9. Complete Completion is the Key🔗

People ask me, 'Swamiji, do you mean to say we should not cry in the critical situations of our life? What about the death of our near and dear ones? How can we be insensitive even in such situations?' There is a very subtle truth you need to understand. Accepting the situation is one thing. The other thing is, accepting the response happening in your inner space.

There is a beautiful story in the Zen tradition. It is a very subtle truth, which will help you understand this sutra in a deeper way. Once there was a great Zen master. His disciple was also an enlightened master known as Suzuki. When Suzuki's master passed away, he started crying, weeping, rolling on the ground. His disciples asked, 'Master, what is this? You are an enlightened being, how can you cry like this?' Suzuki said, 'If an enlightened person should not cry, I am not interested in your enlightenment! I can't be so insensitive to this situation. He can never leave me or I can never leave him, because he became me and I became him. That is different. But I miss his physical presence. I miss his graceful actions and his beautiful conscious leela, conscious play. That is why I am crying.' The disciples are shocked! One of them asks, 'Then what about the teachings which you were giving us all these years: "Accept whatever is happening - tathaata, tathaata!" What has happened to the teachings? Did you teach us without experiencing it yourself?' Then Suzuki beautifully explains: There are two levels of acceptance. The first level of acceptance is, accepting the outer situation, surrendering to the moment, surrendering to tathaata, surrendering to what IS; surrendering to the NOW.

The next level of acceptance is, accepting whatever is happening inside you also.

It is a very beautiful truth. Just understanding this can give you a very strong click.

What do you usually do? You try to accept the situation in the outer world. Then immediately you think - if I accept this situation in the outer world, I should be behaving in this way in the inner world. You have a scale - if I accept this situation, I should be peaceful, collective, calm, restful inside. So you accept the external situation, but you don't have the same acceptance for the emotions that are happening in your inner world!

Just external acceptance is very easy, because you have to accept anyway. It is taught as a moral value to all of us from the beginning. So we try to do that. But internal acceptance is not needed. And you can hide it! You can play this game with others, 'See how calm I am in every situation!' But only when you accept internally also, the unclutching happens, the completion happens. Here, Suzuki is throwing new light on tathaata, complete completion.

Surrendering to the NOW means accepting the outer world as well as the response which is happening in the inner world. He says, 'I have accepted that the master has left the body. Same way, I have also accepted the response that is happening in me; the pain, the suffering, the feeling of separation. I have accepted that also.' This is the complete completion. This is what Patanjali describes as yogaha chitta vritti nirodhaha.

When you are in complete completion, there is no chitta vritti and there is no action. The thought patterns disappear. When you accept both, suddenly you will see that you are established in your svarupa, your true nature. Patanjali says, 'This results in relaxation into one's true nature of limitlessness and total understanding.'

It is a very beautiful sutra, an amazing truth.

Today, I want you all to internalize this one sutra, this one truth.

CONTEMPLATION

Write down 5 incidents in your life where you accepted the outer situation, but could not accept the inner emotions. Now, complete with those incidents by accepting the inner emotions also.