The matching game🔗

All forms of media are nothing but dream sellers. We collect the dreams that they sell and keep running over them in our minds hoping to quench our thirst. Is it possible? Can your thirst for water be quenched by consuming salt? No! If you do this, your thirst will only increase.

If you are alert and aware, advertisement hoardings can never fool you. Of course, by seeing them, you can always be aware of the latest things in the market, no doubt, but they will not deceive you.

You will not be vulnerable to them. You will be able to see them objectively and leave it at that. You will not feel an instant and unconscious pull towards them. It is only when you allow your 'reactive' mind to be your deciding authority that you are in trouble. You need to replace the reactive mind with your intelligence so that you are with awareness all the time. This is where meditation helps a lot.

While on one side, the media feeds your imagination, on the other, society tries to suppress you. The more society tries to suppress your imagination and desires, the more your imagination grows, because society does not address the root cause of it. When you just cut off the branches of a tree and leave its roots as they are, what happens? The tree grows in a more flourishing manner.

During these years, from 14 years of age, we collect ideas from all sorts of media and build up an image of the perfect woman or man. From each person, we collect the best nose, the best eyes, the best personality, and create our own 'ideal person'. We follow a cut and paste method! In your computers, you cut and paste all the time.

This stage lasts for around 7 years, until we are 20 or 21. By then identification with the media wears off – but the ideas are already deep-rooted in our minds. Then a fresh search begins – to find that ideal person in our real life. This is the search with the idea of how our 'would-be' 'should-be'. This is where the expectations start.

For the next 7 years, this search continues. Person after person we try out, and get disappointed. A few intelligent people figure out after a while that dreams cannot become reality. Only because dreams cannot become a reality, they are called dreams! But most people keep searching.

A small story:

A 90-year old man used to sit every day at the beach from morning to evening, watching the people going by.

Another man who noticed this went up to him and asked him, 'What do you actually do sitting here everyday?' The old man replied, 'I am searching for a woman to be my wife.' The man was simply shocked at this reply and asked him, 'Why did you not search in your youth?' The old man replied, 'I have been searching since I was 30 years old.' The man was astonished and asked him, 'What sort of a woman are you searching for?' He replied, 'I am searching for a perfect woman.' 'And you haven't found one?' the man asked. 'I found one woman who matched what I had in mind but it didn't work out well with her,' replied the old man. The man asked why. The old man replied, 'She was searching for a perfect man!'

This is what happens when we try to get a perfect match for the image that we carry inside us.

But after a long search, we suddenly find a person who seems to match our mental image – from a distance. The picture in our mind is green – and the person, the image that we see also seems to be green – and then, all is green! A match seems to be found!

What happens at this point is what is called 'falling in love'. This is the science behind falling in love. Note that it is always 'falling' in love, never 'rising' in love! Because what actually happens is, because of our own strong needs and expectations, we see things as we want to see them. We project our mental image upon the other.

So anyway, the world becomes filled with greenery and music and life becomes poetry. At last, our search is over! This is the stage at which we begin to write poetry, make paintings and what not.

As long as this distance is maintained, things go on smoothly. We continue to project our imagination upon the other. But slowly, the person comes closer and then we feel that what we saw as green was not so green but only a pale green. But it seems alright and we move on. After a while, we come still closer and feel that it is not even pale green but actually a shade of yellow.

But at this stage, we don't want to accept that our imagination has turned out to be a lie, so we start making excuses for the situation. We say to ourselves, 'This is life! Everything can't be perfect!' and so on. It requires tremendous courage, tremendous intelligence to live with reality. So we use these excuses instead, as a buffer system.

Finally, when we get close enough we find that it is not even yellow; it is just white! What is inside us is green and what is outside is white. Fantasy and reality are totally different.

A small story:

A man fell down from the third floor of the building onto the road.

A passerby ran up to him and asked, 'The falling must have hurt you*.*'

The man replied, 'No. The falling did not hurt me; only the sudden stopping hurt me!'

As long as we float and flirt in love, as long as we keep our distances and time short, we are fine; we are in a fantasy world; we are not at the functional level. It is only when the floating stops and the real relationship starts, when the distances reduce and the togetherness time increases, the problem starts!

The more fantasies you collect, the more your falling time is before you hit the ground, and so more the damage. The fewer fantasies you collect, the fewer the number of things there are to compare with and lesser the trouble. If you don't have any fantasy or imagination, you will immediately meet your soul mate. If you don't have fantasies, anyone you marry will become your soul mate.

We need to understand that no living person can live up to the image we carry in our minds simply because the image is not built from reality. The image is a cut and paste from various quarters of our dream world! Reality cannot be matched with it because at the end of the day, it is only an image, a fantasy!

It is alright if you collect your images from real life characters, from the people you see around you. But you collect from media.

The media itself is suffering from lust! How then can it provide any sort of guidance or relief to you?

That is why, all the so-called love most often ends in pain. We end up feeling cheated or exploited by the other. Our basic instinct is to blame the other for what has happened.

But is it the other's fault?

No! Because we expected something, and we tried to force our imagination upon the other, the problem staretd.

You see, there are some cases where one person starts behaving in an eccentric or irrational way. Those are exceptional cases where you have to decide if you want to continue to live together with such behaviour or not. You cannot apply what I am saying to that. Exceptions are always there.

But what I am saying is what is actually happening in reality in many houses where both the people are normal and yet there is unrest. But we never try to look into it. We never like to deal with the truth.

Understand what I am trying to say. Drop your imagination and start living with reality.

A small story:

A man gave his friend a puppy as a wedding gift. Three months later, they met on the street. 'How is married life?' he asked him. 'Oh, just a few small changes over time, that's all,' replied the friend. 'What changes?' he asked him.

'In the beginning, the puppy used to bark at me, and my wife used to bring me the newspaper. Now, my wife barks at me, and the puppy brings me the newspaper!' the man replied.

Once the honeymoon is over, what happens? No wonder it is called the honey*moon* and not honey*sun*! The happiness invariably lasts only a fortnight! I tell you, even if you marry a supermodel, her beauty will fade in just 15 days in your eyes because you are already fantasizing about someone else! And you keep on fantasizing because you are actually looking for fulfillment within yourself but searching outside for it through these built-up images.

One lady was advising her daughter on the subject of marriage. 'Listen dear, when you love someone, it should be for life; only then it is real love.'

The daughter was listening to what she was saying.

The lady continued, 'Take my word of advice. I know what I am talking about. After all, I have been married three times*.*'

The problem is, everyone is ready to give advice, but there is no one to take it!

Anyhow, at least when we find out what is outside is white, if we accept reality, there is no problem. But do we keep quiet? No! We take out our brush and paints, and try to paint the white into green! We try to change the other person to suit our mental image. We try to sculpt each other in the way we have imagined him to be. We try to possess the other and convert them into matter. We degrade energy into matter. Here starts the problem!

A small story:

One man was a painter by profession.

He was telling his friend, 'You know, one day a girl walked in with a chip that was a kind of blue-black colour and wanted me to paint a model house with the same color. I thought I would give up my profession in trying to match it. Nothing seemed to satisfy her.'

The friend asked, 'Did you finally match it?'

He replied, 'I was lucky. She got a call on her mobile phone and I quickly painted the chip while she was talking!'

All through the day, in every home, just listen carefully to the husband and wife talking to each other. You can hear the chiseling going on! I think that for marriages, we can gift a chisel and hammer along with the sacred thread or wedding ring!

Another small story:

A man and his friend were having a cup of tea together one evening.

The man told his friend, 'I am planning to divorce my wife. She has not spoken one word to me in the past 6 months.' The friend said, 'Think carefully before making any such decision. You won't get another wife like that.'

In life, if we drop the images inside us, we will find endless possibilities!

If you are unmarried, drop your fantasies so that you can choose your life partner and not a dream partner. When you select a person, just remind yourself that you are going to be spending your entire life with him, not just a few months. It is not just a fling. It is a life-long matter.

As of now, any black jeans or blue T-shirt will fall within your fantasy world and you will be attracted to it. But understand that the black or blue will fade away in six months' time!

If you are already married, drop your fantasies; only then can you start a real relationship with anybody. If you move about with a chisel and hammer, a real relationship cannot happen. What happens in chiseling is, you start chiseling and when you think that you have finished chiseling, your imagination has changed; it has become something different and so you have to do more chiseling to match the changed imagination! It becomes a never-ending cycle.

A real relationship can never happen as long as you have fantasies. If you notice, even if you stay for twenty-four hours in the same house with the other person, you don't look into the other's eyes, because you live with fantasy and not reality. You don't actually live with the real person. You see all that the other person does through your imagination and conclude that your life is a punishment to you from God.

If you are unmarried, drop your fantasies and your blood will cool down.

If you are a widower, drop your imagination and you will not suffer the pain of loneliness.

Try your best not to allow children to watch the duet songs on television until they have learnt not to build fantasy. If they only enjoy the music and dance along with it, it's alright; but they invariably internalize all that they see. This is where the problem starts. Everything gets stored in the muladhara chakra, the sex chakra. Then a mere suggestion is enough and the muladhara will be ready.

The sheer load of expectation leads to disturbances in the muladhara chakra. This is the way this chakra is locked. When you try to fulfill your fantasy through another person or by watching the television, when you try to impose or project your expectation and imagination on another person, this chakra is locked.

It has nothing to do with the outer conditions of life. It has nothing to do with so-called celibacy. It is to do with your inner fragmented self.

What is celibacy?

What is celibacy?

Celibacy is nothing but not craving for the suppressed half that is inside you, that's all. If you are a male, you need to experience such fulfillment unto yourself that you no longer miss the suppressed female inside you. And if you are a female, you are so enough unto yourself that you don't look outside to experience this fulfillment.

If this is achieved, you can live with or without the female in the outside world. If this is not achieved, even if you get married, you will continue to be under the torture of your hormones. Your hormonal torture is nothing but a yearning for the fulfillment that you are actually supposed to get from within, not without.

When you achieve this fulfillment, whether you are married or not, there will be peace in your mind. It is then that you can be celibate even in married life! This is true celibacy.

Instead of this, people go out of their way to become celibates and become more suppressed and neurotic.

Comment: But Swamiji*, we don't even realize that we are carrying an image within us…*

Yes, because we have never looked in. We go everywhere but inwards. Up to 80% of our energy is locked in this energy center! This energy center doesn't even need to be energized. It simply needs to be opened and activated, and the flood of energy flowing from it can transform your whole life!

If you look deeply inside yourself, you will understand that you are suffering because you always feel there is some mismatch between what you see and what you want to see. This 'what you want to see' is the image that you are carrying inside.

At least from now on, try to watch with awareness, the play of your mind in whatever you see. Try to catch the scenes as they are before your mind steps in and passes judgment. You will then see how subtly and seamlessly your mind plays in whatever you see, causing you to believe that there is something always wrong with what you see.

In Sanskrit, there are two phrases that teach us reality: dhrishti shrishti and shrishti dhrishti. Dhrishti shrishti means seeing the world as it is, taking it as it comes; to welcome what is, as reality. Shrishti dhrishti means seeing the world as we would like it to be, through our own colored lens, through our fantasies. The former leads to a peaceful life while the latter leads to suffering.

A small story:

Once a man came to me and said, 'Swamiji, we are just two people in our house, my wife and I. Still there is no peace!'

I told him, 'Who says there are only two people in your house? You are four people.'

The man was simply shocked.

I told him, 'You are you, your inner woman, your wife, and her inner man! That is why I say you are four people. Just learn to drop your inner man or your inner woman – and see the change that happens in your house!'

The man went away silently.