Why don’t you tell me what to ‘do’?
This morning, chilling with my bestie, she said to me, ‘I tell you to do so many things, like make tarot videos for the public & write blogs, write a book; because I know you, your gifts, talents and I love you. Why don’t you ever tell me what to do?’ I was about to answer, when her 8 year old Son knocked on the door & she asked, ‘who is it?’ He replied, ‘Rajneesh’. That’s not her son’s name. That is my master, Bhagwan’s name. And this kiddo only calls Bhagwan, ‘Acharya’ or ‘Osho’, as his mom refers to her master as well. She looked at me in surprise.
I said to her, as she unlocked the door, ‘the answer to your question is coming from Rajneesh, for ‘I am not’. We laughed. She attended to her son for a few minutes & then I attempted to allow the answer to come through.
‘Why don’t you tell me what to do?’, was her question. The reply that came through, ‘no one can tell you what to do. No one at all! If someone says to you that I’m telling you to do this, that or the other because I love you, I care for you; it is not love. Know that. Because love only accepts as it is. Love is not for what you do, only for what you are in ‘being’. Do nothing at all & love will remain. Love will celebrate all that you do, but will never tell you what to do. If no one can tell you what to do, the question still remains, ‘tell me what to do?’
She listened intently as I allowed the answer to complete itself. ‘There are two ways of approaching life – expansion, which is ‘doing’ & growth, which is ‘being’. Expansion is outward & growth is inward. When we grow inside (vertically) in ‘being’, our own higher self takes us where we need to ‘Show up’ to expand (horizontally) & allows existence to ‘do’ what needs to be done through the ‘being’. It’s called Faith in all that is as it is. It is an intelligence of its own – Tantra!’ Tantra, unlike any other spiritual path, is a Path of ‘doing’ but without the involvement of the ‘I’. It is full of techniques which need to be done, from a space of ‘being’.
Not just an answer for her, this was Bhagwan’s reminder for me too. A culminating validation of a recent awakening.
My recent awakening
A month & a half ago, as a big ego death process began for me, triggered by the final struggle between ‘being’ & ‘becoming’ (ref. Blog post ‘life in surrender’); I started to detach from my own story automatically. I started questioning myself, ‘is there any need to express my ‘play’ of life? Who exactly am I expressing to? And who is expressing when ‘I am not’?’ I was very close to deactivating my social media & retiring into the peace & acceptance I was finding within myself in my own understanding. I understood that there is no need to express outwardly my inner experience of life. It is between me & life, not between my life & the world. But Bhagwan had other plans.
Bhagwan says, ‘only when one has totally removed himself, his ‘I’dentity from his story, does one live a story in true freedom. Then one becomes a channel for the truth to be expressed through his ‘being’, no matter the cost’ Because … freedom is really from the ‘idea’ of the self in realizing the true self. That true self is therefore selfless.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve found myself sitting with a question – Does it really take a whole world to tell someone, he has no reason to laugh, celebrate, sing & dance; unless he has ‘done’ something to ‘become’ worthy of expressing it? Celebrating it? The law of manifestation says, live the experience before it manifests & don’t be attached to any outcome.
So who decides what I am worthy of expressing? Then how is that my own life or expression? ‘I am not’, who will decide? Someone else? How is that true freedom? When one has the courage to stand in his own understanding, even if the whole world is against it; all of existence conspires to validate his understanding. There is no right or wrong understanding, there is only individual understanding. And understanding is awareness. Then all one has to ‘do’ is to just show up where he is called & existence takes care of the rest.
Now, does that mean that one is so rigid in one’s understanding, to not be open to surface or superficial ‘self’ change? (as the core true self is not changeable, only realizable & the same in all). No, that is not what it means. On the contrary, no matter how big, one is open to every change because it changes nothing of the true self. And there is no ‘I’ to be rigid. Who will be rigid? Only the motivation for accepting change in this case is different. The motivation is not the self because the self is self less & with surrender one has totally accepted the self and all as it is. It is then beyond the limited self.
The motivation – It maybe change required to allow existence to ‘do’ what needs to be done. Or it maybe change just to put a smile on a loved ones face. Or the change maybe for larger collective consciousness reasons. Whatever the motivation, It doesn’t come from a space of needing to become ‘better’, it comes from a space of total acceptance of the nature of the inner & outer worlds. The true self remains unchanged.
My recent awakening has shown me how to just show up & allow the story to be written, no matter the change that must be embraced. One can absolutely learn on the job, as long as he is willing to just show up in faith.
There are no teachers, only students
It is my observation throughout life so far, that everyone seems to know what another should to ‘do’ to ‘become’ worthy & deserving. Everyone has an opinion about everything, as so many seemed to have when I chose the path of Neo Sanyas. I am not for or against any opinion because all opinions stem from individual experiences of one’s past. They are all valid in their rightful place. No opinions are right or wrong, yet one’s opinion is irrelevant to the experience of another. And yesterday’s experience is not today’s reality. Yesterday is memory, today is reality!
So, even in asking another, ‘what should I do?’, one is essentially seeking validation outside of the self. When one stands by his own true understanding of the self (of the selfless self, removing the ‘I’), even if there is no validation from the outside world, that validation comes directly from the universe itself. It comes in the form of signs & synchronicities, and also manifested happenings. The Pathless path unfolds as I walk. Everyone learns what he needs to learn for his individual journey. No two experiences of life are the same. One’s opinion is irrelevant to the other. So I learnt, at the Temple of love, to allow my own understanding to lead the way. For there is no other way.
At the Temple of Love, one of the first lessons I learnt is that I must unlearn everything I know to learn that which aligns me with my own individual path in this collective consciousness. What I unlearnt is the world & what I learnt is my ‘self’! The thing is, there are no teachers. A true master or guru will never accept that he is a teacher. There are no teachers, only students. When one wants to learn, he can learn from anything & anyone. If I sit before a tree, just staring at it everyday, I can learn some profound lessons of life. In watching a seed grow into a plant & then into a tree, the whole circle of life & death can be understood. All of Tantra is in the story of a seed & tree.
There are no teachers, only students. No true master will ever accept he is a master, Yet, a true student will always accept his master as his master. The master wants no praise, he wants no-thing. The disciple wants to praise his master, he wants every-thing for his master. For every-‘thing’ already belongs to the master. The master – a vibrational frequency of the vertical dimension that aligns with one’s inner master. In celebrating the master, the disciple is celebrating him ‘self’, the self beyond the limited self. ⭕️
The ‘show’ must go on
Yes, life & its experiences are just a ‘leela’, a ‘play’, but we are not just spiritual beings. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. That human experience is real, while in human form. Regardless of where one is in consciousness, he feels just like everyone else. The approach & response to that feeling will continuously change, as one’s consciousness evolves.
My best friend from school is a dancer & choreographer of Attakalari & other dance forms. She ‘uses’ her creativity to spread awareness about many social issues. Some 10 years ago, she was in love & soon to be married. Her fiancée travelled to Thailand for his bachelors vacation. He & his friend were waiting for a third friend at the bus station behind a big crowd. When a bus arrived, the crowd was pushed back & the fiancée & his friend fell into a dry concrete fountain head first. The fiancée lost his life instantly, the friend was saved with lifelong serious damage. My friend got the news only 3 hours before a dance performance. Incidentally, one of her best till date as I hear.
I asked her, ‘how did you perform?’ She replied, ‘I danced like a zombie, blank mind. I remember nothing of it. It is better I danced before I grieved though. It somehow helped me to see that life goes on.’ In other words, the show must go on. I asked her, ‘what does it feel like to know that you have no control over life?’
She replied, ‘it’s like living with the weight of a dead man on my shoulders but it makes me fearless towards death too. I realized that death can come at anytime, without warning & nothing of what I’ve done in life will mean anything at all. I have no control over my life’s story.’ As of last year she is happily married 😊 & her wedding was a moment when I was able to reconnect after 20 years with my oldest friends. Where we’re all loved for what we are, not what we do. Anyways …
Essentially, what she was experiencing is a big ego death. I, of course didn’t know that then. An ego death is not much different from death itself. In death the ego dies with the body. In ego death, it dies before the body. One can watch himself dying in ego death. It’s painful, there is grieving too, but on the other side of it, is true freedom. None else are grieving with me though. I grieve my own death & transform to a deathless state of ‘being’. Mortal yes, but death less. When life shows us, we are not in control, ego death is the only response. The realization of that which is bigger than ‘I’. One just surrenders to that which is bigger.
For the past month & a half, my limited self has been grieving my biggest ego death yet. The limited self suddenly feels like the whole world is laughing at it. Mocking it. Yet, because ‘I am not’ in my own story; I’ve been able to laugh with the world too, as I grieve 😊. Somehow, I’ve been somewhere above the pain. Existence has certainly conspired to validate my individual understanding though, by carrying me into a new phase of this journey as I grieved, not even bothering to pick up the pieces of a dead, broken ego. Yet that is what has given me the strength to ‘just show up’ in faith where I’m being called. Thank god, the grieving has finally ended & after the rains, the Sun shines again. ☀️ 😊👍🏻
Life is beyond my control
I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to blog over the next few months, as focus shifts to a book that needs to be completed sooner than later. And I’m so inspired currently. Immensely grateful 🙏🏻. I know nothing about the journey ahead. It is completely unknown territory for me, but Bhagwan has sent a team that knows everything about it. It is their playing ground. So I just show up, in faith with the gifts bestowed upon me by existence itself & learn on the job as I go 😊.
The moment of life & the moment of death – the two most important happenings of any story, is beyond one’s control. The two most important experiences of one’s journey, happens without the involvement of ‘I’. ‘I am not’ in the moments of birth & death. And everything in between is just a ‘play’. For that play, each one of us has been given gifts as mediums to express our human experience. To ‘play’ our part. Because everyone is so focused on writing the story of their ‘I’ themselves, our whole expression becomes utilitarian. We use our ‘I’dentity, our gifts, our whole life, to write the story we want to write. The one we want to control.
For the one who has experienced ego death, ‘I am not’ in my own story, nothing is utilitarian. The one who has seen that the involvement of ‘I’, the ego, isn’t needed for a story to be written, there is no ‘I’, no one to use the gifts, or to use anything to write anything. Yet, a story is being written. Yet the gifts are being shared. Just show up to play the part. When a door opens, enter to show up, when a door closes, exit to show up.
Then I ask myself, ‘but who is showing up?’ To which, there is no answer. It is pure silence 🤫. The end of all questions. Because that which shows up is no-thing & therefore all there is! ⭕️
As this No-thing just shows up at the onset of a humbling 1st major tie up for the ‘We Woman Foundation’, to bring forward a new vision for women’s liberation; In gratitude for the ‘being’ of a friend, who intentionally or subconsciously (I don’t know) encouraged me to get back to the ‘word’. Either ways, the universe certainly used his being to conspire to align me with the story of the ‘word’.
Always in celebration of the Sun ☀️
For a Sunset is always followed by a moonrise.
And after a full moon-night too, there is always a sunrise ⭕️
Everything happens for a reason! Grateful!
Radhe Radhe 🙏🏻