Own Faults – In Gita Verse 18.48 Every endeavor is covered by some fault, just as fire is covered by smoke. Therefore one should not give up the work born of his nature, O son of Kuntī, even if such work is full of fault.
Krishna says if you really want to be transformed, overlook others faults – that is none of your business. You are nobody, you are not asked to interfere, you have no right, so why bother? But don’t overlook your own faults, because they have to be changed, overcome.
With this question will arise in us – WHY CAN’T I SEE MY OWN FAULTS WHILE I AM IMMENSELY CAPABLE OF SEEING OTHERS, EVEN THEIR SMALLEST ONES?
It is very normal. It is not something exceptional. Our eyes are focused on others; we are other-oriented. We only see the others – it is not only a question of faults – we never see ourselves. Even if we want to see ourselves we have to look in a mirror, we have to create the image. When the image is there the other has appeared. The mirror helps us to see ourselves because it creates the other. Otherwise we are absolutely extroverts; we have forgotten the language of how to look in. Hence, as a consequence, you cannot see your own faults; nobody can.
The moment you start seeing your faults they start dropping like dry leaves. Then nothing else has to be done; to see them is enough. Just to be aware of your faults is all that is needed. In that awareness they start disappearing, they evaporate. One can go on committing a certain error only if one remains unconscious of it. Unconsciousness is a must to go on committing the same errors. Even if you try to change you will commit the same error in some other form, in some other shape. And they come in all sizes and all shapes. You will exchange, you will substitute, but you cannot drop it because deep down you don’t see that it is a fault. Others may be telling you because they can see.
That’s why everybody thinks himself so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous, so saintly – and nobody agrees with him! The reason is simple: you look at others, you see their reality, and about yourself you carry fictions – beautiful fictions. About yourself, you are very fictitious. All that you know about yourself is more or less a myth; it has nothing to do with reality.
The moment one sees one’s faults, a radical change sets in. Hence all the buddhas down the ages have been telling only one thing: awareness. They don’t teach you character. Character is taught by priests, politicians, but not by the buddhas. Buddhas teach you consciousness – not conscience. Conscience is a trick played upon you by others. Others are telling you what is right and what is wrong; they are forcing their ideas upon you. And they go on forcing them from your very childhood, when you were so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate, that there was a possibility to make any impression on you, any imprint on you. They have conditioned you from the very beginning. That conditioning is called conscience and that conscience goes on dominating your whole life. Conscience is a strategy of society to enslave you.
Buddhas teach consciousness. Consciousness means you are not to learn from others what is right and what is wrong; there is no need to learn from anybody. You have simply to go in; just the inward journey is enough. The deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the center you are so full of light that darkness disappears. When you bring light into your room you don’t have to push the darkness out of the room. The presence of the light is enough because darkness is only an absence of light. So are all your insanities, madnesses.
In my Bhagavad Gita Verse 11.17, blog I wrote – So don’t be worried about the errors and the mistakes and the faults. Be concerned about one single thing, one single phenomenon; put your total energy into one goal, and that is how to be more conscious, how to be more awakened. If you put your total energy into it, it is going to happen, it is inevitable. It is your birthright.
Krishna says consciousness is the source of all. Consciousness is the stuff existence is made of. But there is no source of consciousness itself. Consciousness is another name of God – a better name, more scientific, less mythological.
Once you have known your own consciousness you will understand what Krishna says – Therefore one should not give up the work born of his nature, O son of Kuntī, even if such work is full of fault.
Tags: Own Faults
