DEVOTION AND RENUNCIATION: THE PATH OF A SEEKER
When you are tired of dreaming or you can't handle dreaming anymore, you decide to wake up. If there is a nightmare, if there is a fantasy dream, where the dream becomes too sweet or too harsh to handle, then you will wake up.
In the same way, in the waking state, if you make it too sweet or too harsh, you will become awakened.
Making it too harsh and becoming awakened, is the lifestyle of a renunciation. Making it too sweet and waking up, is the lifestyle of devotion.
In the dream state, if you see two tigers chasing you or two snakes chasing you, it is too harsh to handle, you will wake up. In the same way, if it is too fantastic, exactly the same place where you always want it to be is there, the same person with whom you want to be is there, you will suddenly wake up.
If it is too sweet, you will wake up. If it too harsh, you will wake up. So the dream state is sustained in the struggle, not in the extreme. Only in the struggle, the dream continues, not in the extreme.
In the same way, in the waking state, if it is extreme sweetness, you will wake up
or extreme harshness, you will wake up.
But as long as there is a struggle between these two, the struggle between the extreme sweetness and harshness, between greed and fear, you will continue to maintain this waking state. If any one takes over, it is all over.
Allowing the lifestyle of extreme harshness and getting awakened, is the lifestyle of a renunciation, a Naga, Aghori. Allowing the extreme sweetness and awakening, is the lifestyle of devotion, a Shavaite. Using both of the process and getting awakened, is the lifestyle of a THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAMite.
I use all available, possible methods, process, kriyas to help you into awakening, whether it is a nightmare or a fantasy dream, you will wake up.
Neither fantasy dream nor nightmare will allow you to continue to sleep.
In the same way, neither extreme harshness nor the extreme sweetness will help you to continue your waking state. It will lead to awakening.
If life itself brings the harshness and awakens you, if life itself brings that sweetness and awakens you, you will be wasting a lot of time. You voluntarily getting into that state, cooperating for your awakening, is what I call Seeking.
It is not that every night you wake up with the nightmare or fantasy dream. Many nights you wake up because you are too tired.
In the same way in your life also, it is not that all the time you can get the extreme harsh dream, harsh reality or extreme pleasant reality. Creating either extreme harshness of reality or extreme pleasantness of reality, leads to your awakening. Cooperating with the life to create the extreme harshness or extreme pleasantness, is Seeking.
Either with the concept of Shiva, you can make every moment of your life extremely pleasant. You know this is the place Sadashiva walked, this is the very air He breathed, this is the very forest He and Devi spent so much of time. Every tree here is the descendent of the trees, which had the fortune of having darshan of Sadashiva. Still the moon and the sun is a living witnesses. You can go on cherishing this and get into the extreme pleasantness, that will lead to awakening.
The other option is to deny everything, including your own existence, and that will lead to extreme harshness, again you will be awakened.
Your self-doubt, self-hatred, self-denial neither allows you to experience extreme harshness or extreme pleasantness. If you go through pleasantness, you doubt it, 'No, no, no. This cannot be permanent or eternal.' If you go through harshness, you build a hope, 'No, no. I will get out of it and I will have pleasantness, joy one day.'
Hope stops you from going through the extreme harshness. Doubt stops you from going through the extreme pleasantness. When you don't allow both, and continue to enjoy your struggling state, incompletion, you will only maintain your ordinary waking state.
Sleep is the base material out of which dreams can be dreamt. Confusion is the base material out of which this waking state can be perceived. Only when you are in the state of sleep, you can dream. Only when you are in the state of confusion, you can see this waking state.
That is why confusion is a very precious investment for you. Let confusion not become your most precious investment. In every step, every line, every inch of your life, if confusion becomes your basic stand, basic foundation, then imagine the amount of time you are wasting, and energy you are destroying.
There is a beautiful verse in the Taitirriya Upanishad: anando brahmeti vyajānāt – Bliss is God, don't waste it.
You may think, what do they mean by don't waste it. Don't waste it by attributing it to your confusion. If you think confusion is bliss, if you maintain the stand that confusion is bliss, you are wasting your life, destroying your life. You are wasting the bliss, destroying bliss.
Your day to day habits get recorded into your muscle memory. Your lifestyle patterns, like what you feel about you, all that, gets recorded in your bio-memory. Cleaning up your muscle memory can be done by building good habits.
Cleaning up your bio-memory – what do you feel about you consciously, can be done only by awakening the Seeking.
Seeking either leads you into extreme pleasantness or extreme harshness of the Reality. In both ways, it awakens you, whether you get into completing your individual existence, or whether you get into expanding your individual existence into cosmic existence.
If your individual existence becomes cosmic existence by devotion it is called Upāsanā. If your individual existence becomes nothing, by allowing the cosmic existence, it is called Vipāssanā.
In both extremes, you are awakened. Whether Upāsanā or Vipāssanā, you will be awakened. But go through any one extreme, only then you will be awakened.
Don't continue to play in the field of confusion. You will continue to be just in this dilemma - waking state. Dilemma destroys your dignity; takes away your respect for yourself.
Use any one, cooperate with any one. Allow the awakening to happen. That is all the essence of life.