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THE SUN RISES IN THE EVENING
Chapter 8: Enough of the Trips
Question 1
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen The Sun Rises in the Evening
The first question:
Question 1
PLEASE HELP ME TO BE HAPPY, TO BE ORDINARY. I FIND THAT ALL MY UPSETS, CONFLICTS, TURMOILS, HAVE TO DO WITH THIS DESIRE TO BE SPECIAL AND NOTHING ELSE.
SUDHA, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HELP because you are not ordinary -- nobody is, nobody can be. Everybody is unique and extraordinary. The problem arises when you start trying to be that which you already are, then you fail. If you were ordinary, there would be no difficulty in attaining to extraordinariness; there would be every possibility. But the fish is in the ocean and is trying to be in the ocean; failure is absolute -- it is doomed.
How can you be ordinary? This whole existence is extraordinary. Each pebble on the shore is extraordinary, each grass leaf is extraordinary. And I am not only talking about lotuses and roses -- of course, they too are extraordinary -- but an ordinary grass flower is not ordinary. All that exists is divine, how can it be ordinary?
Don't try to be ordinary; otherwise, you will go on failing and you will create misery for yourself. Even I cannot help, even I cannot go against the Tao, against the fundamental law of life. God only creates the extraordinary; this whole existence is special. These raindrops, this morning, the people around you this moment is extraordinary; it can't be repeated again, no, never -- not even in the whole of eternity can it be repeated again. You will never find these raindrops falling again, this sound, this morning, these people. This whole situation is extraordinary; it only happens once.
You will not find another Sudha all around the world. You can go on searching, and not only in the present time, but even in the past or in the future, and no Sudha will ever be repeated. This is how we are. Once you start trying to be extraordinary you will get into difficulty.
To accept yourself as you are, and to accept the whole as it is -- if you can understand the extraordinariness of everything that is -- you have become ordinary.
Sudha, it is not that you want to be extraordinary, you want to be special COMPARED WITH other people. That too is absurdity -- no comparison is possible. How can you be compared with anybody? -- nobody is like you. You don't compare a dog with a parrot, or do you? There is no similarity, there is no likeness, how can you compare a dog with a parrot? or a tree with a man? or a rock with a river? In fact, no two individuals are alike, hence they are incomparable. You are you, and the other is other.
To understand this is to be both extraordinary and ordinary. Extraordinary in the sense that existence only creates unique people, and ordinary in the sense that everybody is extraordinary. There is nothing extraordinary in being extraordinary; everybody is so. The comparison disappears; and when there is no comparison, there is no possibility of the ego.
You ask me: PLEASE HELP ME TO BE HAPPY...
I can only help you to be not miserable, I cannot help you to be happy. But if you are not miserable, you will be happy. But no direct way is possible to make you happy. If it were possible, I would have made you happy long before now. I am not a miser, I would have given it to you if it were possible to give at all -- but there is no possibility.
Happiness is not something that is going to happen to you from the outside. Once you stop being miserable, happiness is, happiness wells up within your being. It simply arises out of you; you start blooming -- the hindrances have been removed.
And this seems to be your greatest obstacle: you want to be extraordinary. I declare it, Sudha, you are. But remember, everybody else is too. So now there is no need to be worried, I certify you; you need not prove it. Let this obstacle disappear. Accept your extraordinariness, rejoice in it, celebrate it. Walt Whitman says 'I celebrate myself, I sing myself...' Celebrate and sing. You are extraordinary, God has not made another person like you, will never make another person like you. It is only once that God exists as you, in you, in this form. This form is unrepeatable.
Now, what is lacking? All your misery is arising because you are trying to become it. It is your being; becoming is irrelevant. And then suddenly you will see... If you can see the point... Don't think about it, Sudha, just see the point -- it is so crystal clear -- and a great burden from your chest will disappear. So you are extraordinary! You will take a deep breath, you will relax, and suddenly there is happiness.
Happiness is not something that we have to produce or do anything for; it is natural, it is spontaneous. I can help you not to be in misery. Misery is your creation, happiness is God's creation. Misery is the gift that you have given to yourself, happiness is the gift that God has given to you. But you cling to misery, and when you cling, you feed it by your clinging. Drop it. Start dancing and singing and celebrating. End it right now. And don't say 'Tomorrow', because tomorrow never comes. And don't say 'I will think it over'; either you have understood or you have missed. Thinking is not going to help. It is a simple fact.
Let me repeat it again: everybody is extraordinary, so nobody needs to try. Don't suffer with this unnecessary inferiority. And if you suffer from it, you can go on suffering for ages; you can go on creating, and you can go on finding new ways and means. Somebody has a longer nose than you -- you are inferior. Somebody has blond hair -- you are inferior. Somebody has those beautiful eyes -- and you are inferior. Somebody is more intelligent -- and you are inferior. Somebody is a little taller -- and you are inferior. If you go on looking and searching for misery, it is available; you can find it in every person that passes by, you will find something or other is missing in you. But this is your way of looking at things that creates misery.
Forget everybody, just look into the gifts that God has given to you, and gratitude arises. In fact, there is no reason, no RAISON D'ETRE for this existence to be, no reason for this rain this morning, for this melody, this beautiful song, that the clouds are singing around you. If it were not there we could not have complained. If it were not there, we could not have asked that it should be. It is simply there without our asking. It is there. We have not even knocked at the door, and the door is open. And millions of gifts are showering on you; just look at those gifts, and you will be surprised. You will be surprised at how you have been missing them. Just the joy of breathing is enough tO be grateful for, just the joy of meeting a friend is enough to be grateful for, just the joy of sitting silently doing nothing... The joy of a morning or an evening, the joy of night... Just go on looking for the joyous, and you will find it.
You only find that which you look for.
You have been looking for misery; now, you can create misery. Today it is raining and tomorrow it will not be raining, then tomorrow you can be miserable -- 'Why is it not raining today ?' And when it is raining you are not grateful.
Start feeling grateful. Happiness comes closer and closer the more and more you become grateful. Gratitude functions like a magnetism; the complaining mind repels happiness -- it closes doors. It all depends on you. I can show you the way, but you will have to walk on it. Buddha has said 'Buddhas can only point the way; they cannot walk for you.' You will have to walk. I am showing you the way, but you have become very clever, efficient, in creating misery for yourself. Change the direction of your energies; channelize them toward the joy, the beauty... this cuckoo calling from far away. And, slowly slowly, you will see that so many things were there but you were not seeing them. Your eyes were full of misery hence you were missing them. Your eyes were clouded, they were hazy, foggy, that's why you were missing.
And one can miss by a small margin; one can miss by only a small thought. A small thought can become a barrier and you can miss the whole beauty of the vast Himalayas. You can be there, watching the beautiful peaks of the Himalayas, and the sun falling on the Himalayan snow, showering gold all around, and a thought comes into your mind, and the Himalayas have disappeared, the thought clouds you. You remember something: the other day somebody had insulted you, and that's enough. Or you start planning for the future, 'Tomorrow I have to leave', and the Himalayas have disappeared. And the thought is so small, and the Himalayas are so big... But even a small thought can hinder. The thought is so close to you, and it can stand in between. Just a small particle of dust can fall in your eye, and just a small particle -- almost invisible -- can make you blind, and you cannot open your eyes, and you cannot see the sun shining.
Sudha, do only one thing: start dropping the very concept of inferiority, the very concept that you have to be extraordinary. Now, even this question contains it; she has signed the question... your ORDINARY BUDDHA, SUDHA. Even in that, the ego is claiming that 'I am no ordinary BUDDHA. I am an ORDINARY Buddha.' You follow me? 'Buddhas are extraordinary people; I am not like them -- I am an ordinary Buddha.' This is claiming extraordinariness.
HELP ME FO BE ORDINARY.
You want to be extraordinarily ordinary? The ego can go on playing games, subtle games. You will have to look through and through. Just remember two things. One, you are already that which you want to be, hence there is no need to do anything for it. You can call it ordinariness, you can call it extraordinariness -- it makes no difference -- you are already that, you can never be anything other than that. What you call it does not matter. If you are in love with the word 'ordinary' then everybody is ordinary. If you love the word 'extraordinary' then everybody is extraordinary. Remember only one thing, that whatsoever you claim for yourself, you have claimed for the whole. And that is the trouble, you would like to be special, not like everybody else.
It happened...
There is a beautiful parable...
A man worshipped God for many years and was always asking 'Fulfil only one of my desires.' God must have got tired, bored. One day he appeared and he said 'Okay, you won't leave me alone. Morning, evening, you continuously go on harping on the same note "Fulfil one of my desires." Okay, I am here, what is your desire?'
And the man said 'Whatsoever I ask should be immediately given to me, that is my desire.' Very cunning man! God must have thought -- out of his innocence -- that he would ask for one thing; he asked for it all! He said that he had only one desire that 'Whatsoever I ask should be given immediately to me.' But you cannot defeat God, because cunningness never defeats innocence. God said 'Perfectly okay, this will be so, but remember one thing: whatsoever you ask, your neighbours will get double.'
Now, the man was finished. Months passed, and God would come again and again. 'You have not asked anything...?' He stopped praying, and God would come again and again, morning, evening, and he would say 'What! You have not asked yet?' And the man became very bored with God. He thought and thought, but whatsoever he will get, neighbours will get double. 'It is pointless!' He always wanted to have a beautiful palace, 'But what is the point now? The neighbours will have doubly big palaces.' The very idea was crushing him. killing him; he lost all joy of life. Now there was no possibility of ever being happy, and this God would come morning and evening and torture him. So one day he said 'Okay, give me a beautiful golden palace.' Immediately his hut became a golden palace, and he saw that the whole town had golden palaces -- bigger palaces, doubly bigger, all golden -- only his was the poorest one.
He went to a lawyer -- because where else can you go when such legal problems arise? The lawyer said 'You don't be worried' -- and of course God cannot win with a lawyer -- the lawyer said 'You ask "Now, make a big well in front of my house without a wall".' So a big well appeared before his palace and two wells appeared before everybody else's. The lawyer said 'Now ask "Make me one-eyed, let one eye disappear".' The man said 'What are you saying?' and the lawyer said 'Just wait. Law is law.' His one eye disappeared and both of his neighbours' eyes disappeared. Now, the whole town blind... two wells in each palace garden... people started falling in wells, people started dying. And the man was utterly happy. He said 'Now, my desires are fulfilled!'
So, I know, Sudha, you will be in difficulty: I declare you extraordinary, but everybody else, all your neighbours -- even Pramod -- is doubly extraordinary.
And please, don't go to a lawyer!
Next: Chapter 8: Enough of the Trips, Question 2
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen The Sun Rises in the Evening
| ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
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