Guilt Vs Gratitude

Guilt vs Gratitude

SMALL STORY

(His Divine Holiness Bhagavan Sri Nithyananda Paramashivam has delivered almost 20,000 hours of recorded talks till date. As part of the talks, He shares simple small stories that give powerful A cognitive shifts to the listener. Following is one such story.)

If you are caught in guilt, you can never feel connected to the Divine. The only way to get out of guilt completely is to feel the connectedness to your higher Self. But your very guilt acts as the barrier to this. The only way to overcome this guilt is to start melting with gratitude. When you accept things as they are, when you experience the causeless blessings of the Divine, you become more and more grateful. Gratitude is the fragrance that can pervade your inner space and replace the smell of guilt. With guilt, it becomes impossible to celebrate life. Guilt sits on your chest like a rock. You become heavy and frozen. It does not allow you to be free to dance, sing, laugh and love.

Total acceptance and surrender

Especially in the subject of master-disciple relationship, I have seen people creating a lot of guilt for themselves. When it comes to your relation with the master, you have certain fixed ideas as to how you should relate with the master, how you should receive him and such things. Based on this, you create guilt for yourself. Just receive the master in the way in which you are ready, that's enough. Every state is right, every stage is right, every relationship is right. Just be authentic and integrated about what you feel. That is enough. Whatever way you feel, be honest about it to yourself and the master. And he will guide you to the final goal.

Don't set ideals looking at others. Your relation with the master is unique. You are

close to him in your own way. Don't try to jump ahead of yourself. Then you will create your own suffering and feel guilty. Accept yourself as you are, totally and unconditionally. The total acceptance will bring about an active and intense relaxation in which your natural intelligence will flower. Then the transformation will happen, the realization will happen of what you always were deep within you. Suddenly you will see that you have started moving, flowing. You move towards realization, just like the river moves towards the ocean on its own with no rules or directions from anybody.

Start living and flowing. Enjoy the ultimate surrender to Existence just as you are. Don't feel guilty, don't feel afraid you have missed. What you are searching for was always inside you. You were always complete. Then how can you miss? When you are relaxed, you can sense this completeness. But when you are guilty, you create a gap and then you feel you are incomplete and separate, away from the Whole.

For example, if you are talking to a child some concepts of philosophy, what do you expect the child to do? Naturally, he will not be interested. He will just continue jumping and playing around. Can you say there is anything is wrong in it? No. In the same way, you are who you are. Be where you are. Whatever you can receive, receive. Don't feel guilty you are not able to receive in the way you imagine you should receive.

A small story:

Once a young boy set out in search of a master to study the art of sword- fighting. He finally found a master and approached him to accept him as his disciple.

He asked the master, 'Master, if I study sincerely, how long will it take me to be a master at sword-fighting?'

The master replied, 'Maybe seven years.'

The disciple thought aloud, 'My mother is alone. I need to get back soon to take care of her. Master, if I work really hard, how long will it take me to become master of the art?'

The master replied, 'In that case, it may be twelve years.'

The disciple was surprised and asked, First you said seven years. But when Isaid I will work extra hard, you say twelve years. I am willing to undergo any hardship and sacrifice but I want to learn in the shortest time possible.'

The master replied, 'Oh, in that case, it may take eighteen years.'

If you try to jump ahead of the game, you create tension. It will take longer for you to achieve what you want to achieve.

As the Zen saying goes, if you want to slow something down, hurry up.

When you try to hurry up, it is like trying to make a bud bloom by opening out its petals. Can you call it real blooming? No. The bud can never be forced to bloom. When the maturity happens, when the time comes, whatever needs to happen will happen. Life is beautiful when things happen at the correct time. Sometimes it will happen that you will hear me today But you will understand what you heard only after months or years. The seed I plant in you today may lie dormant inside you but it will sprout at the right time, in the right season. It is okay, don't be worried about it, don't feel guilty about it. If you start feeling guilt, in the agitation, the seed may even get lost.

Life is a dream

What you see as reality is actually just a dream. When you awaken to this truth, it is true knowledge. Then you relax, you are able to enjoy the dream, because you know it is not reality. It is just like in a game of chess. The players themselves may not see the right move because they are involved in the game. But a watcher of the game will know the right move. It is because he is not involved. So he can easily enjoy the game and intelligently know the next move. You enjoy life more when you are watching, when you know it is a dream and you have nothing to lose. Then there is nothing to feel guilty about. You lead a life of celebration, living in this world yet detached from it. You enjoy it with no guilt. It is like when you go to a theater. You watch a movie but you know it is not real. That is why you are able to enjoy it, no matter what happens on screen. When you come home you forget about it. Life is exactly like this. The whole world is like a movie on a vast screen. When you understand this, you can enjoy the movie. You realize there is nothing wrong in enjoying it.

Guilt of following another master

Another common guilt is the guilt of following more than one master. Understand, feeling conflict about following different masters is nothing but a conflict inside yourself. There is no real conflict between the real masters. All masters are embodiments of the same energy. The energy is one and the same, there is no need for any conflict. I always tell people: go around, pluck flowers from any garden and make a nice garland for yourself! But the problem is, people go around to many gardens, but don't pluck flowers from any garden, instead, they collect only thorns! If you are doing only window shopping, you don't learn from any master.

When you sincerely go to many masters, you will learn from all of them and become more intense. Once you become intense, it is better that you stay with only one master so that you