All the false notions of myself
That once caused fear, pain,
Have turned to ash
As I neared God.
Love is
The funeral pyre
Where the heart must lay its
Body.
~ Hafiz
Who will take care of the body?
That’s a faithless question.
Remain with the Heart.
The Heart knows all the ways of producing the body, of maintaining the body, of dissolving the body; it knows. Leave that to the Heart. It’s the game that only the Heart knows how to play best. Leave that game to the Truth, to the Heart, to God.
Thought is body; intention is body; method is body; feeling is body; emotion is body; none of them are significant. Do not attach any importance to any of them. Even your loftiest thought, even the greatest principle, that you can appreciate, is nothing. It can’t even go close to the Truth, let alone capture it. Everything that you can imagine, dream, talk of, name, touch, sense, imagine, is the body. And whatever is the body, must be subservient to the Heart.
Memories; what are memories? Body. The body is such a fine example of memory carrying itself forward in time. Is your face not similar to the face that you had yesterday? Is the DNA not in a desperate bid to belong itself, and its kind?
The body is memory.
(Reading the verse) “Love is the funeral pyre where the Heart must lay its body”
To be in Love, is to attracted towards only the Truth; to be in Love, is not to be attracted towards all that which comes and goes. Don’t love thousands, you are devoted to One. To be in Love, is to be devoted only to the One. And then One will then decide how you relate to the rest of the universe. Oh, the universe.
That One is the Truth that one cannot imagine. So, to be devoted to the Truth does not mean being to be devoted to anything. Because the Truth is not a thing.
What does it practically then mean, to be devoted to the Truth, to love the Truth, to love the One? What does it practically mean? It practically only means that since we are already in a state of attachment to many, we just see that this attachment is not Real love.
Seeing the falseness of false love, is Love towards the Truth.
I repeat: Seeing the falseness of false love, is Love towards the Truth.
You cannot love the Truth directly, you cannot go to a statue like this (indicating towards a Shiva statue placed by His side) and say, ‘I am loving the Truth’. That does not mean anything. Truth can be loved only in an abnegation of everything which is not directing the Truth. And only Truth powers that abnegation.
Without the backing of Truth, how will you be able to reject the false?
That is how one loves God: by seeing that one must reject everything that he imagined to be ungodly. You see, you are attracted like, say, towards a man or a woman. When you are attracted towards a person, are you attracted towards him because you are attracted towards God? No. In that experience of attraction, you are attracted towards a person, a body.
*To be devoted to the Truth means, that when I see that I am being attracted towards something that I do not take to be the Truth, then I’ll no more pursue that attraction. I will no more energise it. Now, if you really are attracted towards a person, because you see God in that person, then by all means, energise that attraction. By all means, with all your energy, with all that is at your disposal, empower that relationship.*
But if you know, and we do know, don’t we? If it is primarily lustful, don’t we already know it? We are conscious of it. If we know that I am going towards something, taking it not to be God, then my duty, my Dharma, is to not to power my steps. Do you see? This is how one goes towards the Truth. One goes towards the Truth by not going towards that which one takes or one knows to not to be the Truth.
I repeat: If you are going towards a person, or an idea, or a statue because you really see the Truth there, then continue going.
But most of the times, we know, if you are rushing towards a meeting, are you rushing towards the meeting because you are rushing towards God? No. You very well know that it’s a business meeting and you are rushing towards it to ensure your security or continuation; your greed, essentially! Once you come to see that, then don’t keep rushing on. That is what is meant by being devoted to God or Truth.
In the world, we have two kinds of movement: One is the movement towards Truth, powered by the Truth. The other is the movement when we see something in which we do not see the Truth, yet we see it as attractive. Does it not happen with us?
You see something, and you don’t see the Truth in it, and yet you find it attractive.
To be devoted to the Truth means: “I will not give value to this attraction.”
And you cannot use this as a formula or a principle. Not giving value to something is something very intrinsic, it happens. It happens when you see that, that which you are pursuing, is something that you have been pursuing relentlessly since long, since centuries, since the beginning of time. And it has only given you suffering. And then your steps freeze. Then you do not want to proceed. Then you see that this particular chase is no different from the chase of yesterday, which was in its turn no different from the chase of day before yesterday. And all these chases have only resulted in a situation where you need to chase more and more. If you need to chase today, and if you are chasing yesterday, was yesterday’s chase of any avail? Had it be of any consequence, would you be left to chase even today? Chasing yesterday, if you have to chase even today, it only means that these chases are generally futile, and lead to the suffering. Lead to this stage where you have to chase even more. And then your steps freeze. And that is devotion towards the Truth.
I repeat: Devotion towards the Truth is not an idea. Devotion towards the Truth is not a concept or a thought.
You cannot declare yourself to be devoted towards the Truth. Devotion towards the Truth shows up in your daily lifestyle. It shows up in the way your choices come. It shows up in the way you breathe, you relate, you talk, you eat, you decide, you prioritise; in that shows up your devotion to the Truth. It is not about declaring that you belong to a particular sect or cult or religion. That is nothing to do with devotion. That is only to do with identification.
The subject tonight is love and for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic for us to discuss, until we all die.
(Hafiz)
Acharya Prashant: Rumi, Hafiz, Meera, Bulle Shah, they sing of love, and in their poetry the lover often appears…
I want both of usTo start talking about this Great LoveAs if You, I and the Sun were all marriedAnd living in a tiny room.Helping each other to cook,Do the wash,Weave and sewCare for our beautifulAnimals.We all leave each morningTo…
An infant in my arms
The tide of my love
has risen so high let me flood
over
Close your eyes for a moment
And may be all your
Fears and fantasies
Will end.
If that happened
God would become an infant in your
Arms
And then you
Would…
