Fall In To Rise🔗

Let me start with a small story of Buddha on this subject:

A popular and powerful Hindu king wanted to see Buddha. So he went to Buddha accompanied by his ministers, representatives and citizens. He carried two things with him: a plate full of diamonds and jewelry and another full of flowers.

Buddha looked at his gifts: the diamonds and flowers. He commanded the king, 'Drop!' The King was shocked and dropped the flower plate. Again, Buddha said, 'Drop!' The king dropped the plate of diamonds at Buddha's feet.

Again, Buddha said, 'Drop!' Now the king was unable to understand what Buddha meant. He wondered, 'The first time Buddha asked me to drop the plate of flowers, I dropped it. The second time, Buddha asked me to drop the jewels, the diamonds, so I dropped them. Now again the Buddha is asking me to drop. I don't know what to drop!' He then asked Buddha, 'What should I drop?'

'Drop yourself. You will rise!'

Immediately, the next question arose in the king's mind. He asked, 'How should I drop myself?'

Quite commonly this is the very next question. The moment we bring in the question 'how', we have made the whole process complicated; we have complicated the entire process.

Let me explain what I mean by the word 'dropping', and how we are complicating it.

When I use the phrase 'drop yourself ', there arises in us an idea of 'you', and the notion of 'dropping the you'. Whatever you think of as 'you', all your ideas about you, are based on your past experiences, your past decisions, your past understandings. Your idea of 'you' is only based on the past.

Our past experiences are wired into us, embedded into us. It is not only what the conscious mind recalls that comes back to influence us. Less than 2% of what we observe, what we experience is stored in our conscious mind. 98% is skipped by the conscious mind and goes straight away into our unconscious mind. We cannot recall these events at will. They choose to reveal themselves at their pleasure. It is as if you read a book of 100 pages, but can recall only 2 out of the 100 pages.

All the accumulated experiences of the past is what makes our present. Similarly all the accumulated experiences of the present is what determines our future. But somehow, we always ignore the present. We are rarely in the present. We constantly swing like a pendulum from our past to the future without staying in the present. Both the past and the future are unreal; only the present is real.

Our past is always in the past; it is always dead. That is why it is called the past. Yet, we always let this past affect us.

How do we do that?

In two ways:

• If we review our past decisions with our updated present intelligence, we will always create guilt in ourselves.
• Similarly, if we carry past references into our present decisions, we will duplicate the same mistakes from the past into the future.

Please understand these two things:

• If we review our past incidents or decisions using our present intelligence, we will create guilt in our being.
• If we make present decisions based on our past experiences, we will be replicating the same past into the future also; maybe in an updated fashion.

Even though we may not commit exactly the same mistakes, possibly by doing it a little differently, we will be moving in the same experiential level, in the same layer, in the same plane, not in a higher plane.

We do not have the intelligence to keep thinking of new ways to commit mistakes. Our mind falls into a groove, a track, a mind set, that forces it to do what it has always done. So we keep making the same mistakes as well.

However, instead of learning from our past experiences, learning from our mistakes, and rewiring our mind to do better the next time, what we invariably do is regret what we have done in the past and feel guilty. Feeling guilty does not solve our problems. To feel guilty is to be in sin. In fact that is the only sin. The hell that we talk about is not in another time and space. It is here with us when we feel guilty without doing anything to change our mindset. Hell is not geographical; it is psychological.

When we do something that turns out differently from what we expected, or against societal and religious codes, there may be problems and we feel guilty. We should understand that what we did was based on the wisdom that we had at that particular point in time and we should move on. There is no need to keep on thinking about these actions and feeling guilty, and doing nothing about changing our mind set.

The past is after all dead. Whatever you think of as 'you' is just dead. When I say 'drop', just disconnect from your past.

You can! You can disconnect!

Yet we always bring one more sentence into our mind, 'No, I have tried so many times, but I am unable to. How can I disconnect from the past?' When we say, 'I have tried so many times, I am not able to', again we have brought the past in. All our prior incidents also constitute part of the past. 'I tried', 'I am not able to', and 'I failed' are also past experiences. As long as we bring these in, how can we say that we have dropped the past? No! That's how you drag in more of the past.

When we bring the past again and again into our lives, into our present life, we live in the same mental set-up. In Sanskrit, we call it samskara. Samskara means 'mental set-up'- how we think, how we move, how we live. Our mental set-up is what can be called samskara.

We tend to create a particular samskara, a particular mental setup, and again and again, we live only based on that.

At some point in our lives, we might have tried something, something which was impossible and naturally we would have failed. These failures get recorded in us in such a deep way, as such a deep impression, that repeatedly, only our failures come up to our mind, and we start thinking 'No, No, I cannot! I cannot drop the past! It is too big a job for me. I am not so courageous.' We bring these words again and again into our consciousness.

We forget one important thing though: any words which are brought repeatedly into our consciousness get power. Our consciousness gives power to everything. Anything which comes in front of us receives power, whether it is good or bad; it simply receives power. Any thought which appears in our being, starts getting empowered. Our consciousness is so powerful, so radiant, it gives energy, and it gives power to everything.

Any thought that is brought in front of our mind, in front of our consciousness, comes alive, just like a movie reel does in front of a projector.

Whatever slide is brought in front of a projector becomes reality. If a slide of a temple is put in a projector, one will see that temple in reality. If a slide of a church is put in a projector, one will see that church in reality. If a slide of an actor is put in a projector, one will see that actor in reality.

Any slide which we bring in front of the projector lamp becomes reality. Similarly, any word which we bring in front of our consciousness becomes reality; any word!

We can realize this clearly in the dream state. Imagine early morning, when you are just coming out of your sleep, when you are lying in bed, neither completely awake nor completely asleep, almost in a half-half state… at that time, if you just remember, or become aware of your dreams, you can see very clearly how the words coming into your mind are becoming visions, are becoming reality.

You might just have a word, an idea: 'I see my friend coming into my house', and you will see the whole thing happening in your dream. It will be words followed by experience. If you experience dreams early in the morning, you can understand what I say: words just appear in your mind and become a vision or experience.

Any word that comes into your mind gets power and becomes an experience.

I had a chance to live with a group of tribal villagers in Madhya Pradesh in central Bharat. I myself saw them give birth to children without any pain: no pain, no assistance, no medicine, no attendant, no doctor, nothing! They gave birth to children without any fuss and they took care of themselves after that.

I was shocked. I asked them, 'How is this possible? Don't you experience any pain?' Their response was, 'Pain? What is pain?' The very idea of pain did not exist in their lives. Let me repeat this: the very idea of pain does not exist in their lives.

When that word or idea is not there in our minds, we don't suffer that idea. We suffer only that which we recall, remember or repeat again and again. Anything which is repeatedly recalled by us becomes our reality. It becomes a solid truth, the reality for our being.

If we keep thinking, 'I tried to drop the past. I am not able to', these words get repeated again and again inside our system. We decide we cannot drop the past; then we cannot drop; we just cannot achieve it.

The difficulty is, when we decide something solid, we collect arguments only to support that judgment. Whenever we decide something solid, whenever we have some judgment about ourselves, we collect arguments only to support that judgment. We don't think of anything else; we don't bother about anything else. All we do is, we create more and more incidents repeatedly; we create more and more arguments to support our judgment. Anything we believe, we make it stronger and we cling more to it. We never enter into reality. We create a big gap between reality and ourselves.

On the one side, all the spiritual mystics and masters declare again and again: whatever IS, is bliss! Whatever IS, is consciousness! Whatever IS, is energy! On the other side, the so-called normal people repeatedly say, 'Whatever is, is misery! Whatever is, is suffering! Whatever is, is troubling us.'

Where is the gap? Why does the same world look so beautiful for a Buddha, and so miserable for a buddhu (fool)?

It is a very deep mystery which we are unable to solve through our logic. Their country is the same, their situation in life is the same and their lifestyles are the same. Everything is the same! Except for their personalities, everything is the same. Yet, the ways in which they relate to the world are very different.

When we carry our past, we have a layer called the reactive mind that is unconscious, which decides for us. We do not make logical decisions. Please be very clear: a man who carries the past can never make any logical decisions.

Let me give you an example. Say you were disturbed years ago by somebody in a yellow dress and the incident created a deep imprint inside you. What happens is, you will recall it anytime you see somebody in a yellow dress. Unconsciously that memory will come up and you try to keep away from that person. When you meet someone in a yellow dress, you start with a negative judgment and if the person proves to be really genuine, then you open up. It takes you more effort and more energy to understand that person, and it is all because of this single experience in the past. This is what I mean when I say, 'Anybody who carries the past has a reactive mind.'

Let me give you another small example to understand whether you have a reactive mind or not. Say you are deep in thought and suddenly you recall something which you don't want to remember; some place, some person or some situation in which you were disturbed, in which you were abused. It comes up in your memory even though you don't want to remember it. Immediately you brush aside that thought. You say to yourself, 'Let me think of something else; let me think of something else.' You force yourself to change the course of your thinking. If you are doing this, be very clear, you have a reactive mind.

These memories which we don't want to recall or with which we are uncomfortable, are what I call energy clots; just like blood clots. When there is a blood clot, blood cannot flow freely. In the same way, these energy clots do not allow our thinking to flow freely. A person who has got more energy clots will always feel suffocated, stressed, and bound. On the other hand, take a person who doesn't have energy clots. His thinking will be free, his consciousness will be so free that he will never feel suffocated, stressed or bound.

It is the energy clots which decide whether we experience boundary-lessness, whether we experience expansion or whether we suffocate ourselves and continually get stressed. I have seen people feeling suffocated even when sitting on a beach. They will be sitting on a beach on their so-called vacation but they will not experience the boundary-less feeling; they will not experience the feeling of expansion.

I have also seen people who are living in small rooms their whole lives and are yet so free. There is a person in my native town who has been living inside a ten foot by ten foot room for the last thirty-five years. Thirty-five years! Nobody is binding him. He is actually considered an enlightened master and is worshipped as such. His name is Thinnai Swamigal; he is a disciple of Ramana Maharishi.

His is a beautiful story; let me narrate it:

He went to see Ramana Maharishi and asked, 'Bhagwan! How can I achieve any spiritual experience? How can I achieve enlightenment? Should I do a special type of worship? Should I use some type of mantra repetition? (a mantra is a sacred utterance, usually a syllable, the invocation of a God, or a portion of a scripture)? Should I chant some verses? Should I meditate? What should I do?'

Bhagwan casually said, 'Drop!' Just a casually uttered word, 'Drop!' This person was so sincere, he simply dropped. He really dropped. Something just dropped inside him. From that time until today, he is just sitting in a room nearby and living happily.

Nobody is binding him. Nobody is stopping him from going out. He just says, 'No, I am happy. I don't feel like it. If at all I feel like it, I will go.' Hundreds of people come there to see him. He is sitting there, radiating peace and bliss. He says, 'I feel totally expanded. I am boundary-less. Where can I go?'

There are people who are sitting inside a ten foot by ten foot room and feeling boundary-less consciousness; experiencing the universal consciousness. And there are people who are lying on a beach feeling suffocated and stressed! The experience of boundary-lessness has nothing to do with the outer world. It has to do with the number of energy clots that one has; the reactive mind that one has. When we drop the reactive mind, when we start to directly relate with Existence, our whole being is liberated.

Somebody went to a Zen master, and asked, 'Master, how can I achieve liberation?' The master just laughed, and said, 'Who has bound you? When did you get into bondage?' Immediately, the disciple just became enlightened.

When I say the word, 'Drop', whatever you understand according to your own Oxford Dictionary, just do that - that is enough! Whatever you understand by the word 'dropping', just do that. Whatever you think of as your being or whatever you think of as you, just drop that.

The difficulty is that we are afraid. Our past experiences are the only property that we have; our ideas of 'I' are the only asset that we have. These ideas are the only things that we have accumulated throughout our lives. How can we drop that? If we drop that, how do we live? What can we hold on to so that we may survive? All we have is our past life and past experiences. How can we be alive if we drop them?

I tell you: when we drop the past, don't think that the memory itself will disappear; our emotional attachment to that memory will disappear. Actually, when we drop the past, we will be able to live in the present in a much deeper way, in a much more intense way, in a much more beautiful way.

Again and again and again, if we read the teachings of all the great masters, it comes back to only one point: drop, or fall. Fall in, so that you can rise.

Notice an important point here. Instead of falling in, many a time, we fall outside towards the outer world. What I mean by this is that we fall for things which are in the outer world. Of course, whenever we fall towards the outer world, naturally we will make only that our reality. That will become a solid truth in our lives. Whatever we think of as truth, we will fall for that. Whatever we feel and fall for, we will make that our truth.

• If we think the outer world is truth, we fall for that. If we fall for the outer world, we make that our truth.
• When we fall in, fall for the inner world, we make the inner world our reality. When we make the inner world our reality, we fall more for the inner world.

So this is like a vicious circle: if we fall for the outer world, we make it our reality, and this leads us to fall more for the outer world. And if we fall for the inner world, we make that our reality and again this leads us to fall more for the inner world. Either way, the circle goes on.

Which way you want to travel is in your hands; this is what we are supposed to decide in life. We call this pravritti or nivritti in Sanskrit. Our choice is either towards the ephemeral or towards the eternal. It is our decision whether to travel towards pravritti, towards the ephemeral, or towards nivritti, towards the eternal.

When we drop the past, we simply travel towards the eternal. We travel towards the ultimate. We travel towards our being. And we just remember what we are, and what actually our being is.

Let me narrate a small story:

There was a king who ruled over his country. He had a son, who was a no-good fellow. The king was very unhappy about the prince's attitude and lifestyle. He wanted his son to change his ways. He decided to teach his son a lesson. So he told his son, 'Leave this country! Go out and stay somewhere else for ten years. If you are able to maintain yourself for ten years, then I might take you back.'

So the prince was sent out of the country. He was the prince, so all he could do was sing, dance and enjoy himself. He didn't know much of anything else. So he moved around begging from house to house, door to door.

Ten years passed. The king said to himself, 'Now it is time to send people out to search for my son. We need to find out if he has managed to survive and what he is doing.' He sent his people out on the search. One of the ministers in the search party comes upon the prince begging by the roadside. The minister approached him, touched the beggar's feet and said, 'Sir! Do you remember us? You are the prince of our country. The king wants you to come back. The citizens want you to come back. Please come back.'

The moment the minister touched his feet, the prince's whole body language changed. He had been a beggar until that moment. The moment the minister touched his feet, he said, 'Oh! Is that so? Alright. Go, get my chariot!' The man's whole body language changed, beginning with his tone and extending all the way to his mental setup. He climbed into the chariot and strode majestically into the palace.

His mental set-up was now completely different from what it had been when he was begging. He could never associate himself again with his past as a beggar. His lifestyle, his body language, his mentality, his thought process, everything was now new. It did not take much time for his mental set-up to change.

The prince didn't ask the minister, 'How can I change? How can I drop my past? How can I change my mental set-up?'

No!

In just a single moment, the whole cognitive shift happened!

The cognitive shift takes only a single moment, a single second. All we need to do is, believe that the kingdom of God, His heaven, is straightaway available to us, and open our eyes and start living. We tend to equate the kingdom of God with special angels, special choruses, a special group of people taking us to a special cloud, where all the saints are singing 'Hallelujah!' Just drop all these fantasies. This very land can become heaven. This very life can become heaven. This very life can become the kingdom of God.

All that we need to do is, instead of connecting all the negative incidents of our life and creating an idea about ourselves and the world, connect all the positive incidents of our life and create an idea about ourselves and the world; that's all. Nothing else needs to be done.

Be very clear: there are positive things in at least 50% of everyone's life. That is why we are still alive. If everything is completely negative, we can't even live. Your being here now, your being here to read this book is enough proof that at least 50% of your life is positive.

The difficulty is that we have developed our mental set-up such that we cannot survive without worries and negativity. Just scan your mental thinking. If you feel relaxed, open and empty some time, you start feeling uncomfortable. You start searching for some worries, something to think about, something to ponder over, something to contemplate. You cannot live in boundary-less consciousness.

You continuously feel that you need something, some material to chew on. That is the reason why you catch hold of some subject or the other, and start pondering. If you cannot find any subject, if you are not able to rehash any material, you start fearing, 'How long will life go on smoothly like this? I don't know when it will change. I don't know when bad things will start happening.'

We always start worrying about something else. We are habituated, trained to connect all the negative things and create an idea about ourselves and about the world. Please be very clear: we judge the world in exactly the same way we judge ourselves. We never believe that others are speaking the truth, because we never speak the truth.

You can see that we always think, 'When I am like this, naturally the other person will also be the same. When I live like this, naturally he will also live like this.' We judge everybody else in the same manner that we judge ourselves.

The Bible says, 'God created man in his own mould.' I tell you one more thing: man creates the world in his own mould. Whatever you think of as 'You', you create the world in the same mould. You project the same world. Whatever idea you create about yourself, that idea also plays a major role about your idea of the world. It is you who creates and projects; it is you who experiences.

The difficulty is, we never leave any separation between ourselves and our thinking system. We associate too much, get too caught up with our thinking system; we never begin to suspect it. We never suspect our thinking system and our perceptions. We never doubt it. We doubt everybody else, but never ourselves.

Before satisfying any desire, our mind says something. Once we achieve that desire, our mind says the exactly opposite thing. Even though this is repeatedly our experience, we never suspect our mind. We never doubt our mind.

Before achieving it, we might think about an object in a specific way. Before achieving a goal, even a mustard seed looks like a mountain. We desire the object; it is as if we cannot live without it. I was browsing the 'Sky Mall' in-flight magazine on my flight here. They word the advertisements for products in such a wonderful way, that you feel that those products are basic needs. You feel as if you cannot live without those products!

Before achieving a goal, even a mustard seed looks like a mountain. Once we have achieved it, even a mountain begins to look like a mustard seed. Again and again, the mind cheats us. We run, run, run, run, run to achieve something. The moment we achieve it, we find a feeling of emptiness coming up inside us.

Still, we never suspect our minds. We doubt and suspect everything else except our idea about ourselves and our idea about the world. This is what needs to be doubted; this is what needs to be suspected. The moment we start doubting our idea about ourselves and our idea about the world, we drop; we just drop. This doubt is more than enough; the very doubt is enough to give us the courage to drop. As long as we don't doubt our understanding, we keep going on and on.

I was watching a beautiful movie the other day, 'What the Bleep Do We Know.' It is a wonderful movie! The filmmakers have done a great service to the world by making that movie.

One of the people in the movie asks a beautiful question: our dreams and this world are both seen by our brain in the same way, in an equal fashion. Then how can we say that one is reality and the other is a dream? How can we claim that one of this is reality and the other is a dream conjured by the mind?

They create basic doubts which are supposed to be created in every individual, in every human being. The moment we enter into this doubt, we drop. When we drop, we really rise.

When you fall in, you rise. You rise to the ultimate experience, the ultimate consciousness, which we call Divine, God, Universal Intelligence, or Cosmic Energy. So I pray to that ultimate energy, the cosmic energy: let us all fall into it, and become the divine energy, that eternal bliss, nithyananda.