Thursday, February 21, 2013

"Now this is something very serious that I am suggesting.  It is easy to meet pleasure with your total being.  It does not need any effort on your part.  When you are happy, you are totally happy for that moment.  But what I am suggesting is, meeting pain, sorrow, suffering as it comes, without any reservation, without trying to escape from it.  Why should life always be pleasant?  Why shouldn't there be suffering?  Why shouldn't there be sorrow?  Why should we always run after sunshine?  Why not enjoy the shadow and the shade as much as the sunlight?   The moment I am not afraid of pain and suffering, the sting of pain melts away.  It disappears.  The sting of pain and sorrow consists of my fear of sorrow.  If I am not afraid of death, then death loses its sting.  It becomes as natural as birth.  Because I am trying to avoid pain, because I am  trying to escape from it, this fear is exploited by many people in our society.  Organized religion would not have such a tremendous hold on the human mind if the human mind were not afraid of pain.  Why should I be afraid of separation?  Why should I try to run away from loneliness?  Why should I be frightened of emptiness?  If it is within, why not face it and try to understand it?  No one can avoid pain in life.  Life is a series of challenges and responses.  No one can control the environments and atmospheres; they cannot be cast into a mold by one's likes and dislikes.  So pain and pleasure, this duality, is going to be there for as long as you are living on the mental level.  So I think it is urgently necessary to see this beauty of life - that I do not try to avoid pain when pain comes; the response of the system is there.  If there is a physical pain, I consult a doctor;  I do what is necessary.  I respond to it.  If there is a death in my family, I know that I am facing separation.  I am now lonely, left behind.  Instead of grumbling and grudging the loneliness let me receive this loneliness with open arms and let me find out what is the essence of loneliness; what is the meaning of separation; why separation is becoming painful to me.  Let me meet it.  Let me understand.
   The real beauty of life will be manifested if we do not turn away from any experience.  Then anxiety cannot touch you.  Then the thought of the morrow does not pollute the enjoyment of today.  And the rumination over the past does not spoil the happiness of today."

--Vimala Thakar, Heart to Heart
 

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