VBT – Week’s Meditation 89
Be Authentic
You are a good man, respectable, nice, cultured – you have an image. Sometimes you fall down from the image – those are accidents. You regain your image again. Those are not accidents. Really, they are more true about you. When you are angry, your true self is revealed more truly than when you are smiling falsely. When you show your hate, you are more authentic than when you pretend to love.
The first thing is to be authentic, true. Include hate, include anger, include everything that is in you. What will happen? If you include everything, your false image will fall forever, and that’s very good. That’s just beautiful that you are relieved of the false image, because it goes on creating complexities. With the image falling your ego will fall, which is a door to spirituality.
When you say, ‘I am – anger,’ how can you have your ego? When you say, ‘I am – hate, I am jealousy, I am – cruelty. I am violence,’ how can you have an ego? The ego can be had easily when you say, ‘I am Brahma. I am the supreme God.’ Then it is easy. ‘I am atma, the supreme self’ – then it is easy.
But when you say, ‘I am jealousy, hate, anger, passion, sex,’ you cannot have the ego. With the false image the ego falls; you become true, natural. Then it is possible to understand your reality. Then you can approach your anger without any anti-attitude. It is you. You have to understand that it is your energy.
And if you can be understanding about your anger, the very understanding changes and transforms it. If you can understand the whole process of anger and hate, in the very process of understanding it disappears, because a basic ingredient to be angry and to be hateful is to be ignorant about it, to be unaware about it, to be unalert about it. So whenever you are not alert, you can be angry. When you are alert, you cannot be angry. The alertness absorbs all energy which becomes anger.
Buddha has said again and again to his monks, ‘I don’t say not to be angry. I say while you are angry, be alert.’ This is really one of the fundamentals for mutation. ‘I don’t say not to be angry. I say: while angry, be alert.’ Try it. When anger comes, be alert. Look at it. Observe it. Be conscious of it. Don’t be sleepy. And the more alert you are, the less the anger. In a moment when you are really alert, anger is not – the same energy becomes alertness.
Energy is neutral. The same energy becomes anger. The same energy becomes hate. The same energy becomes love. The same energy becomes compassion. The energy is one; these are all expressions. And there are basic situations in which energy can become a particular mood. If you are unalert, energy can become anger, energy can become sex, energy can become violence. If you are alert, it cannot become – the alertness, awareness, consciousness, doesn’t allow it to move in those grooves. It moves on a different plane – the same energy.
Buddha says, ‘Walk, eat, sit. Whatsoever you do, do, but do it fully consciously, mindful, aware that you are doing it.’
Once it happened that Buddha was walking and a fly came and sat on his head, on his forehead. He was talking to some monks, so without really paying any attention to the fly, he just waved his hand and the fly left his forehead. Then he became aware that he had done something not fully aware, because his awareness was towards the monks to whom he was talking, so he said to the monks, ‘Excuse me for a single minute.’ He closed his eyes and he raised his hand again. The monks were amazed at what he was doing, because now there was no fly. He raised his hand again and waved his hand near the spot where the fly was – it was not there now. He brought his hand back and then he opened his eyes and said, ‘You can ask now.’
Such alertness cannot become anger, such alertness cannot become hate – impossible. So first include hate, anger, all that is thought to be bad. Include it in yourself, include it in your image, so that your ego falls down. You come down on the ground from the sky. You become true.
Then don’t throw it on someone else. Let it be there; express it to the sky. Be fully alert. If you are angry, move in a room, be alone, and be angry and express your anger – and be alert. Do whatsoever you would have done with the person who was instrumental. You can take his picture there, or just put a pillow there and say, ‘You are my father,’ and give a good beating. Be fully alert.
Be fully alert about what you are doing, and do it.
It will be a deep realization. The anger will be expressed, and you will be alert. And you will be able to laugh; you will be able to know what stupid things you are doing. But you could have done this to your real father – you are only doing it to the pillow. And if you really do it authentically, you will feel very kindly, very loving towards your father. When you come out of the room and when you look at your father’s face you will feel very sympathetic, very loving. You would even like to ask him to forgive you.
This is what I mean by being inclusive. No suppression is meant. Suppression is always dangerous, poisonous. With whatsoever you suppress, you are creating inner complexes which will continue and which will make you ultimately mad. Suppression is bound to become madness. Express, but don’t express it to anyone. There is no need. That is stupid, and creates a vicious circle. Express alone meditatively, and be alert while expressing.
Tags: Be Authentic
