LOVE THINE ENEMIES
You can love a friend just as much as a foe. Therefore, Jesus said, “Love thine enemies,” and he said this from experience, for wherever he went, he was opposed. Many people were his enemies – enemies of Jesus, but how could Christ ever know of enemies?
“Love thy enemies” can only come from a deeper level, not from the mental and analytical level. For, in an enemy, we would find all the faults, and all the defects found in an enemy are nothing but the projection of our minds and faults. Because we are not strong enough to bear, recognise, or accept our faults, we project them onto others. And projecting those faults, they assume the form of enemies.
Yet, no one is an enemy or a friend to anyone. These things are surface expressions. Not that we must not have friends; by all means, they could benefit you. They could be invaluable to you, and you could be beneficial to them on the surface level of life, and we cannot deny the surface level of life, for that, too, is necessary. But when the Oneness, the communication of the Spirit, occurs, there is no friend and no foe. There is neither acceptance nor non-acceptance. It is a recognition of what is, and that isness is the truth.
WE WANT TO GO BEYOND THE OPPOSITES
You have a friend, and you trust the friend. Tomorrow, something might happen, and he becomes a foe, so you have lost trust. The mental qualities are forever changing when we are looking for the eternal, when we are looking for that consciousness, that Christ Consciousness, in everything around us. For it is there, transcending trust, faith, and belief. Because there is no opposite in that consciousness – it is just there. Today, you believe in something, and something might happen that will produce disbelief in you. The opposite is there, and it could be something very trivial. It could be something that could not even exist to make the disbelief. It could be some interpretation of your mind. You disbelieve, so you are bringing about the opposite reaction.
We want to go beyond the opposites, beyond belief and disbelief, and beyond the so-called worldly love and hate, for these are all but qualities. When I say to you that love must exist for the sake of love itself and not for the sake of the object, that love is a different kind of love. It means two so-called individual loves merge into that one love into that consciousness.
The actual search is not for love. Love is still a secondary quality. It is a quality that has quantity. “I love him a little.” “I love him very much.” It is a secondary quality given to the personalised being, the personification or the manifestation of that consciousness. Truth is beyond all that, for truth is consciousness. As I have said many times, language is so inadequate to describe and explain what consciousness is all about. One could only say it is an is-ness that we never question, which is how this has also been misinterpreted wildly.
You go to some of the ashrams in India; for example, you cannot question the guru. He can do what he likes. You are not allowed to question the guru. You must have faith in him; he can be a scoundrel. You must have faith – that is blind faith. I would never encourage that. I encourage total questioning according to your ability. I would allow you to interpret according to your ability. If your interpretation is wrong, that is also good. If it is correct, that is a bit better.
But go beyond the wrong and the right. That is what we want. Then there is no separation; there is no question, doubt, faith, nothing because these are qualities only of the mind.
THE MIND IS A MANIFESTATION
If a man asks a woman, “Do you love me?” She says “yes”, and he asks, “Why do you love me?” For this reason or for that reason or another reason – then that is not love. That is a form of manifestation of love. A manifestation through the manifestation of the mind. For the mind is a manifestation. It is not the truth. It is a superimposition to look for qualities more conducive to their framework and frame of mind. Then, all the conditions come about. Where true love, real love, should be unconditional.
These are the things that the disciples of Jesus failed to recognise at that time. They were constantly questioning. There was so much jealousy between themselves. In some scrolls that were found recently, there were prominent write-ups in reputable newspapers in England like the Observer. I remember reading those write-ups where many of the disciples felt jealous because Jesus held Mary Magdalene so close to him and kissed her passionately on the lips. There were jealousies. Things were conditional. That “why are we not paying that attention? Why is Mary paying that attention?” So, were they true disciples? No, they were not. They were not true disciples. They only became true disciples after Jesus left them, and in the process, the realisations dawned of not the man, the man that was given to passion, that was given to anger. When they saw beyond that, only the realisations dawned on what he represented and his reality.
NEVER EXPECT ANYTHING
In the mundane world, no guru or chela must live in expectations. Never expect anything. Even in your meditations, do not expect anything, and then the most extraordinary things occur. Because expectation is building a wall, in other words, your mind is biased already. You are expecting something. You want something. As long as they want it brought in, you get nothing. What is required is total innocence. Not faith. Not trust. That is not necessary. But just an acceptance. That is necessary. According to your ability. According to your measure. According to your rule. Because rules and rulers differ, your rule might have eight inches to the foot. Another rule might be ten inches to the foot. Their awareness, or lack of awareness, governs everyone. Therefore, everyone is unique unto themselves. Being a true and great teacher, Jesus left it to the disciples to develop awareness. He taught, he taught, and he taught. But to unfold the awareness was left to them themselves.
He was known to be a man of miracles. That is what the book tells us. Miracles happen every day. Miracles are happening today, now, at this very moment. If he could make the blind see, why could he not open the eyes of awareness of those close to him? These things are not done. Even a god on earth cannot push evolution. We have so many fallacies in our scriptures, and not only fallacies but truths that are misinterpreted and misunderstood; therefore, they became fallacies.
For example, as they say, Jesus took all the sins away from all the people. Then, all the people living during his time must have been sinless. Then why was he crucified? Why did he have to suffer if they had that sinlessness? For sinlessness implies the totality of consciousness. Why did he not do that? No. The true teacher shows the way, and it is for you to remove the discrepancies you have, and you can only remove them as you start slowly and gradually recognising them. Removal of one’s faults must come from oneself, and identifying those faults must dawn on yourself. For the way is shown how to do it.
THE SEED HAS BEEN PLANTED
Although they knew what the teachings were and used to perpetuate the word during Jesus’ lifetime, they never had the realisation. They were parrots. His master’s voice. Gramophone records. That is what it was. But a lot of good is in that, too. Primary school teachers will teach primary school children. A university professor will teach university students. Everything and everyone has their place. There was nothing wrong with the disciples of Jesus giving his teachings. Because that also depends upon the hearers’ awareness, only those who can hear will hear. Only those who can see will see.
Everything is left entirely to us. We are just thankful that we have these guides. The words might not sink in now at this minute, this period, or that minute, but eventually, they will. The seed has been planted, which is the gardener’s duty. He plants. That is all he does. He has no control at all in making that seed grow. That seed has to burst first in the ground. That ego has to burst before the plant can sprout. It depends upon the seed to grow, and by its wildly bursting in the ground, it draws all the mineral elements required to grow. The gardener takes the seed and just plants. Whether it grows or not depends upon the seed and not the master. He has done his job, and then he helps. Of course, he waters the plant. That is part of his job. He also desires that “I have planted the seed, now I would like to see it grow.” It is not a desire in the true sense of the word, and it is not even a wish. It is not even the desire to see the fruit of his labours in planting the seed. It is to see nature’s process, and by seeing nature’s process, he himself becomes more and more joyful without desiring the joy.
HE HELPS HIMSELF TO HELP ANOTHER
No person helps anyone in the true sense of the word. He only allows one to support himself. We have heard the saying many, many times.
Abraham Lincoln was on his way to the house of Parliament. You call it the Senate here or Congress. On the way in his horse and buggy cart, he saw a pig struggling in the dirt there. The pig was in trouble; it could not escape the marshland. So, he stopped the horse and buggy, went into the dirt and freed the pig. But time was short, and he had no time to return home and change his clothes. He was full of mud and dirt, and just like that, he went to the House of Parliament and partook in the debate on whatever bill was to be passed.
Someone questioned how Abraham Lincoln came in that condition, and they found out what had happened. So, they all started praising him; he was a wonderful man to dirty his beautiful clothes just for the sake of a pig. But Abraham Lincoln replied, “I did nothing for the pig. What I did was for myself. Seeing the pig in pain, I was pained, and my action was to remove my pain.” Do you see the point? My action was to remove my pain, and my pain was removed by removing the pig’s pain. But my motive was my pain because I got pained by seeing the pain of the struggling pig.
Everything you do, you are doing it for yourself unless you are an enlightened master. Because he needs nothing to do for himself. He is the Light. He becomes the Light and is not even conscious of his Light. Only the people groping in the darkness would become mindful of the Light that the true Master sheds. He is never conscious of it. This light burning here is not conscious that it is giving light to this room. We are mindful of the light it is shedding. All people on the path, including the disciples of Jesus, were doing things for no one else. They do things only for themselves, and I say more so to the so-called “do-gooders” who think that we are doing this for this person and we are doing that for that person. No, you are not. You are doing it for yourself. Like Abraham Lincoln did what he did, he jumped into the mud and mire to relieve his pain.
That is what the disciples of Jesus did when they started teaching after Jesus’ death. They only started truly teaching then, to remove the pains they felt, that we were so close at the feet of the master, and yet we had so many doubts. We had so many doubts.
He said, “Follow,” and we followed. But what did we know about the following? Is that following to walk with him through the sands, deserts, and forests? They were short of meals on the way, and when many of them were troubled when there was no food, he said, “Do the birds of the air worry about food or the lilies of the field?” You know that passage very well in the Bible. It will be there. It will be provided. It will come.
So, the do-gooders do not do for others, but they must feel grateful that I have been given the privilege to do something to relieve my pains. I am not doing any good to anyone. I am doing good to myself; any benefit another receives is just incidental. That should be the attitude in life, and that brings about humility. Oh, I did this incredible thing today for such a person. That inflates the ego. Your “I” comes in, “I did.” No. Instead, show gratitude and thank that person who has allowed me to remove that within me that had to be removed.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1981 – 24
