Aptavani 02

Author(s): Dada Bhagwan
Publisher: Mahavideh Foundation

Page 43

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suffer. People roast in the fire pit of worldly suffering day and night. Where can they escape? Once they sit with the Gnani Purush, these flames will quell and they will attain the goal of the human life for sure. The worldly life is truly like a burning fire. Some suffer with superficial burns while others suffer the agony of severe burns. Can happiness even exist in this world? If there were happiness in this world, would the emperors of the past abandon their wives and empire in search for liberation? They were truly aggravated with the worldly life and that is why they abandoned everything and ran away.
Do Celestial beings have to suffer too?
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The celestial beings do not have a childhood. They do not have to take birth through a mother's womb. They do not have to suffer the pain of infancy and childhood. They do not even have to go to the bathroom or the toilet. There is nothing in their life that will cause them to feel a sense of detachment and dispassion (vairagya). They are born as young adults and they die as young adults. So what causes them unhappiness and suffering? There is a lot of competitiveness and jealousy in the celestial world; this person is bigger than me. They do have attachment (raag) and abhorrence (dwesh) as a result of this. They suffer intensely because of this attachment and abhorrence and that is why they too have an intense desire to meet a Gnani Purush. But they are not likely to die prematurely. They have tremendous worldly pleasures and happiness but even then, they feel as if they are in a prison. They too have to suffer inner and outer turmoil.
Bliss of an oasis in the middle of the desert
Bliss is found only in liberation and for liberation it is not attachment and abhorrence (raag-dwesh) that need to be rid but rather the ignorance. Life is the fruit that offers no bliss. There is sweet juice in it but that juice is of pleasure and pain; not bliss. There is more pain than pleasure in the juice of life.
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What bliss can there be in such a fruit? All day long you have to drink the bitter juice and once in a while, it gives you a little sweetness. Why not drink all the bitterness instead? How can one afford to be fooled in this way? We could accept it if there were fifty percent bitterness and fifty percent sweetness. We could even accept fifty-five percent bitterness but having said this, the bitterness just seems to increase. There is ninety-five percent suffering and only five percent pleasure in this worldly life. For a trace of this pleasure, how can you afford to put up with a life like this? There is an ocean of bliss within you which you would experience, provided you are not distracted by a drop of pleasure of the worldly life. Your memory of worldly pleasures prevents you from experiencing the bliss within you.
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This time cycle is very strange indeed. It is so strange that one can say even the bitter melons taste sweet. In the current times all you should do, is do darshan (acknowledge with reverence) of the Lord within everyone, but keep your distance from the packing (body complex). No matter how rotten the external packing is, do darshan of the Lord within and keep your distance. People may say, he was like an angel, but he too went on the funeral pyre, albeit one of sandalwood. When a person dies, if you ask someone to sleep next to that body. people will refuse to do so even if that person was godlike. That body was attractive only because of the presence of the Lord within. That Lord illuminates the Self and the non-self.
Why do women put flowers in their hair? They do so to disguise the body odor. In this age of Kaliyug the head smells, the body smells and that is why they put flowers in their hair to cover the body odor. The women of the past era were padmini, meaning they had so much fragrance to their body that even if they were cooking in the kitchen their fragrance would carry throughout the home. Those women ate food and so do the women today. The men of the past did not have a fragrance to them, but they certainly did not smell either! Today the stench is