Seeker – There is one aspect of what you have been teaching me that I find hard to accept. I have realized that I am not my ego, and that my mind is infinitely limited, as you like to say. I understand that when the dependence on the mind is dropped, the present moment comes alive. My problem is that I feel only disconnectedness, or a numbness when I drop my thoughts. When I no longer think about other people and am no longer interested in them, how am I supposed to be concerned about them, and to…well…love them? You say that love is the point, but where does the love come in if you are no longer interested in other people?
Guru – Love does not come in or go out, it always is. The thoughts which you have dropped have been replaced by others, like the question “When I am no longer interested in other people, how am I supposed to be concerned about them?” So you see that the mind does not always give up its prime position easily. If you had truly dropped the barrier of thought and ego, this question would not even arise. The point is to realize—not in your mind—but to the very core, that your ego, the mind, your opinions and judgements, are only intermediaries between you and reality. If you truly remove the intermediary, you cannot help but feel deep compassion for the world. It is the most pure kind of compassion because it does not ask anything in return. It does not seek to feed the ego in compensation for its love.
S – What about the numbness I feel?
G – The numbness is an imaginary empty space created by the mind. You have dropped some of the old habitual thoughts—some of the ways that your mind previously approached the subject of other people. But the mind itself is still very much in operation. The mind is now fixating on the absence of the favourite old thoughts, and creating an emptiness out of that that is nothing but conceptual. Drop the fixation on the thought that something is lacking. The only thing that can mourn the loss of thought is thought itself.
S – So you’re saying I’m still wrapped up in thought.
G – Yes, but do not be overly concerned. The process has begun. You have seen a glimmer of light. Full realization will come.
S – What…what does that kind of love feel like?
G – Any answer I gave you to that question would be inadequate and only spawn other thoughts, which would themselves be inadequate. It is like asking me to tell you what infinity feels like—or anything else which the mind cannot touch. You must experience it. I will say only that it is to have no barrier between the self and the beloved. There is no thought. There is no motive. No trying to figure someone out conceptually. You accept that you know nothing about them, and that nothing is everything. Of course, such love moves beyond people and encompasses everything. Without any barriers in the awareness there is nothing which does no reveal itself as worthy of love. There is nothing, which is not love itself.
S – How did you come to realize this?
G – This is not important. What matters is how you come to realize it.
S – Was it sudden?
G – It was always there. I did not always realize that it was, but I see now that there was no moment when it was not there. The problem, the wonderful joke of it, is that it is the simplest thing, and its utter simplicity causes us to overlook it. Be simple and you will see simplicity.
S – One more thing. I wanted to ask you about religion. Is there good in it?
G – Religion will tell you nothing that you do not already know. We see the inherent contradiction with religion. They preach unity, but they are all exclusive. They have names—like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism—which distinguish one from the other. They have different systems, approaches, devices. They have different uniforms. They occupy different territories. They have become tools of opposition. This is not to say that the underlying message of many religions is incompatible with the true. Nothing is fully incompatible with the true. But suffice it to say that any aspect of religions that appeals to separation must stand in opposition to what is—call it god, or being, or love. Whatever divides and opposes rows hard in the opposite direction of that.
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