How to Rise in Love?
Beloved Master,
My husband says that he understands what you say, but does not accept what you say, and does not like to come to listen to you. He is not happy that I come to listen to you. What do I do with him?
Let me tell you a small story:
An elderly couple was dining at the local restaurant.
The person in the next booth watched them curiously as they ordered one hamburger and extra forks and knives. As he watched, the man gently cut the burger in half and placed half in his wife's plate.
He picked the fries one by one and split them equally. He then poured half his soda into his wife's glass.
He then began to eat, and his wife sat watching, with a smile on her face.
The man across the booth felt drawn toward them and asked, 'Ma'am, can I buy you another burger?'
She said, 'No, don't worry. We've been married 50 years, and everything has always been and will always be shared, half and half.'
'Aren't you going to eat then', he asked.
She replied, 'I will wait. It is his turn today to use our teeth first.'
Your question appears simple, but in reality, it is complicated and has many implications to be understood.
The first thing: this is not an issue that is true only with your husband. It is with many couples and many spouses. What one accepts, the other finds it difficult to accept.
The most basic thing is the structure of the mind; the mind is full of contradictions.
You see, today, the world is being educated more in rationalism. People are getting centered in logic and rationalism. Anything that they are unable to comprehend with their logic, they start fearing; they start feeling that they are losing control; it is as if they are losing their own identity. When I talk, they get this same feeling because an enlightened talks the truth straightaway and truth is beyond logic. So, they fear to come near me.
Man falls into depression while searching for happiness. The truth is, he searches for happiness, but in the wrong direction. He changes cars every year, houses every second year and sometimes spouses every third year. But, none of these changes produce the expected result for him; he goes on and on searching, looking for some avenue where permanent happiness surfaces. Permanent happiness lies beyond your logic.
Please understand that there are two things in you: hardware and software. Your mind is the software and your brain is the hardware. In the mind itself, within the software itself, there are two parts: conscious zone and unconscious zone. The conscious zone is the actual operating system; the unconscious zone is the virus!
The conscious zone can be cleansed by teachings. The unconscious zone can only be cleansed by meditation. Now, the hardware, the brain itself, needs to be then tuned to hold the changes in the software, the new experience that is created through the changed software. This can only happen through the blessings of the master, by initiation from him.
When you clean the conscious and unconscious and create an effect, the hardware may not be able to hold and sustain that effect from day 1. But if the master's initiation happens, the hardware also changes to hold that effect.
In the absence of a living master, constant meditation and teaching can change the hardware. Hardware is like grooves created out of samskara – stored memories – in the brain. Once the new software happens, the hardware will slowly change. But if you wish to immediately change the hardware, the master's presence is the right thing. He will straight away change the hardware.
Sometimes, without even changing the software, the hardware can be changed and the person will start radiating the correct software's quality!
That can happen when a disciple is completely open to the master; if he is in love with the master for no reason.
Sometimes, a disciple falls in love with the master for no reason. He may not be attracted to his teachings or to his meditation techniques; he simply falls in love, that's all. In that case, straightaway, the master can change the hardware.
Those kinds of disciples will simply radiate the quality of the teachings and meditation without even going through all of them. They would not have gone through all these techniques, but straightaway the result will be seen.
As on now, both the hardware and the software are outgoing, toward the outer world. If you do our chakra meditation camp, suddenly you will realize that the software becomes in-going. It leads into spirituality. It acts as a cleansing process of the conscious mind by the teachings and the unconscious portion by meditation. It is an inner transformation.
But even if the software turns inside, the hardware will not be able to handle it. Then naturally, the hardware will try its best to retain its grooves. If the software is very strong and stays in the same tune, the hardware will slowly change.
If immediately after this teaching and meditation, the initiation from the master also happens, then the hardware will also change. It will start accepting the new software. It will start to hold the new experience; transformation then settles within that person.
"Sometimes the disciple
Some people are afraid that this transformation may happen to them. They do not wish to transform because they do not know what they will transform into. The problem is that they do not even know where they are now, but they don't know that! They only think that they know that.
When they do not know where and what they are transforming from, how can they understand what they will transform into?
Anyhow, they are afraid!
Master
They are in deep uncertainty of knowing who they are, where they are, and why they are where they are. When they see someone happy, changed from the unhappy person that they used to know, they are terrified; their logic fails and fear of some unknown force grips them.
In your case, from seeing you, from an understanding of what he sees as your experience, your husband starts fearing that the same might happen to him. Understand that he may not be unhappy with what is happening to you. He now knows that you have become non-attached, you are no longer nagging him and you do not care about what he does. He sees the joy in your face, the grace in your stride, how well you are handling anger, the absence of fear; he sees everything and might even feel happy about it.
But on the other hand, he is worried that he no longer has a hold on you. Moreover, he is afraid that this non-attachment may happen to him as well. The uncertainty of what it holds for him makes him behave in the fashion you are talking about.
The fear, deep in his soul, is that he may agree with what I am saying! If that happens, he is afraid he has lost himself. Therefore, he feels that it is better not to listen to me, not to come close, not to open his heart. This fear is very real; and this is not only with your husband, it is with thousands of other people too.
If you ask them what they know about me, if you ask them what my approach to life is, what my philosophy is and what my attitude toward religion is, they will not be able to say a single negative thing about it. First of all, they know very little and second, the little that they know also, they would be secretly agreeing with. But to protect their pretense of knowing, which is important to them, it is better not to hear me, because hearing me holds a danger for them: they may have to change their ideas about me.
Because of this hypocrisy and self-contradiction within, your husband is behaving in this fashion.
People who are worried because of me are people who don't know me. At least, they can be honest with themselves and with me. Before criticizing me or not accepting me, they can at least give me an opportunity to explain myself to them. Then they are free to be worried; there is nothing to stop them. But they are afraid of listening, they are afraid of coming close, they are afraid of entering the gates of the ashram. What is it that can be done?
The reason is that they know very well, deep in their hearts, that if they listen to me, if they come inside the ashram, they will have drop their worry and irritation and fall in tune with me. They will drop their negativity and their ego also. That is what they are afraid of. They are afraid of getting hurt!
Without coming close to me, they can remain annoyed, irritated and angry; that is simple. But, coming close to me, it is almost impossible to remain annoyed. Have you not experienced yourself? You cannot be annoyed, you cannot be an enemy. Am I right?
Change is the greatest fear in everyone's minds, especially, when the change concerns one's own self. We are all happy if others change, especially when they change according to how we wish them to change! That is no problem at all. We are happy if another person loses his ego and becomes humble and detached.
It is like this: every family can accept that their neighbor's son becomes a monk, if their neighbor's son becomes a Vivekananda. They will fall at his feet without any problem. But they can't take it if their own son becomes one! It becomes totally unacceptable. They start a war with their own son for it.
Your husband does not like to come to listen to me. In some cases, it is the wife that does not like her husband coming to me! It seems a general rule that if one spouse finds me acceptable, the other must find me unacceptable. Sometimes, they come separately and when they come, each one complains about the other! I left home to avoid these kinds of problems, and now these problems are chasing me! Anyhow, I am just joking.
I don't know your husband, and he obviously doesn't know me. There are some fundamental rules before you can make somebody your enemy. First, you have to be a friend, without friendship you cannot create enmity. He is absolutely ignorant about me; just provoke him, ask him what he is annoyed about? You might discover that he is my secret friend!
The Hindu husband thinks that the wife is only a possession. He does not give respect to the woman as a human being. He feels he is her owner, her possessor, that the wife is only a private property; that he has purchased her. The very institution of marriage in Bharat needs to refer its roots and iron out its distortions.
During the Hindu marriage ceremony, the entire concept of the Vedic rite of honoring each other is done as a ritual. But it is not even understood, because no one understands what is being chanted during the ceremony! Only the priests follow what is being done. And quite often, the priests who utter the mantra themselves do not understand what the mantras mean. Where then is the sanctity of the marriage?
Your husband is annoyed with you because you have proved to be more intelligent and more daring than him. You have risked your relationship and you have risked your future. You have gone ahead of him and you have proved him to be slower in comparison to you. Naturally, he will be annoyed with you.
Husbands, particularly those who have lived in Eastern countries, have the idea that the woman is inferior, their arrogance and ego are such that they even go to the extent of telling women, 'Your husband is your god; there is no other god for you.'
Millions of women had to be ready to be burned with their dead husbands, because the husband suspected that after he dies, his woman may fall in love with somebody else. He wanted to dominate her even after he dies, and the only way was to have the wife also jump into funeral pyre.
And those women who refused to be burnt lost all their dignity in the society, because the rules of society are made by men, by the husbands. They were then treated as corrupt, because if they had loved their husbands they would have jumped into the funeral pyre. It would have been proof that they loved their husbands.
Nobody questioned why the husband never followed the wife into the funeral pyre when she died leaving him. In fact, when the wife's dead body is burning in the fire, most often, the husband was planning for a new marriage. Just on the funeral ground, people start talking about where to find a girl for him. Even the body of the present wife is not yet fully burnt!
Also, the woman has to prove her loyalty, her faithfulness to the man, whereas the man is not asked to prove anything.
All these age-old customs somehow get into the bloodstream of society and what women undergo today is a direct result of this. So your husband is bound to be annoyed with you because you have proven to be more intelligent than him. Your courage to follow me must be annoying him because it is not what has been taught to him by society.
But it is now your task to challenge him. If he is annoyed with me, ask him, 'What are the reasons?' And tell him, 'If you have the courage, then come to the ashram and ask your questions. Unless you prove that your thinking is right, you have no authority to be annoyed!'
In Bharat especially, men live in their muladhara chakra – root energy center – and women live in their swadhishtana chakra – spleen energy center. Men live in lust, anger and greed. Muladhara is the highest energy center of animals and the lowest of men. That is where 95% of men live. They live in a survival mode and operate out of instinct. Women on the other hand, live in fear and uncertainty. They feel that they have to please certain people in order to live with a feeling of security.
Each manipulates the other through the other's uncertainty. Man exploits the woman's fear and insecurity. The woman manipulates the lust and ego of the man. Instead of strengthening each other, they try to control each other by exploiting the weakness of each other.
When you come to the master and with his grace learn to energize your energy centers, the lust, insecurity and ego dissolve. You start understanding your true nature. You start realizing that you are meant to love each other, not manipulate each other. However, if you have not reached the level of maturity to understand this, you get caught in it.
The ashram is not a place of entertainment. Once you get in here, you are going in for surgery without knowing it. My whole effort is to cut people from the past – the dead, the shadows of the dead – and to open them up in the present to create awareness.
I don't give any belief. I give you only a deep longing and thirst for the Truth so that you can seek and find it on your own. Unless you find the Truth by your own self, all your knowledge is simply a burden, a poison, a force which destroys your intelligence and your very soul.
When you seek a master, when you come to a master, be very clear about what is at stake. You will experience death; you will experience the death of your old identity; you will experience the demise of your ego. From that destruction, your new identity will be created. The destruction of your ego will be painful, for it is a process of giving birth; giving birth to yourself, to your divine nature.
Please understand as well, that spirituality is a path of aloneness. You traverse that path alone, not even with your spouse. Ramakrishna has said that if you decide to follow the spiritual path and follow a master, you can disobey even your parents. Therefore, you can, if you wish, disobey your spouse!
However, It is better that you do not come in if you are afraid. It is far more dangerous if you start running away half way through the process. Your husband may be a lot smarter than you think! Maybe he knows what the danger is!
Another issue here is the relationship between the two of you. In any human relationship, especially in this age, it is the fantasies that determine what each person thinks of the other, not the reality of the other person. We have no time to look at the real person. We already have a judgment about that person, a hurried preconceived notion about that person. Then, we collect all evidences that go toward supporting that judgment and conclusion. Anything contrary will be rejected outright.
If you think I am exaggerating, please watch your own response to your husband's words and actions. It is not what he says or does but what you have made up in your mind about him that makes you respond to him. You may accept many things from other people, even criticism from who you think are your friends; but, when it comes to your husband, almost always, you will react negatively to anything that he says. You have already decided that he is no good, and so everything he says or does is no good too.
This is true of our behavior with everyone around us. We respond to the person, who we think the person is and not to the issues, their actions or words. Our perception, our mental image, colors all their actions. Because of this, whatever your husband or wife does it does not seem right to you.
Just try to change your approach toward your husband or wife. You can change, and in the process, he too may change. Irrespective of what he says and how he reacts, from whichever emotional level he interacts with you, whether irritation, anger, fear or attention need, respond to him with love, with unconditional love. This is not easy, but it is possible.
Many of my disciples have told me how this one technique, this one trick had changed their relationships and lives. You do need to practice meditation so that you are in touch with your inner self. Many of them had energized their heart center, their anāhata chakra, through meditation and were also practicing the ānanda gandha meditation as Nithyananda Spiritual Healers. Even then, it is not always easy especially with your spouses.
You tend to expect too much of your life partners. You wish to possess them. You wish to control them. They must do as you wish them to. Let me tell you that your expectations are unrealistic.
Just think: do you behave the same way as your husband wants you to? It is nearly impossible. How can you then expect him to behave the way you wish him to?
Drop your expectations about others, how you wish them to act, speak and think. No expectations means no disappointments and no suffering. Once you have no expectations, you can look at the person for what he or she is, very objectively, and respond with unconditional love and compassion. You will see miracles happening in your relationship.
The very dissolution of negativities in your mind about the other person conditions you to express love. You then rise in love!
Rising in Love meditation
The heart is the portal through which you can enter reality. This meditation is especially useful if you are a head-oriented person, if you are based more in the intellect than in the emotions.
Actually, almost all of us are head-oriented. Heart-oriented people can't survive very long in today's world. So we have all made our minds strong. Our heart center is weak, because we don't give it enough exercise. We don't operate from the heart, we don't act from the heart.
Try looking at the world from your heart, and you will discover a unity in the world. The mind sets up barriers, the heart dissolves barriers. Activating the heart center naturally creates a gushing of love in your life.