VBT – Meditation 81.3
Subtle Withdrawal
People come to me and they say, ‘No one loves. No one loves me.’ And I touch that man and I feel he is afraid even of touch. There is a subtle withdrawal. I take his hand in my hand and he has withdrawn. He is not there in the hand; only a dead thing is in my hand – he has withdrawn. And he says, ‘No one loves me.’ How can anyone love you? And even if the whole world loves, you will not feel it, because you are closed. Love cannot enter you; there is no gate, no door. And you are suffering in your own prison.
If the ego is there, you are closed – for love, for meditation, for God. So first try to be more sensitive, more vulnerable, open, allowing things to happen to you. Only then can the divine happen, because that is the last happening. If you cannot allow ordinary things to happen to you, how can you allow the ultimate? Because when the ultimate happens to you, you will be no more. You will be simply no more.
Kabir has said, ‘When I was seeking you, you were not there. And now, when you are there, where is that seeker Kabir? He is no more. So what type of meeting is this?’ Kabir wonders, ‘What type of meeting is this? When I was there, the divine was not. Now the divine is there, but I am not. So what type of meeting is this?’
But really this is the only meeting, because two cannot meet. Ordinarily we think two are needed to meet – how will the meeting be there if there is only one? So the ordinary logic says that for a meeting at least two are needed, the other is needed. But for a real meeting, for a meeting which we call love, for a meeting which we call prayer, for a meeting which we call samadhi, ecstasy, one is needed. When the seeker is there, the sought is not; and when the sought has come, the seeker has disappeared.
Why is this so? – Because the ego is the barrier. When you feel you are, you are so much that nothing can enter in you. You are filled with your own self. When you are not, then everything can pass through you. You have become so vast that even the divine can pass through you. The whole existence is now ready to pass through you, because you are ready.
So the whole art of religion is how not to be, how to dissolve, how to surrender, how to become an open space.
The Upanishads call it “the inner space of the heart.” There is a space – simply space. Simply space… Where even the heart is not, simply space – the inner space of the heart. That is consciousness, that is awareness – sakshin. This explosion of awareness, this transcendence of the mind, of the past, makes you open and vulnerable from all sides, to all dimensions. Then you know grace falling on you from everywhere: from the trees, from the sky, from human beings, from animals – everywhere. Even a dead stone is graceful then. You know the grace flowing toward you.
Then you cannot say this is simply existence. Then you say, “This is the divine existence.” This metamorphosis – your own transformation – this transformation from a dead mind into an eternally living consciousness, from the junk of the mind to the open sky of consciousness… This transformation changes your attitude toward existence. Then the whole existence is just a flow of love – friendly, compassionate, loving, graceful. Then you are loved through thousands of hands.
Tags: Subtle Withdrawal
