Hello and welcome to episode 153 of The Ask Sri Vishwanath Show. Today is part five of working with higher motives.
If you haven’t the three episodes I highly suggest you read and watch them so you can really benefit from this one. I will give a quick recap but I suggest that you watch and read it in full.
Lower motives
In episode 149 we spoke about destroying lower motives. These motives are money, passion, fame and power. This is natural. It is not your fault. It is because of the gunas leaving impressions on you. The great ones focus on the higher motives. Instead of money they want to offer value. Instead of passion they focus on purpose which never fades. Rather than seeking fame they seek to make others happy. Instead of craving power they seek to empower others. The lower motives involve taking whereas the higher motives all involve giving.
To make others feel good you first have to feel good and you do that by falling back on the consciousness and going back to the shore. That will be the only way you will discover your real purpose.
We spoke about Krishna said that the great ones are serene in the midst of action and in the midst of serenity they can still operate at a higher level. They do this by controlling their reaction before the event happens by withdrawing the gunas. They are always seated at the shore like Krishna on the chariot in the midst of war.
In episode 150 we spoke more about fruits and how Krishna tells us the fruits of labour only accrue after death. We spoke about how going after the lower motives of money, fame, passion and power will sow the seeds that will bear fruit in the next life. That these lower motives are what cause us to come back again and again.
We heard very powerful words from Ramana Maharishi on how we cannot control destiny so we need to be detached from the script.
Fruits
We spoke about giving up those lower motives by giving up the fruits. Giving up these fruits will allow you to be serene in the midst of war and highly active in the midst of serenity. We do this by going back to the shore and dissolving the gunas. This in turn will allow us to manifest the karma. We manifest the Karma daily by asking ourselves the three most important questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What should I be doing while I am here? This will bring both happiness and success.
In episode 151 we told a great story about a notebook which showed that desiring fruits only doubles our desire for that fruit. We sometimes mistake desires for fruits with actually receiving them.
We spoke about the seed and how it already comes with the intelligence to grow and bear fruit. We learned that it has the intelligence but it needs the gifts of sunshine water and the right environment to grow. We saw that for us time space and circumstance is a gift.
We know that life is an invisible circle pushed by the gunas and the script and instead of staying on that never ending circle we need to learn to move to the center. The circle is already made and you cannot do anything to change it. It’s like Vivekananda says that the best teachers are the ones who do not teach, but instead guide their students. We need to be guided back to the shore because the intelligence is already there in the consciousness.
The moment you point someone towards the center you know there lens has changed and they can withdraw their gunas and dissolve the desires.
In yesterday’s episode we spoke more about the circle and how it is pushed by the script and the gunas. We learned that you can move toward the center by giving up the desire for fruits and offering our works as a sacrifice. We also learned that we can overcome any obstacle if we have god’s grace and to get it we only need to ask for it. This is the only fruit you should ask for.
God is a circle
Today I want to do a simple visualisation exercise. Close your eyes and visualize this phrase. “God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere but whose center is everywhere.” Visualize yourself writing these tiny dots everywhere without the circle. Visualize consciousness everywhere. See those points of light everywhere. Then I want you to imagine a circle around each of these centers.
Points of light without the circle
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With the circle
The moment you do this you will start identifying with the circle. So there are 7 billion people each with their own center and own circle. Because there are separate circles each one feels like they are a separate entity and they don’t know how to move towards the center. When you stay on the circle you operate through the body mind and intellect and we fall into its trap and we forget about the center. We think that this outer circle is the only thing in life.
Real and unreal
There are only two things, the real and the unreal. The center is real and the outer circles are unreal. It is maya. Visualize it and tell yourself that you want to be at the center, not on the outer rings.
I want you now to imagine that you are watching a movie. You are in the center of the movie theatre. The movie starts, moves around and then ends. You were at the center watching the movie. Then you react to the movie depending on what the subject was. Then you had an experience.
Now look at your life the same way. The circle represents your life that starts and end. You are watching, reacting and getting an experience based on the script. The only small difference is free will, which is Maya. Maya makes us think we have free will but we do not. We are watching and reacting and we think we have free will but this is what causes great confusion and it will only make you frustrated.
The scenes
Think of the movie. You were in the center of the theatre watching it but you knew that as you were watching it you couldn’t change the scenes. Yet you still watched it, reacted to it and had a great experience. So why can’t we apply this to our everyday lives? We can stop trying to change our lives and still have a good experience.
This is how the great ones live their lives. They know that everything on earth is maya. They know that they cannot change the scene but they still have great experiences. How do they know this? They know this because they are at the center. They have gone back to the shore.
So why in a movie, if something bad happens do you not stand up and start screaming? This is because you regulated your reaction. How do you regulate your reaction? You do this by regulating your thinking. You regulate your thinking by being aware.
When we enter life with maya it makes us believe that we can change the scenes so we enter life full of ignorance. This is why we suffer because it prevents us from having good experiences. We need to be able to regulate our thinking, reaction and by being aware. So we need to know we are suffering not because of the bad scene we are in at the minute but because we keep trying to change that scene. This is what is causing us problems not the scene itself.
Regulate
So we need to regulate by withdrawing the gunas. We win serenity with the yoga of action and the organs of action. This will help you to be detached and you can have great experiences. Do this and you will have so much good energy because it will not be used up in thinking, doubt and fear. You will be so relaxed and serene. You can achieve all this if you come at life in the same way as watching a movie. It really is that simple.
When you do this you will destroy the gunas and maya will fall away and we will be able to do wonderful things and experience great times.
I hope I answered your questions. Remember you keep asking questions and I’ll keep answering them.
