SOME IPSE DIXITS
Some great ideas stand out, not because they are the most important, but rather because they are new and startling. As when Swamiji told the story of Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi and ended with: "Verily it is not the husband who is loved, but the Self who is loved in the husband."
Love. It was a new idea that all love is one; that we love child, father, mother, husband, wife, friend, because in them we see the Self. It is the bliss shining through. The mother feels the divinity in her child, the wife sees it in the husband, and so in all other relations. We have put it into compartments and called it: mother's love', child's love, friend's love, lover's love, as if they were different kinds of love instead of one love manifesting in various forms.
Bliss — Joy. "In Joy were we born, in joy do we live, and unto joy do we return." Not born and conceived in sin. but in joy. Joy is our nature, not something to be attained or acquired. "Thou art That." In the midst of sorrow, of tragedy, still it is true: still I must say: "I am the Blissful One. I am the Radiant One. It depends upon nothing. Nothing depends on It." It is at once a terrible and a beautiful Truth.
Growth. Hitherto we had believed that final emancipation and enlightenment were a matter of growth, a gradual advance towards something higher and better, until at last the goal was reached. But from this great Master of the Ancient Wisdom we learnt that the process is not one of growth but of uncovering, of realization. The real nature of man is perfection, divinity, now. Nothing to be attained. The Truth is only to be realized. It is a hallucination to think that we are imperfect. limited, helpless. We are perfect, omnipotent, divine, We are that now. Realize it and you are free at once.
Love. It was a new idea that all love is one; that we love child, father, mother, husband, wife, friend, because in them we see the Self. It is the bliss shining through. The mother feels the divinity in her child, the wife sees it in the husband, and so in all other relations. We have put it into compartments and called it: mother's love', child's love, friend's love, lover's love, as if they were different kinds of love instead of one love manifesting in various forms.
Bliss — Joy. "In Joy were we born, in joy do we live, and unto joy do we return." Not born and conceived in sin. but in joy. Joy is our nature, not something to be attained or acquired. "Thou art That." In the midst of sorrow, of tragedy, still it is true: still I must say: "I am the Blissful One. I am the Radiant One. It depends upon nothing. Nothing depends on It." It is at once a terrible and a beautiful Truth.
Growth. Hitherto we had believed that final emancipation and enlightenment were a matter of growth, a gradual advance towards something higher and better, until at last the goal was reached. But from this great Master of the Ancient Wisdom we learnt that the process is not one of growth but of uncovering, of realization. The real nature of man is perfection, divinity, now. Nothing to be attained. The Truth is only to be realized. It is a hallucination to think that we are imperfect. limited, helpless. We are perfect, omnipotent, divine, We are that now. Realize it and you are free at once.
To be continued.... (Memoirs of Sister Christine)
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