What I produce out of me does not exhaust me.”
- Bhagat Puran Singh, in “The Spirit Born People”
How can we hope to reach this state, feeling truly free upon the earthly plane? Holding responsibilities, jobs, families, schedules, etc., and yet feel joyfully unfettered? How can we be truly “tubular” (an empty tube for divine spirit to flow through) so that what we produce out of us does not exhaust us?
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Hardarshan Kaur Khalsa |
The holy scripture of the Sikhs, the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, speaks of the five obstacles of lust, anger, greed, pride and attachment. If we look at these five states as being obstacles to our being “tubular” and allowing the divine spirit to flow into us and out of us, the next step is discerning how to move through these states of being into our true essence which is one God. We move throughthese obstacles. The word through is important. Some eastern teachers seem to be saying “dissolve the ego. Do not feel fear or anger or lust.” Denying these human feelings will not make them go away. As someone once said, “The only way out of hell is through it.” When we come out on the other side, we are cleansed of our illusions; we are wiser, and more compassionate. We can truly speak to our brothers and sisters who are suffering, because we have embraced that suffering within ourselves, and not denied it.
Let us look at the five obstacles.
1. Lust. What is it we lust after? Is it a new car? Is it a man or a woman? Whenever we lust, we feel that obtaining whatever we lust for will make us feel fulfilled. In reality, nothing outside us can provide that fulfillment. Ultimately our lust for fulfillment must be directed inward, to unite our souls with God, to realize the God within. The negative experience of lust, that is, experiencing it as an obstacle on our path, comes from fear. We’re afraid that we may not experience God when we turn within, so we take our passion outside ourselves, looking for fulfillment.
The opposite of fear is love. When experiencing lust, we can ask ourselves – where is fear stronger than love here? If we take a good look at it, then we can re-dedicate ourselves to love. We can let our love, devotion, and passion for fulfillment fuel our efforts and confidence so that we will find what we seek within.
2. Anger. What really makes us angry? Whenever things aren’t going the way we think they should, that’s when we get hopping mad. The bottom line question here is: Can I change it? If so, do. If not, accept it. Sometimes the most infuriating experiences are those we dislike but have no power to change. That feeling of powerlessness is related to fear. God, what if I’m really not in control here? After experiencing the anger and getting clear about what power we do have, the rest we can give to God in prayer. We can recognize that the ultimate power is God’s. When we surrender ourselves to that, it allows us to experience the fear we have around it and release it. Our ultimate power is God’s power. Getting our own “power trips” out of the way and being pure tubes for God’s energy is the way to real power.
3. Greed.What makes us want more than we really need? You guessed it – FEAR. We’re afraid that if we don’t have the biggest slice of the pie, someone else might take it. We’re afraid that maybe there’s not enough for everybody, so we better grab all we can. One way out of this is sharing. Realizing the less afraid we all are, and the more we share, the more all of us receive. This frees up all of God’s resources and lets them flow, be it money, information, power, or love.
4. Pride.When we hear someone bragging, (could it ever be US?) what’s really under that voice of bravado? Yep – it’s the big one again – FEAR. “I did this, and I did that, FOR this other person.” We feel that we have to prove our worth. We’re afraid we might not be good enough, just as we are, without some kind of “proof” that we’re OK. We can learn to let love be stronger than fear by loving ourselves for who we are – recognizing that God lives in us without having to “prove” it. We can love our fellow human beings enough to realize that they are capable of loving us, too, and they don’t need “proof” first.
5. Attachment. This is a big one. We get attached to our husbands, our houses, our wives, our children, our jobs, our salaries, our cars, our friends, our titles… The fear connected to attachment is: “Without ____, (the object of our attachment) I would be miserable. I’m afraid of losing it, because without it, I won’t be happy.” Applying love as the antidote to this fear, we can go to the highest source of love in the universe and become attached to the lotus feet of God only. With this divine attachment seated in our hearts, we realize all other attachments are fleeting at best. Without our husband, we are still married to God. Without our children, we are still a child of God and can give God’s love to all children. Without our salary, we still have the richness of our daily relationship with God.
Ideally, we do not deny the obstacles. We recognize them as blocks of energy on the path, and then work with them, transforming each manifestation of fear into divine passion.
And some day, what we gather round us, will not confine us. What we produce out of ourselves will not exhaust us.