Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Donkey-like, We Carry Burden Of Knowledge

There was a man who dealt in scrap. He would buy junk and sell it off in the local market. He used a donkey to transport the stuff. He would also buy old books for resale. All this, the donkey would carry on its back.

The donkey previously belonged to a washer man and so was used to carrying dirty clothes. But now the animal was 'promoted', carrying books full of wisdom - volumes containing works of PhD students, vedanta, yoga, fiction, history and science.

So would you say the donkey was now a scholar, a sage?

What would you call people who have burdened their minds with such books? Books give you information with which you load your mind. The donkey carried piles of books and continued to be a donkey, ignorant of true knowledge. Similarly, just by reading scriptures and other writings, you cannot become wise.

I have come here to help you unlearn what you have learnt, so that you can become pristine, pure and innocent. This can happen only when you forget all that you have heard, known and believed until now for all that is untrue.

That's why despite so much reading and listening, you are still unhappy, ignorant. There has been no transformation, no change in you.

Just listening is not a big thing. Our scriptures emphasise contemplation. Within your heart there is thirst that is why you are attending this satsang. When you listen just ask yourself why you are listening. There could be many reasons for your being here. One is that if you go to satsang, you may get to listen something new.

Very often, when people return home after listening to a discourse, they continue discussing the topic with family and friends. People are habitual listeners; they don't go as seekers.

They go to hear what new information will be delivered. So the orators bring up new topics to keep your interest going. But people talk as if they have absorbed whatever they have heard.

Why are you listening? To collect information! So that you can boast about it to others, to talk about it to those who were not present. It is not how much you do, but how you do something. It is not about how long you meditate, but how deep you go in meditation that is important. It is not the quantity but quality that matters.

The day you stop seeking for the happiness in the outside world that is the day when you become truly contented. Then you won't wander hither thither looking for happiness in different places because your thirst for happiness gets quenched in prayer, in remembering the Lord's name, in meditation.

Truly speaking that is the day when you become a spiritual -- dharmic person, in the true sense of the word.

All that you desire is right there within you, it is with you but you don't have that will to seek. The work of sages is not to give you knowledge; the work of mystics is to light that fire within, to inculcate a longing, a feeling of restlessness inside you.

This longing makes you spiritual or dharmic in the true sense of the word. This longing makes you sing, cry, dance in remembrance of God. This is what it means to think of the Lord, this is what is meant by chanting, this is what is meant by remembrance.