Compatible Parallel Being

The spiritual leaders have taught us that “One should become an instrument in the hands of the Creator”. Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “Supreme Energy is all around us. All we need to do is to focus our energy to be compatible to this Supreme Energy super highway like tuning the radio to the specific radio station.” I contemplate a lot on these teachings to find out how to refine my thoughts to be commensurate with the mission of the Lord. How do I develop my character that would make the maker proud of His product? What kind of efforts I have to make that would be compatible to the mission of the Supreme Energy?

Despite reading the teachings of Adi Sankara and many other teachers who have repeatedly taught us about the non-dualism, I notice that I am delving in dualism every day. My body, mind and intellect work very independently and seek more and more satisfaction in achieving my goals generated from my desires and attachments. If I feel satisfied by fulfilling a few of my desires, my mind generates more desires and continue to put me into actions to achieve the next set of desires. I feel like a cone with the sharp edge focused downwards with no gravitational stability. My selfishness is dominant and every action of mine can easily be associated with my worldly self-development.

Whereas my heart tells me to work hard to help people in need as much as possible. It tells me to seek the guidance from the Creator by praying every day as to how to develop my character that would deserve to get the attention of the Supreme Energy. It guides me to seek more and more spiritual knowledge to put them into practice in my day to day life so that I can simulate my energy with that of the Creator. Service to the humanity, adoration of the Creator and illumination of the mind to gain the supreme knowledge are the goals suggested by my Guru as well.

How do I reconcile the difference between my mind and heart? How can I make this body a holy place, mind that is disciplined and controlled and intellect that would help me make an instrument to fulfill the mission of the Creator? By constantly making this body to work for the welfare of the people in need, I feel I can purify my body. Similarly, by engaging in the prayers, meditation and yoga, my thoughts can be regulated and mind purified. By working hard to gain knowledge and implement at least a few of those acquired knowledge into daily life, our intellect can also be kept cleansed from ego.

The very existence of what I perceive as the universe is created by Maya and without dualism this universe will cease to exist. Therefore, it is difficult for me to fight the dualism. I see everyone around me as a separate human being and that is how my thoughts should remain for me to function in life. Because of my karma, I have come into existence. My unfulfilled passions only brought me here. Let me not resist what I came here to pursue but at the same time, let me also pursue what would channel my energy to synchronize with the Supreme Energy. When I face difficulties in life, let me endure it with patience and when I face pleasure, let me accept it humbly as grace. Let me hold all I possess as trustee and remove all my attachments. Whenever, there is an opportunity to help fellow beings in need, I should contribute relentlessly for the well-being of those people as it is part of the mission of the Supreme Energy.

The best way to remove the gap between dualism and oneness is to cleanse everything that blocks this connection. In order for the flute to make a sound that is divine, it should be hollow. Similarly, the human BMI should be cleansed in order for that to be used as an instrument for the very existence of the universe. If I tune to the right frequency, I can hear the voice of the Creator. Let me make the love as my main theme in life and understand that the source and the creation are one and the same. Let me remove all conditions for love and make it into an unconditional universal love. When I delve in love every second in my life, I tune myself to the Supreme Energy. My objective is to make the cone upside down with the circular portion at the bottom with sharp edge at the top so that I stabilize myself firmly with the Supreme Energy. I see the cone with the circular portion at the bottom as sacrifice of my BMI for the general well-being of the universe and the sharp edge at the top as my self-development. Let my BMI be compatible parallel being that is tuned to the Supreme Being.

 

Dear Syamala,

Thank you for your first response. We are all in the process of learning spirituality and are in various stages of growth and development. What we know is handful and what we still need to know is the size of the universe. No one can claim himself/herself as an expert and I am no exception. I learn every day so much from many posts in IL as well as from other books. Even my life teaches me a lot of lessons.

Here is my take on the functions of mind and heart. Spiritual heart is nothing but our pure consciousness that has the qualities of Truth, Righteousness, Love, Peace and Non-violence. It is pure form of love and compassion. Whereas our mind is cauldron of thoughts that has some good as well as bad ones. We inherit passions and desires that were unfulfilled in our previous life. What I was trying to articulate here is while we work towards putting a ceiling on desires, we should not resist our passion. More we resist our passion, it becomes stronger. Therefore, one should try to pursue the passion and simultaneously develop a great character following the instructions of the heart. The best practices like yoga, prayer, meditation are all suggested to control and discipline our mind. Like I have mentioned earlier, control, alter and delete are the methods we need to follow to eliminate our bad thoughts.

Desires are wants over and above what we have to pursue my life. When we start living life to attract attention of other fellow beings (what I call us prettying up the bride) or make them feel jealous of our wealth, knowledge, lifestyle, etc., that becomes a desire. If someone has the potential to buy an Acura, Lexus, Genesis type of cars and if he buys one of them, he is fulfilling his need to commute. Whereas if he things for him to gain a status in the society, he needs to buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini, then, he is crossing the level of need to want. Again, many times, people mistake possessing high value assets as wrong. It is not. It is only our mindset that should hold those assets as a trustee and not as a owner understanding that all of them can be taken away in a heartbeat. There is nothing wrong in possessing assets but we should not allow the desire for such assets to possess us.

It is always difficult to convert our thoughts into crystal clear words and the problems is mind and not yours. If you are confused and did not understand what I wrote, the fault is mind for not articulating it well.

Viswa

 

Dear Stillwaters,

Thank you for your response. As I mentioned to Symala, perhaps, I have not articulated what I was going to say in this post clearly.

You are right. Life is a grace of the Lord for us to correct ourselves and learn the right living. Right or wrong, we have unfulfilled desires and passions. Passions are strong and matured desires to perform a particular act that would great sense of accomplishment. It could be an act of serving the people in need, become a great artist, become a surgeon and so on. I am also saying in the highlighted part of my post that we should not resist such passions.

But desires that are intended to demonstrate that we are superior than the other fellow being around us are more a want than a need. Like the example, I have given above in response to Syamala. We have to work towards ceiling on desires by constantly reviewing our thoughts that takes us towards the goal of living the life to demonstrate our skills, strength, wealth, etc. to others.

It is my humble opinion that we should set standards for ourselves to lead a perfect life. We should not get bogged down by the pressure of the peers around us. Our Ego remains under check only when we have our own standards and not look up to others around us and try to become like them. That is when our ego takes a strong beating.
As far as our actions are concerned, it should have the attitude of giving them skillfully, lovingly and selflessly to others whereas when it comes to our thoughts, our interactions with others should be to learn something from them and we should never have the attitude of giving knowledge and feel proud.

Ego can come from gaining knowledge, health, wealth and many others. Even someone who is well versed in Vedas can become egoistic and fail to achieve the objective of learning the right living. Body, Mind and Intellect work together closely and a problem in one of them affects the others.

I hope this explanation gives clarity about what I was trying to convey. Again, I have not clearly articulated what I was going to say in my post and I can understand your confusion.

viswa

 

Dear GG,

Thank you for your response. It is my humble opinion whether someone is an atheist or a believer of God, it makes no difference when it comes to understanding who he is and what purpose he had come to perform. It is plain and simple difficult. For that one has to inquire relentlessly until one gets the answer.

I could not have articulated better what you have articulated in a few words in your response. I am a big proponent of fulfilling the passion of one to the full satisfaction as resisting that would result in chaos in life. Therefore, while pursuing that, one should practice right living and development of one's character.

It is my humble opinion that one should set his own standards for right living. There is nothing wrong in being wealthy either. We have to have the attitude of giving our time, energy and money for good purposes without any inhibitions with pure heart for the right reasons. Possessions are to be held with an attitude of a trustee knowing that all can be taken away in a second. Fear, jealousy and anger become part of us when we start comparing ourselves with others and benchmark ourselves with others. Even when we share our knowledge with others, we have to be very humble like the attitude we have when we give our wealth away for charity. Our interaction with others should be one of learning good conduct from others. This attitude controls our ego and makes us live with contentment and peace.

The moment we benchmark our life with that of others, our needs become wants. For example, instead of setting a goal that I would like to become wealthy as Bill Gates, one can set a goal to become wealthy to eradicate complex health issues throughout the world. Honestly, a perfectly wealthy person like Bill can roll in happiness and joy by using his wealth for fulfilling everyone of his desires and much more. But he is not satisfied by creating that wealth and his heart is telling him that he should do something to this world with what he has been blessed with. He said openly when he resigned from active role in Microsoft that he is much happier as the Trustee of Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation. Isn't it a sign of his mind synchronizing with the mission of the Creator? Isn't he setting an example for right living?

It does not matter whether one is a believer or atheist, poor or wealthy, one can lead an ideal and purposeful life within the means of each persons ability and potential. A Sanyasi who lives far away from the world can contribute by praying for the welfare of the world and can provide knowledge about right living. Someone wealthy can serve the people in need and participate in the world's mission. Mother Teressa was not wealthy but came to India to fulfill a mission of her own and allowed her inner consciousness to excel leaving aside all her desires. Her passion became serving the people in need.

Viswa

 

Dear Shanvy,

Thank you for your response to this post. Like you, no one is an exception to the dualism unless someone has achieve the highest level of wisdom like Adi Sankara or Zen Masters. Even Adi Sankara had to cross the last mile to eliminate his ego as the most knowledgeable when Lord Shiva personally appeared before him and asked him the question, "Are you asking this body to move or the Atma?"

Enlightenment is always viewed as an action. I have a view that it is the art of right living. Some can pursue that knowledge directly whereas others can pursue that through actions. A few others can achieve through deep devotion.

What I was trying to convey through this post is not to resist our passions. Let us pursue the passions we have come into pursue. But at the same time, use that opportunity as grace of the Lord to learn right living and develop character.

Honestly, God created dualism to create this Universe. To overcome Maya, one can keep inquiring what is real and unreal throughout life. We get caught in the whirlpool of desires generated from our thoughts. Not one even many life will not be adequate to fulfill those desires. We have to learn to put ceiling on desires, find the passion we came to pursue and simultaneously make progress towards our goal for enlightenment. We don't have to do all at once. Progression towards goal in each life is an accomplishment. Only unreal things we possess disappear when we die but all our good actions and unfulfilled desires come along with us for the next life.

It is like a Balance Sheet where we keep increasing the good values in each life, eventually our share value will become so high to match the Supreme Energy.

Viswa