Tapas is finding you
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Tapas destroys only your false identities, not You!
You must understand what this process called tapas is about.
Right now, your personality is entangled in too many things, in too many situations and too many people. When you remove all these things, one by one, from your life, what remains will be your individuality.
At so many levels, you are carrying ideas that you think of as YOU.
At the outermost level, you are deeply connected to the world as you experience it. Your social identity, your family, your profession – you are carrying all these inside you, as part of you. That is why, traditionally, seekers on the spiritual path choose a life away from family and society.
I can say that it is not necessary to physically be away from family and society
- it is enough if you can psychologically disconnect from them. Understand: I am not asking you to become indifferent to them, to stop talking to them! Just become aware of the subtle influences that the world is exerting on you.
You are carrying the baggage of so many of other people’s ideas. Just become aware, how many people are living inside your head right now, telling you how to run your life? Just listen and see, how many voices can you hear? We are living our life based on ideas of right and wrong which are given to us by others, and we don’t even realize it.
Becoming aware is only the first step. Many times we are already aware, but we don’t have the courage to free ourselves of these influences. We know that we are simply acting out ideas that have been given to us by our parents, by friends, by society, and by television!
But we don’t want to let go of those ideas, because we are afraid of living without a social identity. We are afraid of being alone.
As you move from ego to spontaneity, you will surely experience some pain and some fear. This is nothing but the process of transition happening in you. Naturally, the ego will resist the process, and you will experience this transition as pain. You will undergo pain. That’s your penance, your tapas!