When a drop of water falls on a hot pan, it becomes vapour. When the same drop of water falls on a lotus leaf, it dances with joy and reflects the sun or the moon. When the same dew drops fall into the oyster, it becomes a pearl.
Some of us are like the hot pan. Any amount of Guru’s Upadesha or preaching we receive, it disappears. Some people are like the lotus. When Guru says something, they receive the words like a dew drop on the lotus leaf; but the moment external disturbances occur, the dew drop vanishes. The third type of people are like the oyster. Wherever they receive, they get pregnant with it and turn them into a pearl. Hence you should listen constantly. In constant listening you understand. Of course, the understanding should click.
Most of us think we are performing an action. But actually, we are lost in activity. Most of us act to cover our inner void. This is why you cannot sit down in one place and remain quiet. When you sit down doing nothing, you say, “I am bored”. Why are you bored? Because of the well of boredom within you. What you do when you get bored? You switch on the TV—not because you are interested in the programme, but to cover up your inner void. How often you pick up a phone and call a friend and say, “How are you?” Not because you are concerned about the other person but because you are bored with yourself and you seek to the fill the void. Actually, our actions are an escape from our own self. “Isn’t the weather hot?” you tell someone when you meet them; the weather is only an excuse to escape from yourself. Such an action which we indulge in to escape from ourself or to avoid ourself is called activity.
Even when you indulge in social service or charitable activities it is all means of an escape, because inside of yourself, you are bored, you are shallow because your perception of your self is so distorted and not based on facts. You justify and console yourself in social activities.
Buddha gave us some wonderful advice to handle this—Abhi Mukhi. Encounter your inner void, your shallowness, emptiness, and also the ways you use to escape, though conversation or through an activity, don’t develop yet another escape route. Encounter yourself.
What is the inner void? Am I really the void? Abhi Mukhi—Face it. When you face it, you will understand that you are escaping from yourself for two reasons—Fear and Greed. FEAR of being nobody and the GREED to be somebody. You look at your activities, you may be very busy, you maybe running a hospital, ashram—if it is action, no problem, but if it is activity, then it is a form of escape.
Please understand your activity and face it. You will always see the greed and fear. Even some people marry out of the fear of loneliness. Fear exists in comparison. Why should one compare? Compare for purpose of measuring your success but don’t whip yourself through comparison.
In the same way, remember Mahatma Gandhi’s statement that there is enough in this world for man’s need, but not for greed. When you earn wealth, do not earn out of greed but for the joy of earning. In the Artha Shastra, Kautilya says that one should earn money but not out of greed. Greed, he says, is like a pot with a hole.
