Accept It – In Gita Verse 8.9 One should meditate upon the Supreme Person as the one who knows everything, as He who is the oldest, who is the controller, who is smaller than the smallest, who is the maintainer of everything, who is beyond all material conception, who is inconceivable, and who is always a person. He is luminous like the sun, and He is transcendental, beyond this material nature.
Krishna is saying not only in meditation but in routine life also, one who constantly feels a oneness with existence, egolessness, timelessness. Yet one feels ordinary. To such a person is transcendental, beyond this material nature.
This is the goal. One should not create a problem out of it. One should relax and be ordinary.
When we feel that we are ordinary? Somewhere there must be the desire to be extraordinary, to be not ordinary. Only in contrast to that can make us feel ordinary, and then a certain sadness will follow. But why not be ordinary? What does Krishna mean when Krishna says, “Be ordinary?” Krishna means that whatsoever the case is – be.
Krishna says, “Be whatsoever you are,” so that that desire would be cut and the ego couldn’t move. Don’t fight the ego – accept it, it is there. It is part of you, it is how you are. Don’t fight with it, and don’t think in terms of the contrary, how to be egoless, because that is the way of the ego. Accept it. Acceptance is death.
Whenever you feel yourself to be ordinary you try to be extraordinary in some way. But everyone is ordinary: to be ordinary is to be real. It may be that to you someone looks extraordinary because you compare him with yourself, but a genius in himself is as ordinary as anybody, and he feels himself ordinary. A rose flower is ordinary, a lotus flower is ordinary, but if the rose starts comparing and starts thinking about how to be a lotus flower then problems arise. And if the lotus starts thinking about the beautiful perfume that comes from the rose flower, then the rose flower becomes extraordinary.
When you compare, in comparison extraordinariness happens – otherwise everything is ordinary. In itself everything is as it is. Don’t compare and don’t hanker after it. If you hanker then meditation will disappoint you, because meditation will bring you to a point where you feel your total ordinariness. Be receptive to it, welcome it. It is good. It shows that meditation is progressing, deepening. But somewhere the desire for the extraordinary is still there and that is creating the barrier.
If that desire disappears, you will not feel – yourself as ordinary. You will simply be. How can you feel that you are ordinary? You will simply be, and to be, to be so simple that you don’t feel whether you are ordinary or extraordinary, is to attain.
It is good, don’t be disappointed by it. If you are disappointed then remember that you are carrying a desire, and that desire is creating poison. Why is there this madness? Why does it come and happen to everyone? This whole world is mad because of this: everyone is trying to be something special, somebody.
Life happens to you only when you are nobody. When you are so empty that there is no one, then the whole of life flows through you without any barrier, without any obstacle, without any hindrance. Then the flow is total and complete.
When you are somebody, you become a rock, you disturb the flow – life cannot move through you. There is a struggle, a resistance, and of course you create much noise. And you may think that because you are creating so much noise that you are something extraordinary.
Be an empty vessel, passage, with no resistance, so that life can flow through it, flow through it easily. Then no noise will be created. You may not be able to feel that you are, because you only feel that you are when you fight. The more you fight, the more you feel.
Life flows so smoothly through you that you may even completely forget that you exist. There is no barrier, no resistance, no rejection, no negation. And you are so welcoming that you even forget that you are.
It was heard about one Zen master, that he would call his own name many times during the day. In the morning he would call, “Bokuju?” And then he would say, “Yes sir, I am here.” Bokuju was his name. And his disciples would ask why he did this. He would say, “I go on forgetting. I have become so smooth that I have to remind myself – ‘Bokuju?’ And then I say, ‘Yes sir, I am here.’”
Krishan says that life can become such a smooth flow, such a silent river, that no noise is created. But if you are bent upon being something, somebody, extraordinary, special, then life cannot flow through you. Then there is a constant struggle between life and you, between your small ego and the cosmos.
A buddha is a nobody. All his doors are open. The wind comes and blows, the rains come and blow, the sun-rays enter and pass, life flows, but he is not there. This is what Krishna means when Krishna says meditation has happened to you. And this is very ordinary, natural, real.
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