Q: Swamiji, do you always feel blissful? Don't you ever feel the sway of emotions?
Yes! I am blissful always – 24x7 in your language! This is because plurality has disappeared from my being. When there is bliss, there cannot be plurality. Only when plurality disappears, bliss can happen.
In my being, there is no lust or fear, attachment or hatred or any of the opposing emotions. The only emotion is bliss! Unless it becomes an experiential understanding for you, it will be difficult for you to understand this. You might understand it at the intellectual level. As of now, understand that I am always blissful; that is enough!
The first step to bliss is to become a watcher. Simply watch life as if it were a drama. When you watch, your mind will become still. When it becomes still, you have caught the thread. When you experience that stillness at least once, you have caught the thread.
That thread will guide you into periods of longer stillness. The stillness is your inner master. The outer master helps to find your inner master. When you have found the stillness, you will understand that all emotions are a mere play of the mind.
Understand, you can never drop any emotion by consciously trying to drop it. The more you try to drop it the more you will fight with it. The emotion will haunt you. The only way is to watch your emotions. As you watch your emotions, the emotions will simply disappear.
Right now, you are so entangled with your emotions that you simply cannot see yourself as different from them. When you start watching, you will start creating a distance between you and your emotions. Slowly, the distance will increase and one day, the watcher will disappear from the scene.
Then, you need not put any effort to drop your emotions. They will simply drop on their own. You will no more be able to relate with them. They will disappear from your being. A shift in consciousness happens in you. You become a new person.
When you become a watcher, there will be no room for worries or pain. There will be only a beautiful energy within you what is called love. You will then understand the love of Existence, the infinite love that envelops you every minute.
A small story:
A man was known to have a very weak heart.
His family was always careful in telling him any drastic news.
One day, they came to know that his wealthy uncle had died leaving one million dollars to him.
They were very excited and at the same time did not know how to break this news to him. They were afraid that he might collapse hearing it.
One of them suggested, 'I think we'd better call the family doctor and tell him to handle this.'
They all agreed.
They called up the family doctor and told him the matter.
The doctor said, 'Don't worry, I will handle it. It is not so hard as you think.'
He soon arrived at their house and went into the room and started talking to the man. He casually asked him, 'If you were suddenly told that you were given one million dollars in cash, what would you do?'
The man replied, 'I would give half of it to you, doctor.' The doctor collapsed and died.
We are ready to see life as a drama when it comes to others but when it comes to us, it becomes hard to digest! We are always ready to give advice to others. I read in a book that advice is something which everyone loves to give but no one is ready to take!
You can watch your own life also like a witness. You can be like a lotus – untouched by the water although deep inside it. Then you have learned to play the game of life. Understand one thing: Existence is trying to express itself continuously in many ways. Our role is to understand and flow with it with deep awareness.
Understand that the whole of creation is flowing in accordance with Existence. Then you will automatically drop your worries and anxieties. You have to reach a stage where your core is untouched by what is happening around you. This will happen if you understand that Existence is continuously changing.
Outwardly, you may express different emotions, but in your innermost core, you must be able to continuously see that all the incidents outside are like beads that are strung on the common thread of Existence. The thread is what holds them together.