Love is not a means to some ends. Do not ever make love a means. It is an end in itself and the same is with faith. You know, the amount of comfort faith gives you, nothing else can give you. If you have faith, the faith itself is the end. Often, we also use faith as a means, love as a means. Be grateful that you have faith. Don’t try to cash in on faith. “Oh God, I have so much faith in you, what are you doing to me?” God will say, “ Well, if you have faith in me, it is up to you. What do I get from your having faith in me? More headache! Whenever you call, I have to be there.”You try to cash in on every little good attitude that you have in life. Because we make all this as a means to some end. Faith itself is an end. Love itself is the fruit - it is the end.
One moment of such a love, such ecstacy in life, that taste of complete love, pinnacle of Love, is worth our entire life. That is good enough. If a few drops of tears have fallen from your eyes in love, that is worth your life. This is an end in itself. Love is the end in itself. Faith is the end in itself - not a means. But our mind is so clever, it wants everything to have some illusion of comfort or pleasure. No doubt faith brings comfort, but if you are intelligent, you will not try to use it for comfort. It is like selling diamonds to buy a bottle of Coca Cola. (Laughter) Offering finger chips...selling a bag full of diamonds to buy a packet of french fries!
Phala roopatvat - that Divine love is itself an end, is itself the fruit. Ishwarasya api abhimana dweshitvat dainyapriyatvat cha - Even to God pride is not palatable. See, God loves these two instances. When a doctor tells a patient, “Don’t worry, I’m here. I will take care of you”or when someone says, “I own this piece of property” - God has a big laugh.
Ishwarasya api abhimana dweshitvat dainyapriyatvat cha - the ego simply indicates a lack of awareness, a narrow understanding. If there is no understanding at all , then, also, there is no ego problem. And if there is full understanding, there is also no ego. Ego comes up when there is a partial understanding, half Knowledge. Humility is what nature loves. Ego is stiffness, humility is being like a feather. Humility is lightness, ego always makes you very heavy. Why do you have to prove to yourself that you are correct all the time? Just let life be. Just knowing. That is how it is. Accept it. Being with the current, flowing with the current - that is wisdom, that is Gyana.
Tasyah gyanameva sadhanamityeke
But how to be humble, how to have that humility? Only through Knowledge - this is what some people say. In this vast universe, what are you? Who are you? You are nothing, you are nobody. So many billions like us have come. They have walked this planet and they have all gone. And there are billions waiting in the queue. They are all going to come. You are just on the conveyor belt, passing by. You are nobody. Just look at your life from the vast expanse of time and space. You will come into a big realization that you are nobody. And that brings the quality of humility in your consciousness.
When humility is lacking, all communications break down. You cannot communicate with someone who is not humble. Humility keeps the communication open with everyone. With humility you can link with people of all levels, of all creeds, of all age groups, of all standards, of all class of people. When you treat everyone like dust and you think that you are somebody, that you are so intelligent, you are so much more brilliant than everybody, then I tell you, nature laughs at you “You poor thing, how foolish you are.” Don’t see everyone else as dust, see yourself as dust.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation