20150307

How to help others see the truth?

Question: Sir, is it possible to help those who are deeply blind, even if they do not agree or acknowledge that they are blind? Is it possible to help such people?
Speaker: Alok is asking that is it possible to really help blind people, people who are not prepared to acknowledge the fact, people who are not seeing the reality. Obviously, here he is using ‘blindness’ as a metaphor.
Blindness itself creates a situation where it will be helped. Blindness is suffering. And our essential nature is neither to suffer nor to be blind. Are you getting it?
The essential core that we all are, that is not blind, that ‘knows’. Even the person who is pretending to be completely blind, knows deep within, because it is our nature to know. And that is why there is suffering. It is our nature to know, to understand, to be aware. But on the surface, what are we doing? We are living an ignorant life, we are telling ourselves that it is alright to act blindly. We have built some kind of defence of concepts, principles and traditions around ourselves. We have somehow justified our blindness, that it is alright to be blind.
It cannot be alright. You may think it is alright, you may pretend it is alright, you can make a law that it is alright, you can write books that justify blindness, you can have populations turning blind, billions of people, yet blindness would always be suffering. Why? Because blindness is not your nature.
Your innermost core will keep crying against blindness. Your mind may keep arguing, your mind may keep giving fine arguments, yet something within you will keep calling, will keep saying, ‘It is not alright, it is not alright, it is not alright.’ Are you getting it?
Mind keeps on changing. That essential core does not change. Today mind is in support of blindness, tomorrow the mind may turn against blindness, on the third day the mind may start following some other ideologies, some other principles. Mind has a thousand colours, mind is easily influenced. But your center has no colors and is not influenced, that is what I am calling as your ‘essential nature’.
That essential nature is intelligence, understanding, seeing, not blindness. After seeing, you have no option to remain blind. Seeing is your nature. You have no option to remain an idiot, understanding is your nature. That is why till the time you act stupidly, you will suffer.
Do you now see why stupidity is suffering? Because, it is not your nature to be stupid.
Similarly, hatred is not your nature. That is why whenever you will be full of hate, you will suffer. Falseness is not your nature. It may become a habit, you may be deeply conditioned, but habit is not nature. Habits come with time, come with situations and they can go away with situations, but nature never changes. Nature is what you really, really are. Hatred is not your nature.
In the same way, bondage is not your nature. You may convince yourself that bondage is good, you may convince yourself that there are so many uses of bondages, that bondage is beneficial, that there is a good trade-off by remaining a slave, that I am getting so much of safety, convenience, you may convince yourself with fine arguments, with nice logic, yet something within you will keep saying, ‘No. Whatever be the price of  freedom, pay it. Don’t remain a slave, because bondage is not your nature. You will suffer if you remain a slave.’
Now, you are asking that can the blind be really be helped. The biggest help is already coming to them. What is the biggest help? Their own nature. Their own nature will not allow them peace, till the time they act blind. They will not be able to sleep properly, they will know that something very, very important is missing from their life. And that is their greatest help.
It’s ironical, that suffering itself is their help. When we suffer it is the call of the Truth that there is something wrong somewhere, please correct it. That is what is suffering- the call of the Truth. ‘There is something wrong somewhere, please correct it.’
You have pain in your stomach and you are suffering. You know what that pain is? It is a reminder to you that there is something wrong somewhere, please correct it. Otherwise, there will be damage. Do you know what headache is? Headache does not mean that there is something wrong in the head. Headache means that there is something wrong in the body somewhere and it’s a reminder, it’s like an alarm going on. ‘There is something wrong somewhere, please correct it.’ Headache is the body’s way of helping itself.
Your elbow gets hurt and you cannot put your elbow on the table. The moment you put your elbow there and try to put some pressure on it, the elbow recoils. That is body’s defence mechanism. And if you put it here and apply pressure, the hurt will get worse. The wound, of whatever kind it is, will not heal. All these are inbuilt systems that take you towards health.
Similarly, mental agony is an in-built system, a very deep in-built system, that is the call of the divine, the call of the Truth. Blindness is suffering. And suffering itself is a kind of help. It is telling you that there is something wrong, please correct it. Till the time your mind is not fully aligned with your real nature, you will keep suffering.
If you find that there is boredom in life, there is weariness, there is fear, there is disturbance, you remain distracted, you feel lonely, you feel insecure, you are worrying a lot, you have tendency to gossip, if you find any of these symbols in mind, then it is the reminder sent to your mind by your core. What is the reminder? The reminder is that you are not behaving properly. You are holding beliefs, you are living in illusions, you have put ego around yourself, you are not coming close to me, you are not surrendering to me. That suffering is a message, it’s a call, it’s an indicator. A danger sign! ‘Something is wrong somewhere, please correct it.’
So these blind men are already suffering. They may not acknowledge it, because acknowledging it will hurt their ego. They will not acknowledge, they will not accept that daily we are living in trauma.
How will you help a blind man, who is already being helped by his nature? You help the blind man by not remaining blind yourselves. That is the first and the last step in helping somebody. Remember, you are not responsible for the help, the help is already coming to him from his own centre, from his own core. You help yourself.
When you will start helping yourself, then you will find that ‘the core’ helps ‘the being’ in two ways. One, by calling from inside, that is the pull, something in your heart calls you towards the inside. That is the pull. And the same heart creates situations outside that push you inwards. That is the push. So, both through pull and push your core, your essence, your centre, your truth, is trying to help you.
If you want to become medium that helps others, then first help yourself. Don’t remain blind yourself. And then you will find that you have become a vehicle of transformation for others also.
How? Without planning. How? You won’t know. How? In a thousand ways. Is it by working hard? No, by just being yourself. By just being yourself you find that you are helping the world. ‘How am I helping the world? By being what I am. I am not going out to do social service. I am not meeting person after person and counselling them. I am not putting myself up as a role model. Then how am I helping? By being what I am.’
Do you mean to say that others start getting inspiration from you? No, I don’t want to inspire others. There is no need to inspire. The real inspiration is already within them. Why do I need to inspire? If inspire them or act as a role model, then that would be some kind of an ego. Why should I fall in that trap?
The helper is already out there to help you. You need not bother yourself from helping somebody. You cannot help anybody because your help is not needed. The real helper is already helping. Your suffering is one of the ways in which He helps you. So you need not bother yourself. You need not take the responsibility of changing the world. You need not say that I am a great social reformer, a modern saint. You need not do that.
Look at yourself first. Be close to your essence. And you will find that in mysterious, miraculous ways things around you are changing. That’s why I said that don’t ask, ‘How?’ The universe has its own ways of operating that are beyond the comprehension of this limited mind. Are you getting it?
Don’t look too much at others, that if others are blind how do I help them. Forget about others, look at yourself- self before service. We are addicted to service. How will you help somebody if you yourself are blind? Can one blind man help another? Can one sleeping man wake others up? Ten people are sleeping and one of them is dreaming and saying that I am waking others up. Will he really be able to wake others up? How do you wake others up? By first waking up yourself. Look at that.
Am I awake or am I sleeping? That’s the first and the last question. Is that clear?
-Excerpts from the Samvaad session. Edited for clarity.
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