FREE WILL “Free will” is freely spoken of, but a truly free will is rare indeed, and not to be had for the mere wishing or talking. The basic requisite of the disciple is the freeing and empowering of his will. This is done through discipline and obedience that are not imposed upon the disciple but freely and willingly taken up, that are acts of will rather than surrendering of will. To be truly freeing, discipline and obedience can spring solely from one motivation: the attainment of divine consciousness. Therefore they cannot be engaged in from either fear of pain and punishment or hope of reward. Nor should they be taken up because of having become intellectually convinced or emotionally cajoled by any external force–¬including ego, emotions, intellects, or desires. The disciple must come to know and understand the rules. From that moment on the following of those rules must be a spontaneous response arising from his own Self¬–from nowhere else, and from nothing else whatsoever. The real spiritual Masters leave their pupils free to follow wisdom or not. Neither with words nor with silence do they seek to influence them. For true freedom–the freedom of the spirit–this is a requisite. That is why in the closing section of the Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna: “Now I have taught you that wisdom which is the secret of secrets. Ponder it carefully. Then act as you think best” (Bhagavad Gita 18:63). Inner peace and control Before the eyes can see, they must be incapable of tears. Tears are expressions of intense and uncontrolled emotional reaction to something. They occur when people are happy, sad, frustrated, or overwhelmed by some experience. They can result from experiencing great beauty or great repulsion. So what is really being talked about here is being overcome by egoic reactions, which are symbolized by tears. The Master is not ordering us to become emotionless, but to always be masters of our emotions, to never let ourselves be carried away by them. Otherwise our minds will be confused and our intelligence clouded. As Krishna warns in the Gita: “Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; forget experience, you lose discrimination; lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose” (Bhagavad Gita 2:63). We are not to become emotionless zombies. There are those who read about how the world is “unreal” and we must be “detached.” Trying to realize this ideal they become emotionally unresponsive and dead. I have known people who would not show affection to their own spouses or children because they feared “negative attachment.” This rule is not advocating that unnatural fanaticism. It is not advocating the eradication of love, compassion, mercy, generosity, and such like, but the eradication of selfishness and its emotional tempests–either from pleasure or displeasure. We cannot possibly maintain the life of the disciple until we have become actually incapable of this egoic type of response. Now that is a very high ideal–a rather bitter ideal, actually, since most of us like to indulge our egoic emotions, considering that to do so gives us “character.” Therefore we are in the grip of this egoic response. There is also a higher meaning to being “incapable of tears.” We must become incapable of being hurt or grieved by anything upon this earth–of reacting to external objects (which include a lot that we consider internal) with sorrow, disappointment, disgust, frustration, or grief. In other words, the negativity of this world must not move us to respond in kind. Especially we must never feel helpless and frustrated by the nightmares shown us in the dream-theater we mistakenly call “the real world.” In other words, we must become unmoved by the false appearances of material existence–not from emotional deadness but from knowledge of their fundamental unreality. We must become incapable of being swept away by seemingly positive reactions to earthly phenomena, as well, for human beings often shed “tears of joy” as well as sorrow. In short, we must become unmoved by the ever-shifting scenes of this earthly dream-existence, and become anchored in the peace and joy of the Spirit. There is another aspect to this. Tears distort the vision and blind the eyes. Tears come between the eye, the organ of perception, and whatever should be perceived. So we are being warned that unless we have entered this “tearless” state there is a chance that as we pursue the divine vision our inner eye may have its vision blotted out or distorted by the intervention of these “tears” between us and that which is true. There is an ancient story of a prince who upon becoming king was visited by a sage who gave him a ring upon which were engraved the words: “Even This Must Pass Away.” Throughout his life, when he would be about to be overcome by elation, desire, anger, or sadness, and thus “lose himself,” his eyes would light upon those words and he would immediately regain the right perspective and remain calm. Then, at the moment of his death he was fearless as he gazed upon the assurance that: “Even This Must Pass Away.” ~by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)~
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:38:29 +0000
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