A SMALL STORY
(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)
As long as our love happens towards a particular object, even if the object is a person, we will try to reduce that person only to the level of an object. That is exactly what we do when we feel possessive or attached to another person. In the way that we try to possess furniture or a house or any object, we try to possess the person also. We want the person to be just how we want him or her to be, which means we are actually reducing the person to sheer matter.
So understand, whenever our love or our attention is towards something in particular, we will be only materialistic, we will be creating suffering for ourselves and for others. We will only suffocate the object or person. Instead, if we turn our attention towards the experience of love itself, we will be liberating the object and we too will be liberated from the object. That is the beauty of love that happens just as love and not for the sake of any object. When you start possessing someone, you bind yourself also. If you are walking holding your dog's leash, be very clear that you are also bound. Don't think only the dog is bound. You are also bound. Don't think that only the dog cannot run away, you too cannot run away! You may be thinking that you are holding the rope and the dog may be thinking that he is holding the rope. Who knows?
We always place our attention in the wrong space and miss the truth. When we place our attention on an object, we miss the inner experience of love that happens. We
misunderstand that the excitement and the joy of love happens because of the object. We don't understand that the excitement or the joy of love happens not because of the object but because of us. It is an energy that happens in us. If it was because of the object, then whenever the object came in contact with us, we would have the same excitement, am I right? But it does not happen that way. Even if the object continues to be there, the temperature of the excitement comes down after some time, which means that the excitement or the energy is not related to the object. It is related to the subject, which is us. It is related to the experience itself, not to the object.
A small story:
An art collector travelled to a village. He saw a cat drinking milk from an old antique saucer outside a small tea shop. The art collector recognized the value of the saucer and wished to buy it.
He approached the shop owner and asked him, 'Sir, can I buy this cat for two dollars?'
The shop owner refused saying he didn't want to sell the cat.
The art collector said, 'I want a cat because my house is haunted by mice. Please sell the cat to me. I am ready to pay ten dollars.
The shop owner said, 'Fine, sold! Have it!'
Now the art collector said, 'I will take the cat but can you give me the saucer also? Then I don't have to buy a new saucer. The cat will be happy since she is already trained for this saucer. Why don't you give me the saucer too?'
The shop owner said, 'No! That's my lucky saucer. Only because of that I have sold sixty- eight cats in the last one week!'
The art collector wanted to get the saucer but got only the cat. We too miss what has to be really experienced in life because we go after the object and not the subject.
The next time you are with someone, when you are with your friend with whom you are completely open, remember to practice this technique.
Just sit next to him or her. Don't bother about what you are going to do or what you are going to say. Just sit, that's all! That is the technique. Actually, speaking is nothing but avoiding the other person. Because you cannot look into the other person's eyes, you go on speaking. That is the truth. The other person listens so that he can start speaking whenever you take a break! If a person is listening to you, it means that he is either thinking of something else or he is preparing for his turn. He sits there so that he can start once you finish.
Now if you try this technique, it can take you to a different space altogether. When you are with the master or your friend or your beloved, whoever you feel deeply connected with, whoever you are very open with, you can try this technique. It will straightaway lead you to enlightenment. Be very clear, I am not teaching this technique for you to have better relationships or for you to develop your personality. No! I am giving it to you to straightaway experience the pure love that can lead you to enlightenment. The big problem is that you never sit in a relaxed way. Either you are driven by greed, meaning you are in a hurry to say or do something, or you don't know what you are doing and so you are caught with fear. You just try to finish your job and escape! Either you are in greed or you are in fear. But for now, just relax. Be neither in fear nor in greed.
Just sit in the present. Just feel the other person's presence. Accept the other person as he or she is, as that being is, and feel what happens inside you. Try this for a few days. Suddenly you will see that you will experience a different space, one you have never before experienced in your life.
This is a technique from the Shiva Sutras*a collection of techniques for enlightenment delivered by Shiva*.
This technique will take you through a quantum jump from the form to the formless, from possessive love to causeless love. You may be attached to your beloved or god or master or friend or whomever. To move from that attachment, to move from the form to the formless, this is the technique. You can take a quantum jump into love with this. With this jump you will see that love happens not as an attachment to a particular object but as an overflowing energy that doesn't look for any attachment in the outer world. It is just your own overflowing that you share, that's all. It happens irrespective of whether the object is there or not. When love happens as causeless overflowing, you simply liberate yourself and the other person from your own attachment and possessiveness, because possessiveness as you know it, binds not only the other person but you as well. It tortures the other person as well as you! Real love simply liberates both of you. It gives freedom to you and the other person.