on; we pull back from unconditional love.

Those who are ready to take the adventure into dissolution, into experiencing the whole, are the brave ones. The ordinary love that you know is like fighting within four walls. Real love is like fighting in the cold on the open streets. The courageous ones will fight on the streets and win. When you fight within four walls, you feel good, but you are missing reality. When you are ready to fight on the streets, you are in reality and alive!

You need not have any fear of fighting in the open. If you fight knowing that you are fighting under the compassionate eyes of Existence, you need not fear because even if you fall you fall into the very lap of Existence! But you have to have the courage to stand up and fight. That is the step that you take on your side. The rest, Existence will take care.

This will happen if you are just a little more than curious to know the truth. Mere curiosity is not enough. If you are just curious, you will come, flirt and get away. If you are more than curious, if there is a burning desire in you that surfaces at least once in a while, you can start knowing and experiencing the truth. If you are merely curious, there will be no devotion or dedication. If there is a fire, there will be devotion and dedication. Dedication is what brings you here, again and again.

Try as you might to run away from here, you can't! You might stay away for a few days, but the burning desire inside will draw you again and again. To discover true love, you have to have this intensity within you.