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you in your spiritual progress. Whatever sweetness you find in life, is equally filled with bitterness. So deal with the bitterness first, all that will remain will be sweet and that is easy to deal with. It is a great achievement to digest the bitterness of life. Everyone smiles when they are offered flowers, but what happens when people hurl stones at them?
Penance Invisible (Adeethha taap)
Ego is an object to be known (gneya) and 'You' are the Knower (gnata). Where there is a relationship between the Knower and the known, the known should not be protected. If you protect one gneya (ego), then you have to protect all others, and they are infinite. From now on you have to practice invisible penance (adeetha tapa). You have to maintain awareness that you do not become engulfed and become swept away with the ego. That awareness is invisible penance. This kind of penance has to be done because from time immemorial you have acquired a habit of identifying yourselves with the known, the gneyas. As you do this penance, these habits will become weaker and so will the ego and consequently the puzzle will be solved. Once you resolve to do this penance, it will continue to occur on its
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Of what use is the ego that has made you fall in every circumstance and made you look ugly despite your beauty? Awareness is that which does not allow the known to become the knower. That is invisible penance. The awareness that you have to maintain in order to render the ego juiceless and insipid is invisible penance.
Obstacles to spiritual progress come from the outside as well as from within. Ego is an obstacle against which you will have to be well prepared.
Even the importance and respect people give you, is not acceptable. Only those who can endure insults can endure
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respect. Someone once asked me, "Why do you accept the garlands of flowers people give you?" I replied, 'Here, let me put a garland around your neck also. But you will not be able to endure the honor.' People will be awed to see so many garlands. If you bow down to someone, he or she will quickly get up - they cannot bear the respect being given to them. Account Of Respect-Insult
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The rule is : 'No one will insult you when you no longer fear insults'. As long as there is fear, the 'transactions' will keep coming but they will cease when your fear is gone. Keep both, respect and insult in your account. Whatever respect or insult people offer you, credit them to your account. Do not create a new account by reacting to the insults. However large or small the dose of bitterness people serve you, credit it into your account. Decide that you want to credit about a hundred insults a month in your account and the more the insults, the greater the profit. Now if you get seventy instead of hundred, you are in a loss by thirty and therefore you have to credit one hundred and thirty the following month. Those who have a credit of three hundred or so insults to their account will not experience any fear of being insulted. After that there is smooth sailing to the other shore (liberation). So you have to start keeping a record from the first day of the month. Can you do that much or not?
When you bow down to a Gnani Purush by putting your hands together, it means you purify your ego of worldly interactions and when you touch your forehead to the Gnani's toe and do real darshan, you are surrendering your ego at his feet. The benefit you gain is in proportion to the degree of your surrender of your ego.
Pity is not an attribute found in the Gnani, the Gnani has boundless compassion. Pity is a dangerous attribute of the ego as far as liberation is concerned. In what way is it an egotistical
