Know Thyself
First be selfish, and discover all that is contained in yourself – all the joys and all the blissfulness and all the ecstasies. And then unselfishness will come just like your shadow follows you – because to have a dancing heart, to have God in your being, you have to share it. You cannot go on keeping it, like a miser, because miserliness in your inner growth is a death.
The economics of inner growth is different from the outer economics.
A beggar was standing on the street and he stopped a car. He asked for something because he had not eaten for three days. The man in the car had just won a lottery. And looking at the beggar, he could not believe it – his clothes, although very old, dirty, showed that he came from a good family.
His face, his language, all gave indications that he was educated.
He was so full of money at that moment that he took out a one hundred rupee note, and gave it to the beggar. The beggar looked at the note and started laughing.
The man in the car said, “Why are you laughing?”
He said, “I am laughing because soon you will be standing in my place. This is how I became a beggar. Once I used to have my own car; once I used to have thousands of rupees – but I went on distributing. It won’t take a long time for you – I will see you again.”
The ordinary economics is that if you go on giving, you will have less and less and less. But the spiritual economics is that if you don’t give, you will have less and less and less; if you give, you will have more and more and more.
The laws of the outside world and the inside world are diametrically opposite. First become rich inside, first become an emperor, and then you have so much to share. You will not call it even unselfishness. And you will not desire that any reward should be given to you – here or here-after.
You will not even ask for gratitude from the man you have given something to; on the contrary, you will be grateful that he did not reject you, your love, your bliss, your ecstasy. He was receptive, he allowed you to pour your heart and your songs and your music into his being.
The whole East and its search for truth is very long. It has found one simple fact, that first you have to take care of yourself, and then only you can take care of others.
I repeat again, first be selfish. Know thyself, be thyself and then your very life will be nothing but a sharing, an unselfish sharing, and without asking for any reward in this world or in the other world.
Tags: Be Absolutely Selfish Be Selfish Begging Bowl Drop The Self Know Thyself Lack Of Discipline
