Amma's Words

[Guest guest]

om amritesvaryai namah

 

“The mind, or the past, is not the problem; the problem lies in your

identification with the mind, with your past. The unintelligent attachment,

the feeling of ‘I and mine,’ is the problem. Once you learn the art of

withdrawing your attachment and being a witness, then something changes in

the way you see everything.

 

“Amma has heard a story that She will use as an example. A factory is on

fire. The owner of the factory is in a terrible state, sobbing and screaming

like one gone mad. ‘Everything is being destroyed!’ he cries. ‘All my

wealth, everything that I have earned through hard work is gone. I’m

ruined!’ Then suddenly, a friend comes up to him and says, ‘Why are you

crying so desperately? Don’t you know that your son sold the factory

yesterday? It is no longer yours!’ The factory is still burning, the

situation hasn’t changed, but the man immediately stops crying. The burning

and fuming within him has stopped. He wipes his tears and smiles, relieved.

Just then, his son comes and tells him, ‘Dad, why are you just standing

there? Don’t you see that the factory is in flames? Why don’t you do

something!’ The father says, ‘What is there to do? You have sold the

factory.’ But the son tells him, ‘No, father, we almost sold the factory

yesterday but something went wrong; the sale didn’t go through.’ As soon as

he learns the news, the father is again thrown into a state of despair, and

his sobbing resumes.

 

“The burning building is not the cause of his suffering. His attachment to

the building is the real reason for his suffering. The thought that the

factory is his, and then later that it is no longer his, creates entirely

different moods in him. His initial terror and despair changes into

happiness and relief, and then again back to despair. The outer situation

hasn’t changed as the factory continues to burn—the changes happen within

him. When he hears that the factory has been sold, he withdraws his

attachment and just witnesses the building being burned. But as soon as he

receives the news that the building hasn’t been sold after all, an

attachment is created which plunges him back into sorrow. If you can

renounce your feelings of attachment, then you will always be calm. Stop

identifying with the world created by your mind, and a new world will open

up before you. You may still own a big house, a beautiful car and other

comforts, but you don’t really possess anything. By not letting any

insentient objects affect your life, you become their master.

 

“Don’t think that all your memories of the past will disappear when you

attain the state of Perfection. No, the memories are still there, but you

will never again identify with them. Once your identification with the past

is withdrawn, the past becomes no more than a storage place for your

memories. Think of the past as a storage place and not as the place where

you live. If you need to use something from the past, you go there to fetch

it, and as soon as you have found what you need, you leave the place. You do

not live there. This is what needs to be understood. Don’t spend your life

in the storage place of your past, for that is not your home. Come away from

there and live in the light, the love and the freedom where you belong. This

is the message of a true Master. You will learn it by just being in his

presence. Nowhere else in the world can this be learned.”

 

In Amma,

~sucetas mon~

om lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

 

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