00:00Arrogance does not lie in expecting the highest.
00:23You are not condemned to live lowly.
00:29It is not arrogance to expect the highest for yourself.
00:36Arrogance lies in expecting the highest while remaining exactly as one is.
00:55You could call it arrogance or you could call it a miscalculation or you could call it childish
01:13stupidity.
01:14You are entitled to the highest.
01:26Shruti constantly reminds you that you should never never even estimate yourself let alone
01:38underestimate yourself.
01:42You are inestimable.
01:51Such is your potential.
02:02Shruti says if you underestimate yourself, you are doing a disfavor to yourself.
02:14If you overestimate yourself, you are still giving yourself a raw deal.
02:25The basic fault lies in estimation itself.
02:32You are infinitely big.
02:36So how are you trying to draw a line around yourself?
02:44How are you trying to limit yourself because estimation requires limitation?
02:59In the name of humility, in the name of avoiding arrogance, kindly do not start belittling
03:07yourself.
03:09That is not at all the purpose of spiritual discourse.
03:22So what would the scriptures and the teachers do?
03:30They would work on two concurrent tracks with you.
03:38On one hand, they'll keep reminding you of your inflated ego and just as you get demotivated,
03:53deflated, defeated, they'll tell you, you are not even the son of God or daughter of God.
04:10You are God himself.
04:18And the moment you again puff up, they'll say, who do you think you are?
04:28How dare you accord yourself so much respect, such vanity, come down to earth and now again
04:42with drooping shoulders and a fallen face, you get de-energized and they come to you
04:54and say, see, God is sulking, they'll keep doing this till you hit the secret, till you
05:12get the point.
05:15You are great and wonderful, but not as you are.
05:25You are higher than the highest, but not as you are.
05:38And the story doesn't stop here.
05:41How to go higher than the highest?
05:46By seeing yourself as you are.
05:53So fact is the door to truth.
05:58In your impartial and honest observation of your current state lies the key to all spiritual
06:08elevation.
06:12You might be in the dumps, but you cannot just avoid or ignore the dumps.
06:20In your honest appraisal of the dumps lies your ladder to the sky.
06:37You cannot reach any height without first of all entering the lowliest parts of your
06:50mind, your life, your being.
06:56It is counter intuitive.
06:59We think if we have to go high, we have to go upwards.
07:05If you have to go upwards, first of all visit all the places that are down and lonely.
07:25There is no contradiction here when it is said that you are higher than the highest,
07:33but not as you are.
07:35That does not mean that you can turn blind to the one that you currently have become.
07:46You don't have to turn blind to it.
07:48You don't have to reject it.
07:50Instead, you have to acknowledge it, enter it, know it, in fact be a little sympathetic
08:02to it.
08:05If you come down too harshly upon yourself, you will not have the courage to look at the
08:18totality of your being.
08:22Yes, the ego is arrogant and cunning and many bad things, but do not forget that the ego
08:35is miserable as well.
08:39It longs for empathy.
08:44If you are not empathetic towards yourself, many many parts of your inner life would remain
08:54hidden from your eye.
08:57They would remain hidden just as a mischievous child having committed a mischief hides from
09:09the eyes of the strict father.
09:22He is afraid that if he shows up, he will be punished.
09:35So don't be too much of a disciplinarian.
09:41Look at yourself, not with identification, but with a bit of empathy.
09:53These two are not the same thing.
09:57When I say empathize with yourself, that doesn't mean that you have to support yourself
10:07or defend yourself or identify with yourself.
10:14Can't you look at something with empathy but without identification?
10:26Is it not possible?
10:31You know what you are looking at is mischievous, so you need not identify with it, but still
10:41you also know that it is not merely mischievous but also miserable.
10:50That's the way to look at oneself.
10:56The ego is a rascal, no doubt, but it's a suffering rascal, don't forget.
11:13The deeper its mischief is, the deeper is its misery.
11:23And nobody knows what comes first, the mischief or the misery.
11:29Both promote each other.
11:32There is a word for this, compassion.
11:47Even when you look at mischief of the worst kind, you must know that behind the mischief
11:57lies misery and then you cannot come down too harshly or severely upon the mischief.
12:10Then you cannot have the attitude of the judge in the court room.
12:34Even when you have learnt how to deal with the most putrid parts of your being, then
12:50opens up a strange fragrance from within you.
13:02Was there ever a tall building without a deep foundation?
13:22What is greatness?
13:23Can it be there without an honest acknowledgement of one's smallness?
13:35Do you see the living relationship between greatness and smallness?
13:47Man cannot enter his greatness without knowing how to healthily deal with his smallness.
14:07Those who are all for greatness become critics of smallness.
14:16All they do is condemn, condemn and condemn.
14:21And if you condemn smallness too much, it will never leave you.
14:27Don't forget that we are born small.
14:36How is it your fault if the stomach yeans for food?
14:43How is it your fault if the body is configured in a certain way?
14:52Did you decide or choose that you would be subject to eight hours of sleep daily?
15:07When such sleep besets you, must you necessarily blame yourself and that too very harshly?
15:23Did you really choose your sexuality?
15:29In fact to many people, it comes as a shock, they don't even know that their body has
15:36been configured to be deeply sexual.
15:45To many girls, the onset of the menstrual cycle is a bit of a trauma because they never
15:53asked for it.
15:57It just happened.
16:04Why do you want to be so full of rejection towards the earthly parts of your being?
16:16By this I do not mean that you stand in their support and become identified with them or
16:27one with them.
16:28No.
16:29Please.
16:30That's not what I am saying.
16:31I am not asking you to be body identified or tendency identified.
16:36I am posing a simple question.
16:41What do you do now that you are born as a small human being?
16:45Throw away the body?
16:48Throw away the thoughts and the emotions?
16:54Yes one does feel attached.
16:58Yes one longs.
17:00Yes one wants to hold somebody's hands.
17:03What to do?
17:05If all this is so very condemnable, why was I born in the human body in the first place?
17:16Even if I accept that birth is the original sin, now having committed that sin, what do
17:25I do?
17:26Yes, it happened.
17:28Now, what do I do?
17:33Carry the cross all my life?
17:42And we talked of cut-throat tracks, the other track says, it is not at all your destiny
17:48to remain small.
17:49Human life is such a joke.
17:50One wants to catch hold of the one playing the joke upon us and give him one or two back.
18:12Enough of toying around with us mortals down here.
18:17You do need to get a taste of what it means to be in such an impossible situation.
18:24Some people say that when human beings get too revengeful towards God, then he has to
18:39come down as an avatar.
18:42People down here start shouting, they say you are comfortably tucked up there in your
18:52nice heaven, watching detachment, all the nonsense that is happening here.
19:03We have been dispatched to this dust and dirt and there you are enjoying everything formless
19:12ly.
19:13So, when there is such a unionized outcry like this, massive dissent, then he comes
19:34down and says, fine, I live with you and I will suffer as you do.
19:41That's the paradox of human life.
19:46Once more, you contain infinity in your heart and you cannot ignore either of these.
19:57In fact, they are not two.
20:00We have repeatedly been saying that the way to the infinity passes through all your littleness.
20:11You cannot be dismissive or contemptuous towards yourself in your little angers, jealousies,
20:22happinesses, sadnesses.
20:24That's where you will find something so tremendously important that will liberate you.
20:36You don't have to turn superhuman or anti-human.
20:45In your humanness is the key.
20:53But when you go to pick the key, don't get stuck.
21:06The key to the bright skies is kept in a dark cave.
21:16Enter the dark cave, pick the key and don't make your house there.
21:34Don't start sleeping there.
21:36Never forget that you entered the cave to pick the key.
21:42The body is the key.
21:44The world is the key.
21:47Enter the body, enter the world to get the key.
21:54Don't overstay there.
21:56At the same time, don't be too hesitant in entering the cave.
22:02It's a fine line.
22:05That's what all discretion, all Vivek is about.
22:11You cannot avoid the cave and you cannot make your house in the cave.
22:23Enter, investigate, figure out the key and then with gratitude in your heart, softly, silently leave.
22:40Om.
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