VBT – Meditation 18.4
It Looks Paradoxical
This looks paradoxical because this sutra says to forget yourself completely, not to be self-centered, to move to the other completely. Buddha is reported to have said continuously that whenever you are praying, pray for others – never for yourself. Otherwise the prayer is just useless.
One man came to Buddha and he said, “I accept your teaching, but only one thing is very difficult to accept. You say that whenever we do prayer we are not to think about ourselves, we are not to ask anything about ourselves. We have to say, ‘Whatsoever may be the result of my prayer, let that result be distributed to all. If blessing happens, let it be distributed to all.’”
The man said, “This is okay, but can I make only one exception? Not to my immediate neighbor – he is my enemy. Let this blessing be distributed to all except to my immediate neighbor.”
The mind is self-centered, so Buddha said, “Your prayer is useless. Nothing will come out of it unless you are ready to give all, to distribute all, and then all will be yours.”
In love you are to forget yourself. It looks paradoxical: then when and how will the centering happen?
By being totally concerned with the other, with the other’s happiness, when you forget yourself completely and only the other remains there, suddenly you are filled with bliss – the blessing.
Why? Because when you are not concerned with yourself you become vacant, empty; the inner space is created. When your mind is totally concerned with the other, you become mindless within.
Then there are no thoughts inside. And then this thought – “How can I be helpful? How can I create more bliss? How can the other be more happy?” – Cannot continue any more, because really, there is nothing you can do. This thought becomes a stop. There is nothing you can do. What can you do? If you think you can do it, you are still thinking in terms of yourself – ego.
With the love object one becomes totally helpless – remember this. Whenever you love someone you feel totally helpless. That is the agony of love: one cannot feel what he can do. He wants to do everything, he wants to give the whole universe to the lover or the beloved – but what can he do? If you think that you can do this or that, you are still not in a love relationship. Love is very helpless, absolutely helpless, and that helplessness is the beauty, because in that helplessness you are surrendered.
You have to surrender, and the ego cannot surrender, it can only fight… when you come to a peak of vibrancy, you come to a peak of ecstasy, and from that peak everything relaxes, your whole being relaxes.
First the whole being vibrates with a new music — it is in tune with the cosmos, the ego is not there, you are just energy; there is nobody inside, just energy moving like a river in flood — and then the flood goes, the river relaxes, and you are in tune with the whole cosmos.
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