There is one single characteristic that has existed in all the great people of the different traditions in the world, and that is selflessness. Christ, the Buddha, and Krishna all attained the highest wisdom, but they remained themselves. Your outer individual shell will remain exactly the same, but your inner light will expand and expand to universal consciousness. That individual flame of love will become a forest conflagration and will burn up the precarious weed of your selfishness. Selfishness is not needed; it will get in your way. Truth will automatically come to you if you learn how to love. Don’t approach love in a merely external or superficial way; offering your body to somebody is not love, it is merely lust. I am talking of that kind of love in which you are completely selfless. In such love, you want to give and you feel great joy in giving, and you feel that this is something great for you to do as a human being. You need to learn to give and truly love, and compassion is the first step.
While you are learning to teach your children, you should also have another goal: you should develop an enthusiasm about learning from your children too—children are also teachers for their parents. You can learn many things from your children; often the parent doesn’t have the intense desire to learn that a child has. You should learn to keep that zeal alive. Never close the gates of learning; they should remain open. There is no end to knowledge; don’t allow yourself to think that you know everything. Always remember that you still have more to learn, because there is no end to your learning. This knowledge is ananta, limitless. With such a love, you teach your children and attend to each child personally.
Set a time for your practices, because that is how you develop habit patterns and teach your children to do so. If you are used to eating lunch at one o’clock, you will feel hungry at one o’clock, no matter where you are, even without a clock. If you have developed the habit of waking up at five o’clock in the morning, your eyes will suddenly open at five o’clock, even if you are tired. It is helpful to form a habit of doing your exercises, breathing practices, eating your meals, and going to bed at exactly the same time every day. These are four important functions that you should regulate. You will enjoy life better if you do this.
Actually, all four of your appetites should be controlled. When you learn to regulate all your drives, that is real human development. When you are married, you know you have a spouse and do not go with another partner. This is part of what is meant by regulation of the sexual urge. You should also regulate the temporal aspect of your behavior—the times in which you do things. Don’t just decide to have sex the moment that you come home—learn to prepare yourselves for the experience. Sometimes a woman does not feel prepared for what her husband wants. Sexual desire does not originate in the body. Sexual desire has nothing to do with virility or strength; it has something to do with emotions and the way you channel and express your emotions. It is better to have an understanding of your partner and his or her feelings so that you are not disappointed in your expectations of the relationship.
You should also regulate your food intake and teach your children to do so. If you eat regularly at the same time, it helps the system to function. Your sleep schedule should also be regulated. Yogis reduce the amount of sleep to two and a half hours, and finally to no sleep. They call it “sleepless sleep,” and they go to a state of deep meditation instead of sleep. When meditation becomes your whole life then this change naturally occurs.
In a healthy lifestyle, you should have time for exercise, breathing practices, and meditation. You should also understand that you were born and anything that is born is sure to die. Brooding on death and creating fear is not a helpful thing to do. Sooner or later everything changes and everything dies. You will lose only body, which dies and decays. Why should you be afraid? Again and again you need to remind your mind of this, because you have not been taught to do so; you have been taught to look after yourself fearfully. People said, “Don’t go here, you will fall. Don’t go there, you will have an accident. Don’t go here, someone will kill you.” All those kinds of negative suggestions are stored in your mind, and thus, you become afraid. Most of the fears in your mind are imaginary. You analyze many things in your life, but because of your fears, you never analyze your own fears.
When you go to a teacher, you want to get rid of your fears. You explain them to him, and he gives you strength and inspires you. But the teacher can only inspire you. It is your responsibility to see that your children improve, progress, and remain fearless and happy. Even if you live for only five days, if you live those days cheerfully and fearlessly, they are wonderful. If you live miserably for five hundred years, then those five hundred years are of no use. If you want to live for a long time, learn to be cheerful.
Reprinted from Dawn magazine, vol. 10 no. 2
