Expectation: the cause of distress
You are not mutable and perishable frail material inert
body. You are the eternal pure enlightened Spirit, which is truth,
Consciousness and Bliss combined. Changes like birth and death inhere in the –
not in you, the spirit. The objective existence in the form of the phenomenal
world is unreal and, even though it appears as real due to Maya (illusion), its
transitoriness — perishablility is patent. You are real and ever immortal.
Realize your true nature and ever continue to be blissful and beyond the pairs
of opposites of the world such as joy and sorrow, gain and loss.
Even as the living beings and inanimate objects seen, and
the joys and sorrows of our waking life too are unreal. All these are the
unreal products of our ignorance. You, who are the Spirit, have nothing to do
with them nor do you gain or lose anything through their coming and going –
appearance and disappearance.
In the experience of a devotee all these are the diverse
– gentle and riotous – waves of the ocean of pastimes of the playful Lord. The
Lord Himself stands manifested in the form of His pastimes. Therefore always
enjoy the blissful sight of the Lord through them and, perceiving the
All-sportful Lord incessantly manifest in them in the form of pastimes
continues to enjoy the bliss of His supremely blissful pastimes.
All pairs of contraries such as birth and death, friend
and foe, day and night, cold and heat, are an illusion or the diverse phase of
the Lord’s pastime only. Therefore, either overlook them or, looking on them,
continue to dive into ocean of Supreme Bliss by enjoying the sight of the
ever-blooming lotus-like countenance of the supremely beloved and All-sportful
Lord, lit up with an eternally sweet and gentle smile and hidden behind them.
When you realize in this way the presence of the most
beloved Lord in all living beings and inanimate objects, natural phenomena,
ideas and thoughts, the very form of the world will be changed for you. While
at present you rejoice and feel unhappy due to the feeling of mineness and
attachment at the sight of transient and perishable living beings and inanimate
objects possessing contradictory traits, you will then behold the one eternal
real imperishable God manifest in the form of the diverse plays and players,
the self of your self, who is all Truth, all Consciousness and all Bliss. Your
personality will no longer remain perishable, full of fears and despondency and
tormented with grief and infatuation. It will be wholly transformed into a
blissful actor in the sportful drama enacted by the imperishable fearless
all-blissful eternal real, eternally real, eternally agreeable Lord, ever
endowed with a fresh charm.
Even if one does not recognize this world to be unreal,
at least nothing in this transitory and changeable world is eternal and
abiding. Under such circumstances if anyone here aspire for an eternal and
abiding object or situation he will ever meet with frustration. Expectancy in
this world is most distressing. No expectation of anyone here has ever been
fully realized. If you entertain one hope, thousands of hopes will sprout from
that one hope and you will yourself be bound by those hopes so tightly that you
will find it most difficult to get unloosed. This is what is happening even
today. Bound by the cords of thousands of hopes and aspirations a man gives
himself over to lust and anger, loosing the balance of his judgement, and,
falling back situation, is adding more and more to the load of his miseries.
Therefore, altogether give up the hope for factious transitory delights.
Realize the unsubstantial and woeful nature, transitoriness and unreality of
the world. Be established in your real, blissful and conscious being or,
becoming an actor in the sportful drama enacted by the Lord, attain the bliss
of divinity.
Glory of your opulence before the destitute is a crime
Your body and riches, learning and intellect, power and
strength, position and authority and everything else belong to God, you owe
them to Him and all exist for His service alone. The usefulness of all lies in
their being utilized in His service, and the fulfillment of your life too lies
in this.
Wherever a thing possessed by you is needed by another,
know that the real owner of the thing, viz., God Himself seeks it from you.
Therefore respectfully surrender to Him with great humility the object
belonging to Him and deem it your good fortune to have done so.
- Expectation Cause of Distress