The House on Fire (re: Conditions in India)

[Guest guest]

Hari Om-

 

I think Buddha said when the " house is on fire " you

just try to get out- you don't to stop and figure out

what caused the fire. In the same way, sometimes it's

easier to escape the fires of samsara without worrying

about the details (the devil's in the details). I

think Sri Ramakrishna said the same thing with His

" Mango Story. " You can count all the leaves and fruit

and analyze everything. Or you can just eat the mangos

and enjoy them without thinking. Maybe we can't figure

out the cause of all these " fires " raging in the body

and mind, but we can just do japa or repeat " I am not

the doer " and the fires will eventually go out by

themselves....or not if Mother wills it.

 

Sri Nisargadatta says:

 

Where is the need of changing anything? The mind is

changing anyhow all the time. Look at your mind

dispassionately; this is enough to calm it. When it is

quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not keep it busy all

the time. Stop it, and just be. If you give it rest,

it will settle down and recover its purity and

strength. Constant thinking makes it decay. (311)

 

Nothing you do will change you, for you need no

change. You may change your mind or your body, but it

is always something external to you that has changed,

not yourself. Why bother at all to change? Realize

once for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor

even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in

your true nature beyond consciousness and

unconsciousness. No effort can take you there, only

the clarity of understanding. (520)

 

Don't try to reform yourself, just see the futility of

all change. The changeful keeps on changing while the

changeless is waiting. Do not expect the changeful to

take you to the changeless - it can never happen. Only

when the very idea of changing is seen as false and

abandoned, the changeless can come into its own. (521)

 

 

Most people's activities are valueless, if not

outright destructive. Dominated by desire and fear,

they can do nothing good. Ceasing to do evil precedes

beginning to do good. Hence the need for stopping all

activities for a time, to investigate one's urges and

their motives, see all that is false in one's life,

purge the mind of all evil and then only restart work,

beginning with one's obvious duties. (345)

 

It is not what you do, but what you stop doing that

matters. (Yes! This resonates!!!)

 

(My technique has been just to throw more fuel on the

fire and after I'm well-fried (tapas!) crawl back the

Divine Mother and surrender my insanity to Her. Who's

confused? Who is suffering because of misguided

thoughts and activities? Nobody! It's all Her dream!

There is no " I " or " you " to suffer! Who's even

thinking this? Even my thinking of the Divine Mother

is a dream in Her mind.)

 

 

 

--- srivrindavan <srivrindavan wrote:

> > Yet we find the horrors of Gujarat in the name of

> God.

> > Where is the priority?

>

> I am not sure whether this statement means that the

> horrors

> of Gujarat for the Ayodhya temple or the poor

> maintenance

> of the ancient South Indian temples must be of

> utmost

> priority to every Hindu. Both definitely are not a

> very

> great priority to me and my reasons are elaborated

> below.

>

> Firstly, this is a matter of faith and therefore I

> would

> not like to debate on the subject of preservation of

> our

> ancient temples or getting back a temple from

> another

> religion. Rather, if someone can do anything good

> and

> constructive about it that benefits mankind, to me

> he

> has contributed more than a thousand debates.

>

> Temples serve a good purpose and so long as

> that purpose is served, I appreciate it's presence.

> When it stops serving that purpose, as far as I am

> concerned, it does not hold any significance at all

> to me - but that is my personal view.

>

> But apart from this issue, as far as I am concerned

> personally, I have learnt less from temples than

> from

> modern traditions. I do not stay in the South but I

> grew up in Bombay and therefore cannot make a just

> comparison with temples in the South. Most of the

> temples I visited were concerned only with the

> ritualistic part of spiritual life - where you go

> and do pradakshina, offer some coins in the

> hundi, collect some thirtha or prasad and learn some

> incantations that you are supposed to recite to God.

> These are good no doubt, but I find the other

> " temples "

> where I get the company and personal attention of

> spiritual teachers who teach and correct our lives

> a lot better. This I found in modern institutions

> in a better measure. That is my personal experience.

>

> Our scriptures say that Thirtham Kurvanthi

> Thirthaani

> (Holy places are created by holy men). If I have the

> company of one holy man, that is equivalent to what

> many temples can give me. Around such a holy man,

> places of pilgrimage have grown within the wink of

> an eye as it were and no efforts were required for

> their preservation.

>

> Another thing to keep in mind, in my view, is that

> we

> do not have to do anything to protect great centers

> of

> learning, if they are truly great. They grow of

> themselves

> due to the presence of great men. One needs make no

> effort to preserve them. And great centers of

> learning

> are not restricted to any few sqaure meters of land.

> They can grow anywhere, just as God is everywhere.

>

> To me, what is far degrading than the poor

> preservation of the temples (which are after all

> made

> of bricks and cement etc.) is the poor preservation

> of this God in our own temple called the body. This

> is

> all the more pitiable in the light of the stronger

> and

> stronger influence of materialistic values. As

> Lord Buddha said, when the house is on fire, one's

> first

> effort is to preserve the house and every other

> effort is

> subservient to that. Wherever I get the solution to

> quell this fire in my own house is a temple to me.

>

> Once again, this is not meant to diminish the good

> efforts that are being done for the preservation of

> our temples and it is not that I dislike or

> disrespect

> these great works - but this is only to illustrate

> my

> personal preference given the circumstances of life

> in

> which I am placed in. There lies my first and

> foremost

> priority - and it is still occupying a major part of

> my

> time, effort and resources in life.

>

>

>

>

 

 

 

 

 

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