BLISSFULNESS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

The moment I say “spirituality,” people say, “Yes, I want to be peaceful.” Don’t walk the spiritual path for peace. You don’t have to be on the spiritual path to be peaceful. If you go climb a mountain and sit there, it will happen. If you take a long walk and lie down, you will sleep peacefully. If you eat a full stomach, you will sleep peacefully. You don’t need the spiritual process to be peaceful. It is a shame that so-called spiritual teachers around the world are going about telling people spirituality is about being peaceful. The longing for peace has essentially come from troubled minds, minds who are torturing themselves. For them, peace is a big commodity that they have to seek. If you are not using your mind for self-torture, why would you think of peace? Would you seek exuberance of life or would you seek peace? All of us will “rest in peace” when we are dead. Now is the time to live. But people have lost control over their mental faculty – what should have been a miracle has become a misery manufacturing machine. Even being ecstatic is not a goal by itself. If you are blissful by your own nature, then the important thing is, you are not the issue anymore. There may be other issues in the existence – you can look at them. But if you are an issue yourself, what other issue will you take into your hands? You will not touch anything. When you are no longer an issue, then you are willing to dig into the whole existence and see what it is all about. Mysticism evolved only in those places where people learnt the technology of being ecstatic by their own nature. For you to experience a little bit of pleasantness within you, if you have to drink, if you have to dance, if you have to do some other crazy thing, you will never explore any other dimension of life because keeping yourself pleasant itself is a great challenge and a fulltime job.

The spiritual process is not a conscious choice, it is a kind of compulsive behavior. But unless you handle it consciously, it will not yield.

For most people, the pursuit of happiness has become the goal of life itself. Happiness is not something that you achieve. It is something that you start with; it is the square one of life. As children, we all started joyfully without any hassle. So, do not understand the spiritual process as peacefulness, joyfulness or even blissfulness. Only if you are blissful, you will truly explore all aspects of life. Otherwise you will not dare to because maintaining your own little bit of pleasantness within you is such a big challenge. Where is the question of taking on bigger challenges? There was a time when we believed that whether the tree in your house bears fruit or not depended on God’s will. But we took charge of these things. Now we know what the problem is if this tree is not bearing fruit. We know what to do with it. Slowly, we figured out all these things. Similarly, if your Self has not blossomed, it is because you are not doing the right thing with yourself – it is as simple as that. When we understand this, a spiritual process actually begins. Once you are not an issue, being peaceful, joyful or blissful is not an effort anymore. Then, naturally you want to know what is behind everything. This is not an induced quest. It is very natural for human intelligence to seek; you cannot help it. The spiritual process is not a conscious choice, it is a kind of compulsive behavior. But unless you handle it consciously, it will not yield. Longing for the boundless is compulsive, but unless you become conscious, it will never work. Unless one experiences the universality of one’s nature, I would say the human form is wasted. To eat, sleep, reproduce and die, you do not need a human body, intelligence and awareness. Every worm or insect can fulfill that better than a human being. If you want to know, experience and be able to handle other dimensions of life, it is very important that you have no rigid structures in your mind. The biggest thing in the existence is not some God sitting somewhere. The very life process itself contains the creation and the Creator. If you are willing to go beyond the surface substance of what you call “yourself,” suddenly everything is malleable. Here and There, Now and Then are all mixed up. The individual and the universal are no longer different.