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Observing the Inflow of Vibrations 91 pure consciousness is vulnerable to innumerable pollutants, inner weaknesses, and deceptions.
Everything from the past and present has made an imprint on your consciousness-culture, family, geographical conditions, schooling, religious background. Some of the imprints we call worldly shrava. Others we call religious shrava. Though we may try to avoid worldly influences, sometimes religious imprints are even more of a burden. That is because they lead to an indelible kind of inner shrava-guilt, self-hatred, faultfinding, blind faith.
We have to see both, flow from without and flow from within. Inner dogma is that which prevents you from accepting yourself as you are. When someone criticizes you, you feel as if an arrow were piercing your heart. You feel psychological pain. You experience fear, and fear prevents you from living life.
The inner habit of self-criticism does not allow you to clear your consciousness of its load, of its muddy residue. Don't be overcritical of yourself, or you won't have the energy to work and go further. To be spiritual, you need lightness. No person became enlightened carrying the load of sadness. It is a heavy lump of clay. Being sad, you cannot see yourself. All the so-called sins (I call them consequences) are born from sadness. When someone is sad, he has identified so completely with that heaviness that he does whatever he can to escape. So he escapes into alcohol, drugs, or other vices. He may even commit suicide.
Enlightenment comes in a state of lightness. Guard against anything which makes you bleak, depressed, and cheerless. Do not allow it to arise, for once it comes, it clouds your whole vision. Without clear visibility, how