We came here naked and naked we will leave. Don’t hoard up anything on this earth, it is all impermanent. The only thing worth hoarding is unconditional love. The more selfless we are, the more we can live in love and the closer we are to God. In a spiritual world, people live fully in accordance with the guidance of the heart, being completely selfless.
You can live the same way in this world, too. Jesus Christ said, ‘where is the kingdom of God? Inside us.’ If the kingdom of God is inside us, if we live with love, then we have nothing to fear. Wherever we are, we are always happy. The only thing that can make us sad is the suffering of others. We start to empathize with others. We have one problem: how can I make others happy? The ego always demands, «Give me!”, it is always unsatisfied.
Even if you give to the ego all that it wants, the mind will seek yet another pleasure. Even spirituality is very often a self-oriented pursuit, triggered by the desire to become physically well and get rid of illnesses.
The only real measure of our spirituality, of our closeness to God, is how much unconditional love and selflessness is inside us. The less selfish we are, the more we advance spiritually. The stronger is our bond with God. The only energy we ever receive on a subtle level is the Divine energy of love, but our ego blocks it.
Love and attachment are very alike and in the material world, love manifests itself as attachment. However, it is a very different thing. The problem is that the soul is initially supposed to receive bliss and pleasure from a higher level. But getting into the material world, we start trying to find pleasure through the ego, the mind and the senses.
We say we like pears or watermelons, meaning in reality not that we love them but that we are attached. I am attached to pears, I am attached to watermelons. Or we say, «Mary, I love you. You’ve got such beautiful legs. And your ears that pop so beautifully, so cool! I can’t live without you. However, when you get old and your body is not as sweet to enjoy as it is now, I will fall out of love…»
Or I love you FOR (something) … Attachment assumes that you want to use it for the ego and the mind, for your own enjoyment.
If you really love a person, your goal is to make them happy. We have a certain attachment to our wife (husband), children and that’s fine, but it is important to love properly.
Many parents tell their children: «I gave birth to you for myself, for my pleasure.» Then they try to decide what the children should do with their lives, for example: I am an engineer and you’ll be an engineer. Even though the children didn’t ask you to give birth to them. You did it for your own enjoyment.
Theoretically, it is not love anymore, it’s an attachment. When we love, we are willing to give, but at the same time, we give freedom to the object of our love.
But it must be understood that you cannot give children complete freedom. You can’t say: «Children, eat what you want: chips, pizza, drink cola.» In 5 years, they would have damaged their health, you’ll get bad karma and, in the next life, you’ll be born in a worse incarnation to the same imbecile parents who will let you do everything you want, out of «love», and spoil your life with it. Proper upbringing is always necessary, as well as particular rigorousness. For example, if you are a teacher, or a manager, or a police officer, you have to exercise rigor, but it has to come from a place of love.
According to the law of karma, we all play roles. I am playing the role of a teacher, but it’s only a game. On a spiritual level, every one of you can be higher. No one can know how much love is in another person’s heart.
You put on a mask, but deep down you understand that that’s all the personality is. The word comes from the Latin “persona” which stands for «mask» or “role”. We always put on different masks, but what is really important is how we do it — consciously or unconsciously. 99% of the time we wear masks unconsciously. We get pushed — here comes the anger mask, get praised — meet the mask of joy. It’s all masks. But, truly the person that we are on the spiritual level is putting on these masks consciously. Sometimes you have to shout, sometimes you have to be strict, but mentally it all comes from the heart, it’s all out of love. Spiritual madness begins when we identify ourselves with our body, mind, false ego. I’m from this nation, my name is…and so on.
We should get used to be indifferent to compliments and criticisms. Imagine this: a crow sits on the royal throne. It is still a crow, as it was before. In the eastern psychology, when we are given a compliment, we picture God or the spiritual master and understand that it is really given to them. We understand that anything we achieve is thanks to good karma, thanks to God. We should calmly skip a compliment and say «Thank you.» Even if the compliment is insincere, we still say «Thank you.» Do not take anything to heart or make excuses that you are not actually like this, that they just don’t know you, etc
When we are offended at the external level, sometimes we have to defend ourselves. We are told: «You are a fool!» So we wonder: «Am I? Why is that?» In our heart, we accept this situation. This person is expressing his perception of the world, they are giving their opinion. But psychologists know that every person sees in others what they have in themselves.
Abraham Maslow has studied people with illnesses and diseases and has found that almost 90% of them do not really want to be healthy; they enjoy their illness. It is a particular pleasure to express how ill they are and how many problems they have. This is one of the delicate pleasures. If a person does not receive love, they try to get pity.
Modern research confirms that most children get sick because they lack the love of their parents. All that we need is unconditional love, and if we do not get it, we force it with pity. Subconsciously the body tells you: you must be ill, you must be unhappy. And then we truly feel bad for ourselves, and wait for others to pity us.
Rami Bleckt
