Existence Is Opulent – In Gita Verse 10.16 Please tell me in detail of Your divine opulences by which You pervade all these worlds.
Arjuna wants to know what is the religiousness hidden in the Opulences, as existence is opulent.
Existence is opulent but there is no hint of any intoxication, any ego, in that opulence. This is a bridging of the opposites. Even a little opulence creates ego, so mathematically, if the opulence is great it should create a huge ego. But religion is beyond the language of mathematics – when opulence is absolute there is no ego.
It will be easier to understand it with the language of psychology. In the West, Adler, a great psychotherapist, based his whole psychology on the concept of the inferiority complex. He said that all the activities of man arise from his feelings of inferiority. When someone feels himself to be inferior he longs to reach a high post. To avoid the feeling of inferiority, he tries to occupy a high position.
Nobody suffers from an inferiority complex more than politicians. Adler said that whether a Hitler, Lenin or Lincoln, all of them suffered from some kind of inferiority complex. To compensate, they rushed to politics. Lenin’s legs were very short and the upper part of his body was much longer. Whenever he would sit on a chair his feet would not touch the ground. He suffered very much because of it. By sitting on the high throne of the great Czar, he showed that even though his feet might not be touching the ground, they had reached the throne! Adler said that Lenin’s inferiority complex always haunted him. It is probably true that Hitler was impotent, so his impotence became a hunger for power. It became so strong that he wanted to hold the world in his fist and challenge others’ potency.
An inferiority complex creates a desire to move in the opposite direction. If somebody is ugly he tries to compensate in some way to cover the ugliness. If somebody is blind the whole energy of his eyes becomes available to his ears. This is why the blind man can hear much better than anyone with eyes can hear. Blind people quickly become musical experts because the energy of their eyes rushes to their ears; their ears begin to do the work of eyes. Wherever something is lacking, we cover it by doing something else in another direction.
Adler has also said that man’s ego is created because of an inferiority complex. If love is lacking in your life, you fulfill it by madly accumulating money. Those who did not receive the gift of love will begin to collect gold.
It is very interesting that someone who is full of love cannot be a miser. And a miser cannot be a lover because actually, a miser is fulfilling his longing for love through money. Someone whose life is full of love feels secure – he knows that he will not die of hunger; he knows that even when he gets old somebody will look after him.
But someone whose life is loveless will be afraid and insecure. He knows that when he becomes old nobody is going to look after him. That fear will make him accumulate money because money is his only security. One whose life is missing the security of love will get a feeling of security by hoarding money. You are simply hiding, covering up, compensating. If you look deeply into your whole behavior, Adler seems to be right.
Because all is available to existence, it has no inferiority complex. Hence the nearer a person comes to reality the less egoistic he is. The more a person has the less egoistic he becomes; the less a person has the more egoistic he becomes. Ego is poor, it is a beggar.
Egolessness is the indication that you have become an emperor. Naturally, one who has the whole existence available to him will have no need for any “I.”
Yama says, “Who better than I can know this divinity which does not swell with pride at its own opulence?” Only death can know godliness. Why? Because unless you die, disappear, dissolve, you cannot become one with existence. As long as your ego is not burned to ashes you cannot become one with the quality of egolessness. If you want to be one with it you will have to be the same as it; only the same can meet the same.
A real religious person says, “If you turn around you will find the sun. First transform yourself – give up your ego.” This statement of Yama’s is very valuable: except for him, who else can be as capable of knowing godliness? Hence Yama is for those who are ready to die and become nobodies. Jesus has said: Those who lose themselves will be saved, and those who try to save themselves will not be saved by any means.
Tags: Existence Is Opulent
